Victoria's biographer Elizabeth Longford, called him "the Queen's closest childhood companion",[1] and in the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he "was the first in a long line of beloved little dogs".

[3] By the end of April 1833, he had become Victoria's companion, and by Christmas that year she was doting on him, giving him a set of rubber balls and two pieces of gingerbread as presents.

[3] Victoria, who was 13 when given Dash, had few if any childhood friends as she was raised largely isolated from other children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and Conroy.

Following her coronation on 28 June 1838, Victoria returned to Buckingham Palace and ran up to her rooms to give Dash his usual bath.

Victoria wrote in her journal that on 24 December 1840, Prince Albert informed her of Dash's death, writing that hearing the news "grieved me so.