Natural History

This Sussex spaniel’s name was Moses, and he was featured in W.D. Drury’s British Dogs, Their Points, Selection, And Show Preparation (1903). The actual text on spaniels is by W. Arkwright.

The caption for the depiction of Moses goes as follows:

Fig. 66 represents the Sussex Spaniel Moses, a dog that has never been exhibited. He is descended from the Bridford and Rosehill strains, and is a remarkable instance of reversion to type.

The original Sussex spaniels were known by their color, which was a unique “golden liver.” I have not checked the genetics of this liver, but it could be a version of liver dilute.

Contrary to what many breed publications suggest, this breed was not created by Mr. Fuller of Rosehill Park. Sussex had always been known for liver and liver and white spaniels, which made the county unique. For much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,  the majority of land spaniels in England and Wales were red and white. The red and white coloration would remain popular in Wales, and these red and white dogs would become the basis of the Welsh springer spaniel.

It was this Mr. Fuller who bred the first short-legged Sussex spaniels, and it was upon his rather tightly bred strain that the modern Sussex spaniel breed was founded.  Moses had Rosehill ancestry, but he possessed long legs.  The original dogs were long-legged, and this is what Drury means by the dog being a “reversion to type.”

The modern Sussex spaniel is on its knees.  Although a member of the breed won BIS at Westminster in 2009, the breed is extremely rare. It is considered a “vulnerable native breed” in the United Kingdom.

The dogs are not widely used by sportsmen– anywhere.

And amazingly, this problem is not new.

W. Arkwright writes in 1903:

In the last Edition of “British Dogs,” the article on Sussex Spaniels commenced with a question as to whether this variety had become extinct! This question, at that time asked satirically, could not be, at any rate as regards the Rosehill strain, answered to-day with an unqualified negative. For, sad though it is to have to write such words, the fancy Sussex of to-day is only fit – for a dog show; and though possibly he may still claim to be Sussex, the Spaniel – i.e. the working – element exists in him no longer. It is safe to say that the only good workers of the present day are of very mixed descent; but whether the fresh blood will be successful in electrifying the breed into new life, depends on whether a band of practical sportsmen will take the necessary trouble. As this is more than doubtful, we must prepare to look upon this grand old breed as moribund, especially as the Sussex, when young, is as delicate to rear as the Clumber himself.

Personally, the writer has refreshed his strain with much outside blood of other liver-coloured Springers, and by this he has restored its excellent working properties; but he has failed so far in grafting a vigorous constitution on to the old characteristics.

That means that the Sussex spaniel was in trouble over 100 years ago.

The show Sussex were something of a scandal in the British gundog circles. Arkwright writes about a dog that appeared in Stonehenge’s work, and how this dog became the basis for formulating a standard. Although quite short-legged and heavily built, he was not like the show dogs of the early twentieth century:

“Stonehenge,” in his work published 1857, selected a brace of the Rosehill Spaniels as representing the true type of the Sussex. These were bred by Mr. A. E. Fuller, of Rosehill, Brightling, Sussex, and descended from the celebrated stock of Mr. Moneypenny, of Rolvenden: one of the brace, named George, “Stonehenge” retained in his later works, because he so perfectly represented the breed. This George is undeniably typical and workmanlike; but he does not resemble in the slightest the pudding-headed, distorted cripples of the present show-ring.

This breed nearly disappeared during the Second World War, and it was saved from perhaps as few as ten individuals. It had taken forty years and a war to bring the Sussex spaniel to near extinction.

It was saved, but not in a form that is sustainable. Those few dogs that had working characteristics don’t have working characteristics that most hunters actually want. Their short legs have utility in places like Sussex, which are both heavily wooded and brushy but also relatively flat.  Short-legged dogs have a much harder time in mountainous terrain, especially if the dogs are supposed to cover vast distances in search of birds. Birds fly, and it is much more important to have dog with more endurance and less exaggerated conformation. That is probably why short-legged bird dogs have mostly been failures.

So the Sussex’s future was as a pet or show dog. The problem there is it just isn’t as cute as the cockers.  Sussex are not as easy to train as those breeds, which, incidentally, partially descend from it.

The Sussex’s conformation and tendency to give tongue while one the hunt strongly suggest that Mr. Fuller used some form of basset to introduce those characteristics in his spaniels. Sussex is on the southeastern coast of England and borders on the English Channel.  Hastings is located in Sussex, which is the place where, as we all know, that William the Conqueror defeated King Harold.  The basset peculiar to Normandy would have been a likely choice for an outcross.

But having that much scenthound in them has a cost. In the modern era, the goal was to have sweet, well-behaved pet spaniels. Sussex are, like bassets, very good-tempered but stubborn.

So the breed wound up failing to meet the needs of sportsmen and the pet market.

Its health isn’t that great either. 41.5 percent of Sussex spaniels tested by the OFA have hip dysplasia. The breed has several hereditary heart problems, and like many dogs with long backs and short legs, it has problems with herniated discs.

Now, I am not saying that the fortune of this breed would have been saved if its fanciers had gone along with breeding for a conformation closer to Moses, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

But the breed had a bigger problem. Mr. Fuller inbred his Rosehill line, and the whole breed became based upon his Rosehill dogs. Then it became a fad to breed them for very short legs for the show ring.  The show dogs were rarely worked, and then its novelty as a show dog wore off.  With such nonfunctional conformation, the dog began to languish, which Mr. Arkwright noticed in this account.  And as it became rarer, it became more inbred, and with the tiny population that survived the Second World War, inbreeding got even worse.

The breeders of the nineteenth century did not recognize the need to breed for a functional conformation. Perhaps if they had understood that breed standards have to fit the breed’s function, the Sussex spaniel would be in a better position now.

The Sussex spaniel is an important cautionary. It is very easy for breeds to go sideways when the breed standard and the whims of the show ring conflict with functional conformation.

No breed can reign forever as a show dog or pet. That popularity always wains.  Therefore, it is important that breeds still be bred for their original function. They will have some place to go when the fickle public moves on, and the only place they can go is with their work. Of course, some breeds can luck out and find new work, but it is still important that conformation fit a reality that can be empirically verified.