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The Boykin Spaniel - An American Original
This small, but hard-charging package of home-grown spaniel is favored by a growing number of sportsmen as an all-around gun dog, ideal for today's hunter.

Story by: Joe Arnette

Oddly enough, my introduction to them came in a quiet North Carolina woodcock covert too many years ago. Odd, because few Tar Heels hunted woodcock then and those who did generally fancied pointers and setters. On the other hand, the very unlikeliness of the whole scenario was perfect for my first meeting with a talented and delightful breed of gun dog.

My dog was working a piece of the covert, a gone-wild apple orchard sloping down to a nasty bog, when a bell jingled, then a second, topped off by whistle blasts. A light-loaded shotgun coughed twice, followed by a voice commanding, "Fetch". I moved up the orchard slope and waited, expecting the bells to be hanging from the necks of a couple of gutsy, well-trained pointing dogs. What did bounce out of the seemingly impenetrable bog, and I do mean bounce, were two little flop-eared spaniels each carrying a woodcock they delivered eatly to hand.
The hunter, at the bog's edge, saw me then, heeled both dogs and walked over. Now the demeaner of those two half-pints spoke of doing business when it was there to be done. But their serious manner was undercut by a gleam of mischievious, super-charged fun. They looked like dogs who knew how to be happy.
The spaniels were a matched pair, male and female, a little bigger and leggier than field cockers, with wavey, rich-chocolate coats and the haunting yellow eyes of a Chesapeake Bay retriever. I assumed they were the lucky results of an odd-ball cross. The hunter saved me the trouble of asking.

"They're Boykin spaniels," he said, then added, "I know, what the hell is a Boykin spaniel?" I was intrigued by his dogs, so he gave me a brief run-down of the breed; its history, its reputation as a gung-ho retriever small enough to work out of a two man duck boat, but with the size and endurance to flush upland birds, its ease of training and exceptional adaptability to household life. He had owned Boykins for more than twenty years and now occasionally bred these "great dogs" for himself and a few people he considered select enough to deserve them. His dogs were placed, not just sold.

To this day, many breeders follow that same line. Undeniably, these are special little dogs and "Boykin people" want them to stay that way -- in the field honed as gun dogs and in the home as remarkably fine companions. They want them selectively bred and kept off "the beach". Though Boykins are dogs with short past, they have a long future. But, as the man said, what the hell is a Boykin spaniel?

The origin of the Boykin is not, as the old writer's cliche goes, hidden forever in the mists of time. The story is pretty well verified that Boykins "began" on a Sunday morning during the early 1900s in Spartanburg, South Carolina. A small, brownish spaniel type dog wandered into a Methodist Church only to be promptly ejected. A.L. White, a member of the congregation, liked the looks of the ownerless dog and took him home. White quickly discovered that the little spaniel, a male by most accounts, had powerful, though untutored hunting abilities. These instincts, coupled with more than enough "machismo" to go headlong into the roughest of cover, caused him to send the dog to his hunting partner, L.W. "Whit" Boykin, near Camden. The dog, named Dumpy for his short-thick stature, was no disappointment to Boykin who had been searching for just such a fundamentally talented animal.

Under Whit Boykin's skilled hand, Dumpy turned into a topknotch flusher and retriever. So good, in fact, that Boykin put the word out for a small, brown female, and he found one, with which to breed Dumpy. A second, less accepted version, holds that he was mated with a mixed-heritage retriever that Boykin had been developing. Either way, the little dog who was kicked out of church was the forerunner of a breed -- an American original that has earned a place in gun dog legend and, fittingly, still bears Whit Boykin's name. It does have a nice ring to it.

We don't know with any degree of certainty what stock was added to the developing Boykin pot during the first 10 to 15 years of its existence. Crosses with Dumpy's progeny are conjecture, but probable candidates include the Chesapeake Bay retriever and American water spaniel, along with English springer and cocker spaniels.

Whatever the admixtures of the past, today's Boykin holds true to spaniel form. According to The Boykin Spaniel Society, the dedicated parent organization that maintains breed standards and registry, size runs from 14 to 18 inches to height and 25 to 40 pounds in weight. Boykins are sturdy dogs whose tail is docked to about three inches. They typically have flat to moderately curly coats, without flamboyant feathering, colored from rich liver to very dark chocolate, often bearing a reddish tint from sun-bleaching. Boykin eyes are distinctive, a deep yellow shading to brown that gives them an intense and intelligent expression. When you go eyeball to eyeball with a Boykin, they look brainy.

No small measure of the Boykin appeal is their energized personality; their enthusiastic, but amiable dispositions, a more-the-better response to affection and a great willingness to please. All of which labels them as "people dogs". Or, as Kitty Beard, a founding member of The Boykin Spaniel Society, wrote in a reflection of the breed, the Boykin is "...a hunting dog who is also a family member."

Although Boykins are now used for most forms of upland bird and waterfowl hunting, orginally the breed specialized as a turkey and duck dog along South Carolina's Wateree River. At that time, Boykins flushed, located or ran down turkeys killed or wounded in the drives that were the styles of the region. Another method had a dog busting a flock of turkeys, then hiding quietly in a blind with a hunter who called back the scattered birds. It was this technique that cost the Boykin its noisy tail.

Waterfowling on the Wateree demanded a tough dog, but one small enough to occupy minimal room in a cramped duck boat, go overboard for a retrieve without tipping the boat and be lifted back in, duck and all. The Boykin still serves this purpose -- with good reason. Ever try hauling a big Chesapeake into a boat by the scruff of the neck? Don't. You'll end up in the drink, with a hernia or a piece of your arm gone; likely all three.

Boykins are strong swimmers who take to the water and do their retrieving jobs naturally. But these multi-faceted dogs are equally adept at flushing and fetching upland game birds. A versatile dog of manageable size with drive, stamina and a choke bore nose is no little thing now with duck populations and bag limits way down. A fair number of hunters are opting for a much smaller dog that performs most of the water work of a 90 pound Labrador, makes a "no sweat" switch to upland duties and curls up in a dinky space at day's end.

A case in point is George Semler, a fellow Mainer who for years owned big retrievers with which he hunted waterfowl, grouse and woodcock. Three seasons past, George bought a Boykin that he says is "the best water dog I've had." She was less than a year old during her first bird hunts and according to George, "She just seemed to know what I expected." And weighing in at around 30 pounds, "It's never a hassle to take her anywhere."

Boykins have become premier upland retrievers in the south, in dove fields and on unique plantation hunts. On traditional plantations, and I was fortunate enough to hunt on several this winter, "wagon dogs" do the retrieving, marking down birds from a mule drawn rig, then fetching on command to the driver's hand. Not an easy chore with bobwhites flushing and falling at all points.

But Choc, the gentlemanly Boykin on my wagon, got every bird at dust-raising speed with the added flourish of moving quail the pointers missed. Choc's owner and trainer, Roy Bruner of Albany, Georgia, said, "He was that good at a year old."

Boykin spaniels may be ancestral South Carolinians with a hush-puppy and mint julip heritage, but the word has gotten around on these "little brown dogs".