The cap and collar badges worn by the Regiment date from the Boer War. In July 1900, while a troop of the Regiment was on outpost duty in South Africa, all seemed quiet; but a sentry reported to his officer that a number of springboks (South African gazelles) were bounding frequently into the air as though alarmed. The officer immediately ordered a stand-to in time to drive off an attack by a large party of Boers, who had managed a stealthy approach to the outpost. The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Lessard, on hearing of this event, requested authority to take the bounding springbok as the Regimental Badge. In 1913 Royal approval to wear the springbok as the Regimental Cap and Collar Badges was given. The badge design is a springbok bounding on a veldt, surmounted on a scroll inscribed: Royal Canadian Dragoons.