From the wonderful book recommendation made by Joanna, this information on Joy:
"The Tsarevich's assessment of his dog's intelligence was astute: in December 1917 Alexei wrote to Petrov, his Russian-language tutor, relating how: 'Joy is getting fatter every day as he keeps eating rubbish from the refuse pit. Everyone chases him away with sticks. He has a lot of friends in the town and is always running away.' Consequently, the dog alone survived the immolation of the royal family in the cellar of the Ipatiev House the following year. Joy was rescued by Letyomin, a Red Guard who, having had no involvement in the murder of the Imperial family assumed he would have nothing to fear from the advancing White Russians. Repenting his naivety at the eleventh hour, Letyomin abandoned Joy, the dog so famously attached to Alexei that it provided potentially important clues to his whereabouts. Paul Chauchavadve heard how his uncle, Paul Rodzianko, who entered Ekaterinburg with the Whites, 'saw the Tsarevich's spaniel running in circles. Recognizing him, he called him by name. The spaniel came wagging his tail uncertainly, stumbling a little, finally bumping his nose into Rodzianko's leg. He was totally blind. Eventually my uncle brought him to England, where Joy lived on for a number of years on the Rodzianko farm near Windsor.' Despite the loss of it's sight, caused presumably by the shock of the events that took place on that July evening, the little blind dog of the Tsarevich lived on well into the Twenties in close proximity of a castle to which it's ill-fated master had thought himself to be on the point of being spirited."
Sunny
