Will the springer ever bounce back?

The quintessential rough shooters’ dog is falling from favour — but why are so many of us shunning the springer spaniel, asks David Tomlinson

- David Tomlinson

In the 1980s I belonged to a shooting syndicate with one simple rule: every member had to own a working gundog. It was a walk-one, stand-one shoot, so it was a practical ruling. There was no suggestion as to what sort of dog it had to be, but every member happened to own at least one English springer and I can recall shooting days when we had 15 or 16 springers out. At the time I thought little about it, because the English springer was then by far our most popular breed of shooting dog, at least for this type of shooting.

Little did I guess then that the springer had probably reached the peak of its popularity. Peter Moxon, gundog correspondent of Shooting Times for 40 years, believed that springers were the ideal rough shooter’s dog, as they are “natural hunters and retrievers, love working in cover and water and are easy to train”, as well as being hardy and healthy. He wrote that nearly 70 years ago and at the time I doubt if there were many who disagreed with him.

Today the springer is in decline and I’ve heard suggestions that its fall in popularity might echo that of the flat coat a century ago. At the start of the 20th century, the flatcoat was the dominant breed of retriever and was to be found, often in numbers, on every serious shoot. Thirty years later it had virtually disappeared. There are still a number of enthusiasts who work flatcoats today, but the dogs have become rarities. When did you last see one on a shoot?

There was a simple reason for the flatcoat’s sudden disappearance, for it was comprehensively eclipsed by a new breed that was easier to train and quicker to mature — the labrador. The lab’s rise from mere upstart to total dominance was remarkably quick and it’s doubtful whether anyone could have predicted it.