LIBRARY

HISTORY OF SPANIELS-NORFOLK AND ENGLISH WATER
By Harry Henriques

We get a weekly magazine called "The Countryman's Weekly" which also incorporates "Gamekeeper" & "Sporting Dog" the later being established in 1896. They use our articles from time to time and we use theirs on a swap basis. There is a writer by the name of Margaret McFarlane who has articles on various ancient breeds as well as the derivatives of many we know today. Being a history buff, I am captivated by these as well as corresponding in this country with the likes of Ruth Greening and Julie Saul - more from them later. For now, I'd like to encapsulate two articles by Margaret McFarlane. One is titled "Shakespeare's water rug - the English Water Spaniel," the other "Norfolk Gundog."

"I was recently researching into one such breed when I found that my favourite dog writer of the last century, Hugh Dalziel, was already commenting on the situation. The breed concerned was the English Water Spaniel, once well established throughout Britain but declining rapidly even as he was writing." She is talking of the English water spaniel. Both she and Dalziel bemoan the fact that while the Irish water spaniel went on, the English water spaniel was allowed to disappear or be absorbed with very little trace into the other spaniels breeds. As she says: "This is a sad state of affairs when every writer on dogs from the fourteenth century to the present has referred to the breed and more or less minutely described it." Dr. Caius (1570) gives a description of it in detail. "It is very likely that Shakespeare knew the breed for he mentions the `water rug' in Macbeth. Shakespeare was a convicted poacher, so it is not stretching the imagination too far to picture him hunting wildfowl along the banks of the Avon accompanied by a faithful water rug." Apparently the breed varied in size to a great extent with the larger ones being known as Water Dog and the smaller as Water Spaniel.

In the description of these dogs the following is my encapsulation of her comments. "The smaller-usually between 30 and 40 pounds in weight. Colour varied, but liver-and-white was the most prevalent. Whole colours of black and liver were found as well as was black and white. Perhaps here we have the origin of the colours in the Springer Spaniel. The coat itself was most important, and rightly so for a dog that would spend much of its working life in icy waters. It was fairly long, naturally curled, not loose or shaggy. The legs were usually feathered, not curled. The duties of the Water Spaniel were quite specific: to work under command, be obedient to a sign, to slip into the water silently and not to plunge, to keep within range of the handler, to be a good retriever, to be bold and persevering."

We often come across training problems that are hard to explain but as we study from whence our dogs come, there it is in the genes from ancient times. What caught my eye before I read the article was the sketch. I've seen that head and neck, in fact, I've reproduced it. The ruff, the legs are with us.

In her article on Norfolk Gun Dogs, I'll confine my comments just to "smaller spaniels." "The Norfolk spaniel appears to have been a creature of controversy for as long as breeds have existed. It had a breed standard drawn up by the Spaniel Club but this contained contradictions ... The debate often centers around the origin of the term `Norfolk' when applied to spaniels. Did it come from the county where it was developed or from the Duke of Norfolk, who had a strain of spaniels well known for their proficiency in the field? Dalziel quotes them as belonging to the Springer branch of the spaniel family, leggy and about 40# in weight. They were useful in high cover where smaller spaniels would be lost from sight. They were mostly liver and white." She goes on to quote from various people about the breed, concluding her article with: "Did these breeds exist in their own right only to die out or be absorbed into others? Or were they simply local varieties of what became known as the Curly Coat Retriever and the Springer Spaniel?" Is it small wonder that we get dogs that we cannot figure out, which present to us a characteristic that was not in the parents? On top of all of this kind of documentation, what was done in this country from the time the first known "spanielle" arrived on the Mayflower?

The original and complete articles were printed in "The Countryman's Weekly" incorporating "Gamekeeper" & "Sporting Dog"; Yelverton, Devon, PL20 7PE UK