by Karen Clymer

Created on: June 18, 2008

The American cocker spaniel stems from a history going back to the beginnings of civilization. Models of spaniel type dogs have been found even in Egyptian tombs.

Old French manuscripts contain the word "espaigneul," to describe the Spanish dog or spaniel. The French Count Gaston de Foix wrote in 1387 that his spaniels were devoted to their masters, had wagging tails, and had a great ability to find partridge and quail. On the other hand, he wrote, they were fighters, great barkers, and led the greyhounds astray.

It appears that the dogs were a distinct type in Spain, and came later to England. One of the earliest written record of spaniels in England is found in The Laws of Howel, written in 948 A.D. He declared that "the spaniel of a King is a pound in value."

The hunting spaniels became popular in England due to their ability to drop when finding a bird, and allow the hunter to sneak up and throw a net over both bird and dog. Spaniels came in many different sizes and all modern spaniels, including the toys, originated from these hunting dogs.

The smaller cocker spaniel specialized in hunting woodcock, and was first shown in a dog show in 1859 in Birmingham, England. Many were imported into the United States in the 1800's, and the American Spaniel Club was formed in 1881. President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) owned a cocker spaniel named Dot.

The early cocker spaniels had longer bodies and shorter legs than modern dogs. All cocker spaniels were exhibited in the same classes until 1949, when the English and American cockers were split. Up until that point, all cockers looked very much like the English cocker spaniels we see today. Later the show classes were divided into varieties according to coat color.

The main colors are solid black, red, and buff; and parti-colors. The show divisions are black (including black and tan), parti-color (which can be black and white or red and white), and ASCOB, which is an acronym for Any Solid Color Other than Black. The ASCOB color can range from a silvery white through deepest liver red to chocolate. Tan points on the black and tan dogs are found over each eye, inside each ear, on the muzzle and cheeks, inside each leg, and under the tail. Parti-colors are white with red or black markings in either patches or a roan pattern.

The coat is one of the cocker's most appealing and most difficult characteristics. It is a double coat, which means that there are soft, silky outer guard hairs. Underneath is a dense, soft undercoat.

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