by Keith Erlandson-2-
Several years ago a cocker was exported from Scotland to Holland and was diagnosed PRA positive and before diagnosis, sired a daughter similarly affected. Happily, this bitch did not go blind and had a useful working life and was an animal of exceptional hunting quality though the owner was sufficiently responsible never to breed from it. The other case, nearer to home, had a common link with the Dutch dogs but was the only affected pup sired by its Field Trial Champion sire which had the Scottish bloodline on its male line. Cocker spaniels tend to have different temperaments to English springer spaniels with which they have had some connection over the past 140 years as Mr.C.A.Phil1ips never hesitated to scramble his springer and cocker bloodlines around as and when he thought fit, which was the norm during the formative years of all the gundog breeds. Cockers tend to be bolder, more mischievous and fun loving than springers, in fact a well known breeder of pointers, springers, cockers and cattle, the late Patience Badenach Nicolson, stated that if you find you have a nervous cocker, you should without hesitation put it down. This makes sense. Being much smaller and lighter than most springers, it requires supreme confidence and verve to swing a hare or cock pheasant clear of the ground and gallop back with the retrieve. A touch of the miseries would inhibit its determination and render the dog far less effective. The same applies to its hunting drive. When discussing the origins of any breed of dog it can be tempting to dismiss its early history as being 'shrouded in mystery' in the case of older breeds like spaniels as opposed to those of fairly recent manufacture such as the Labrador retriever, the Flat coated retriever and the Golden retriever, whose origins are reliably documemted. Note well that these breeds have all evolved since game shooting became popular and the need for recoverers of shot game arose. Game shooting is a comparatively new sport compared to coursing, falconry and the more utilitarian taking of game with nets for the table. The two latter activities require the services of either flushing or pointing dogs and regarding coursing, in earlier times flushing dogs sometimes were used to start hares from cover for the gazehounds to pursue. It therefore follows that the pointing and flushing breeds are of greater antiquity than the retriever breeds, so consequently their evolution can be more difficult to chart, but it is not necessarily impossible. Without any question, the cocker spaniel is of very mixed origins but I think it may be possible to trace what I believe is its oldest bloodline. When the Celtic tribes migrated westward across Europe from what is now southern Germany, approximately between the years 500-150 BC, they took their cattle, pigs and horses with them and without any doubt their dogs.