Ancestry of this breed is identical to that of the English Cocker, which was first imported to this continent during the 1880s.
Charming and clever, the American Water Spaniel has the typical friendly spaniel character. His desire to please makes him easy to train and in addition, he learns quickly.
The Barbet’s propensity for water, plus their ability to point and retrieve, led to their selective breeding as a waterfowl gun dog over the ensuing centuries.
A long-legged spaniel with setter characteristics, the Blue Picardy is a versatile sporting dog with a reputation for locating and retrieving any type of game under the most adverse conditions.
The Braque d’Auvergne (or Auvergne Pointer) is a very ancient breed originating in the mountain area of Cantal over two centuries ago.
This is the Breton peasant’s hunting dog, known since the mid-19th century in the French province of Brittany and thought to represent a cross between the English Setter and small French land spaniels.
A British brig was shipwrecked off the coast of Maryland in 1807, and among the survivors were two Newfoundland dogs – ‘Sailor’ and ‘Canton,’ a male and a female who grew up to become excellent water retrievers.
Slowest, heaviest and considered by many to be the most aristocratic of the spaniels, the Clumber’s ancestors are presumed to be the Basset Hound and a spaniel of continental origin.
The first of the waterfowl-retrieving breeds, the Curly is of British origin.
Spaniels in various shapes and sizes have been known in Britain and throughout Europe since the 14th century.
Dogs descended from Spanish land spaniels that ‘set’ game birds for the sportsmen’s nets had been known in Britain since the 14th century – hence the name ‘setter.
Named for Spain, their country of origin, spaniels comprise a subgroup of sporting breeds.
Both known as Field Spaniels at one time, the English Cocker and the Field Spaniel were classified according to their weights.
Credit for development of the Flat-coated Retriever is given to a sportsman, S.
One of the oldest pointing dogs, the stately French Spaniel first gained fame in the Middle Ages.
The Braque Français (French Pointer) is believed to have derived from dogs used to point game in the Mediterranean region as early as the 1300s.
Rarest of the German pointers, the German Long-haired is closely related to three other long-coated sporting breeds of German extraction: the Large Münsterländer, the Small Münsterländer and the Wachtelhund.
This handsome, all-purpose gun dog was developed in Germany for the sportsman who wanted a hunting companion.
Toward the end of the 19th century, when European sportsmen wanted a particular type of hunting dog, they ‘created’ it.
Developed in the mid-19th century by a Scotsman, Sir Dudley Majoribanks, later Lord Tweedmouth, this British breed is the glamour dog of the retriever family.
Heaviest of the setter breeds, the Gordon is the only Scottish setter and was developed by the Duke of Gordon as a working setter early in the 19th century.
It is probable that the Irish Red and White is the original Irish Setter, bred as a ‘setting’ dog for netting birds and popular with English and Irish sportsmen until the 1870s.
Long before Big Red starred in the movie of that name, the Irish Setter was a headliner both in the field and on the bench.
A member of the ancient family of water dogs found in many parts of Europe, it is probably a close relative of the Poodle.
Descended from dogs taken to Newfoundland by explorers, fishermen and settlers, the Labrador Retriever evolved by natural selection.
The appealing, curly-coated Lagotto is an ancient breed of water retriever from the lowlands of Comacchio and marshlands of Ravenna, Italy.
Once called the Little River Duck Dog, the Toller was developed in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia.
Among the most efficient of the sporting breeds, the Pointer is named for the work at which he excels – pointing feathered game.
Sigismund Freiherr von Zedlitz und Neukirch was convinced that a cross between a Pointer and a Poodle was the only road to an ideal German pointing dog.
The Vizsla, or Hungarian Pointer, may be of ancient lineage or a product of this century, depending on which dog historian one chooses to believe.
A favourite of Italian sportsmen, the coarse-haired Spinone was developed as an all-around gun dog whose specialty is working in marshy and wooded areas.
Among the rarest of purebreds, the dignified Sussex takes its name from the county of Sussex in England, where it was created to be a rugged sporting dog that the hunter could follow comfortably on foot.
Sometimes called the ‘grey ghost,’ this steel-grey sporting breed was developed in Germany at the court of the Grand Duke Karl August of Weimar as an all-purpose gun dog for the nobility.
The Welsh Springer is thought to descend from red and white dogs that were brought into Wales by the Gauls in pre-Roman times; similar dogs are also believed to be the ancestors of the Brittany Spaniel, since the Brit and the Welshman have many characteristics in common.
This breed came into existence between 1864 and 1885, a time when there was much experimental breeding going in Europe
Recognized but rare. That’s the Wire-haired Vizsla. The breed is fairly young, having only been accepted in Hungary (its country of origin) since 1950..
