SPANIEL IS AN UNDERRATED BREED
There are a couple of dozen breeds of hunting dogs in the United States, each with an avid following of owners who will argue passionately that theirs is the only mutt to have. The Free Press will profile several of these breeds once a month for the next few months.
BY ERIC SHARP
Free Press Outdoors Writer
LUTHER, Mi -Grouse hunters want a specialized grouse dog, pheasant hunters want a pheasant dog, rabbit hunters want a trailing hound and duck hunters want retrievers. That's because the limiting factor for most hunters isn't money or lack of interest. It's time. It took awhile to realize that relatively few people get to hunt as many species as I. That realization also answered the question posed by a dozen dog books: Why don't more hunters buy an American Water Spaniel, a keen-nosed breed that flushes upland birds, trails rabbits, retrieves ducks and even points out squirrels in trees by barking?
John R. Falk, in his excellent "Practical Hunter's Dog Book," says the breed "shows a penchant for hunting virtually any small game species that swims, runs, hops or flies." That pretty well describes me, too. Falk's book like several others, says the American Water Spaniel is the one possible exception to the statement that there is no all-purpose gun dog. Recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1940, the breed was standardized in Wisconsin and Minnesota, each year (it was made Wisconsin's official state dog in 1986). But old photographs show a very similar curly-haired spaniel trotting beside Midwestern market gunners and trappers before the Civil War.
Ed Zysk breeds these dogs at his Star Lake Kennels near Luther. Calls to kennels around the Midwest elicited rave reviews for his dogs and usually a statement that the kennel bought breeding dogs from Zysk. Star Lake Kennels is an unprepossessing place. Zysk moved here recently, and a bone transplant in his arm has prevented him from doing the finishing work. But visitors are immediately captured by the dogs, lively, chocolate colored creatures clad in curly coats and about halfway between a cocker spaniel and a springer spaniel in size. Zysk had some 11 week-old pups on hand, which confidently located and retrieved apples thrown into the weeds. Other owners said the dogs began mouthing small balls at about three weeks, as soon as they could lift their bellies off the ground, and were retrieving by three weeks. An adult American Water Spaniel male stands about 18 inches at the shoulder and weighs 35-45 pounds. A female is about 15 inches and 25-35 pounds. Both are compact, muscular and very powerful for their size. Their swimming ability is legendary, apparently bred into them by the market gunners who used them to retrieve ducks in heavy cover. The forequarters are larger proportionately than the hindquarters, highly efficient in water dogs, and the long, skinny tail serves as a rudder. A spokesman for the AKC in New York said only about 270 American Water Spaniels were registered in 1990, compared to more than 14,000 Brittany Spaniels and 95,000Labrador retrievers.
But Barbara Spisak of Spring Valley, Ohio, who raises and shows champion American Water Spaniels, says only about a third of the dogs born each year are registered "because a lot of people want them just for their hunting, and they never get around to it."I'm one of them. I have selected a male who looks like he is going to be at the large end of the breed's size standard, and am looking forward to next year when he can start to show if the American Water Spaniel is as versitileas its advocates claim.