The butterfly and the moth
The breed is named for its ears, and the name is French. Papillon means butterfly, and the reason becomes obvious the moment one turns its head toward you: large ears set on the side and back of the skull, carried obliquely rather than straight up, rounded at the tip and hung with long fringing hair. Seen head-on, with a white blaze running down between them, they look exactly like a butterfly with its wings open and its body down the middle.
What surprises most people is that the same breed comes in a second version. Some puppies carry their ears down instead of up, completely dropped and just as heavily fringed, and those dogs are called Phalènes — French for moth, the insect that folds its wings along its back. The two varieties turn up in the same litter, they are the same breed under one standard, and a Phalène is simply a Papillon whose ears settled the other way.
Ears take their time. A Papillon puppy is often somewhere in between for the first few months, with one up and one down, or both at half mast, and the argument settles itself by around four or five months. It is one of the small pleasures of watching a puppy grow up.
Five hundred years in the picture frame
The Papillon descends from the toy spaniels of Renaissance Europe, known in France as the épagneul nain, the dwarf spaniel. These little dogs were bred as companions rather than workers, they were traded across the continent by Spanish and Italian merchants, and they turn up constantly in the art of the period. Titian painted them in the 1500s, and the type keeps reappearing for the next three centuries in the work of Rubens, Van Dyck, Watteau, Fragonard and Boucher — sitting on a lap, tucked into a sleeve, or looking out of the bottom corner of a family portrait.
The early dogs all had dropped ears, which is why the Phalène is generally reckoned to be the older of the two forms. Somewhere in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the erect, fringed ear appeared and then became fashionable, and by the time the breed was being formally described the butterfly version had taken the name for the whole thing.
The American Kennel Club recognized the Papillon in 1915. It is one of the very few breeds where you can put a modern photograph next to a four-hundred-year-old painting and see essentially the same animal, and if you spend any time in a museum after bringing one home you will start spotting them.
Size, coat and markings
Papillons are small and finely made without being flimsy. Most stand eight to eleven inches at the shoulder and weigh somewhere between five and ten pounds, with a body slightly longer than it is tall, fine hare-like feet, and a light, quick, purposeful way of moving.
The coat is a single coat with no undercoat, and that is the key to everything about it. It is long, fine, silky, perfectly straight and flowing, lying flat over the back with no curl anywhere. It builds into a generous frill on the chest, feathering on the backs of the front legs, full culottes on the hindquarters, heavy fringes on the ears, and a long plume on the tail that is carried arched over the body. Because there is no undercoat, the whole thing hangs and moves rather than standing away from the dog.
The colour is always parti-colour: white with patches of any other colour, and white has to appear on the head. The most admired heads carry a symmetrical facial pattern split by a narrow white blaze — one of the reasons the butterfly comparison works so well. Common combinations are white with black, white with red, white with sable and white with lemon, along with the tricolour, which is black and white with tan points over the eyes, on the cheeks, inside the ears and under the tail. Markings are individual enough that most owners can pick their own dog out of a group photograph across a room.
A very quick mind in a small dog
The ears get the attention and the brain is the reason people keep coming back to the breed. Papillons are among the sharpest of the toy dogs — quick to learn, quicker to remember, and interested in almost everything. They watch what you are doing and draw conclusions about it, which is delightful and occasionally means the dog has worked out the routine before you have finished establishing it.
The temperament that comes with that is bright, busy and outgoing. A Papillon is a companion dog by five hundred years of design, and it wants to be part of the household rather than an ornament in it. They follow you from room to room, they take an interest in visitors, and they are friendly and confident with people they have been introduced to properly. New faces are best handled at the dog’s own pace, with the visitor sitting down and letting the Papillon do the approaching, which usually takes about a minute.
They are also more robust than they look. This is not a dog that wants to spend its life on a cushion. Papillons enjoy a proper walk, they will keep going far longer than their size suggests, and they are genuinely good company outdoors. Older children who enjoy an active, clever little dog get along with them extremely well.
Grooming a single silky coat
For a long-coated breed the Papillon is remarkably easy to look after, and the reason is the missing undercoat. Straight, silky hair with nothing woolly underneath simply does not knot the way a double coat does.
A comb through two or three times a week keeps everything smooth, and the whole job takes about ten minutes. Work through the ear fringes, the chest frill, the culottes at the back and the tail plume, which are the places that collect the day. Most Papillons enjoy the attention and will lie on their side for it once the rhythm starts.
Baths are occasional rather than scheduled, and the coat dries quickly and falls straight again on its own. There is no clipping to schedule and no trimming needed beyond tidying the hair between the pads of the feet, which most owners do themselves with a pair of blunt-nosed scissors. Some owners still book a groomer every couple of months for a bath, a blow-dry and the feet, and it is a pleasant enough half-hour for the dog.
The rest of the routine is standard and small. Nails a little and often, ears wiped with a soft cloth while you are already combing, and teeth brushed from the very first week so that a puppy grows up regarding the toothbrush as part of the evening.
Training, agility and everyday life
Papillons are a joy to teach, and they are one of the toy breeds that regularly outperform much larger dogs in competitive obedience and agility. The speed, the light frame and the appetite for problem-solving all point the same way, and a Papillon flying through weave poles is a genuinely impressive thing to watch.
You do not need a ring to use any of that. Trick training, rally, scent games and puzzle feeders all suit the mind, and five minutes of thinking work does more for a Papillon than another lap of the block. Keep sessions to a couple of minutes, pay in something good, ask for one thing at a time, and stop while the dog still wants more.
The daily shape is easy. Two walks, one in the cool part of the morning and one in the evening, which in a Florida or Tennessee summer are the pleasant hours anyway. A training game or a food puzzle in the middle of the day. Indoors, a Papillon will fill any gap you leave: fetch down a hallway, a rolled sock, a position on the back of the sofa with a view of the front door. Evenings are for company, and a Papillon that has walked, worked and been included spends them tucked against someone with one ear still tracking the room.
Come and meet the Papillon puppies
Photographs sell the ears and miss the dog. Standing over the pen you notice how quick they are, how much they watch your face, and how fast a Papillon puppy works out that you are the person with the treats.
Our Papillon puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you how a particular puppy has been getting on with people and which way its ears are heading. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor and let a puppy come to you before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.