Water Spaniels – Origins, Development and Modernization

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Water spaniels are but a vestige of what they once were. Originally developed in the British Isles for waterfowl retrieving, today only three breeds remain. The American Water Spaniel and its close cousin, the Boykin, are joined by the Irish Water Spaniel as remnants of what was once a broad spectrum of water dogs.

The origin of water spaniels can be traced to Great Britain. Similar dogs were developed on the European continent, such as the Épagneul de Pont-Audemer or the Frisian Water Dog, but their exact relationship to the true water spaniels developed in the British Isles—and later in America—is not exactly clear.

What is clear is that a close relationship exists between water spaniels and the retriever breeds. Indeed, recent genome-wide analysis has revealed that the Curly-Coated Retriever and the Irish Water Spaniel are more closely related to each other than to any other breed. The Curly-Coated Retriever—the largest and perhaps oldest of the retrievers—is thought to have descended from crosses between the St. John’s Water Dog and English Water Spaniels, but apparently the amount of water spaniel blood in the breed was largely underestimated. Similarly, the Golden Retriever lineage that began with the Marjoribanks family in Scotland included crosses to at least two Tweed Water Spaniels.