Super spaniel time?

Selective breeding is leading to a growing number of genetic faults in cockers and springers. David Tomlinson considers a radical solution

THERE IS A dangerously common misconception among many dog enthusiasts, assuming that a breed is similar to a species. It’s not. Species have evolved naturally over hundreds of thousands of years, but breeds are man-made creations produced by highly selective breeding and few are much more than 100 years old.

Spaniels came in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours in the 19th century. It wasn’t until 1892 that the cocker was recognised by the Kennel Club as a breed in its own right, while it took another 10 years for the English springer spaniel to gain similar recognition. Today, we recognise seven different breeds of spaniel in the UK, five of which — cocker, springer, Welsh springer, Sussex and field — share common ancestry. The Clumber and Irish water spaniel are genetically quite different.

They were separated into different breeds because, in Victorian times, breeders were refining what they wanted when it came to size, looks, colour and even style of hunting. Line breeding — father to daughter, even brother to sister — enabled types to be established, with the progeny usually breeding true to type.

The result of this was the breeds we know and work today, but the downside has been a huge loss of genetic diversity. Now, there’s a growing awareness of the perils of selective breeding.

Generation game

Here’s a simplified version of where we are now. Assume that in 1902, the springer spaniel population started with 100 healthy dogs. All the genes those dogs possessed were there for a reason. Those 100 dogs then became a closed gene pool from which we started breeding.

With every generation, only the ‘best’ dogs were bred from. Some of the genetic variation present in the first-generation dogs was lost simply by the removal of so many nonbreeding dogs from the gene pool. This became more pronounced with each generation. A few genes were lost with every generation and every gene lost weakens the individual dog’s genetic strength, possibly making it

The cocker is one of seven different breeds of spaniel that are recognised in the UK today