FOREWORD
This book was written during 15 months of never-ending Covid-19 lockdown in Toronto in 2020 and 2021.
I woke up one morning miserable, with no place to go, and decided to make it happen. The idea started expanding in my head and the vision of a book started appearing in my mind.
Having been in this breed since 1986 I know one thing for sure, that the breed is changing while the standard stays the same, as it should. It was my intention to bring the international modern history of the breed to one place, with top winners and producers of the past, and also to bring it to the future, so that everyone who gets involved in this wonderful breed has a clear understanding of its breed type, and what to breed for, show and reward as a judge. I passionately believe one must study the great ones of the past to understand what they had to offer in order to breed for, preserve, and know what to look for while judging this versatile breed.
I was a teenager of 14 years living in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 90s when I became a member of the English Springer Spaniel Club of Victoria (Australia) and received the club’s “Splashes” newsletter, which was way before the internet and social media. I remember it was typed on an old typewriter with some black and white photos and was stapled together. At the same time, I joined the Spaniel Clubs in France (Spaniel Club Francais) and Germany (der Jagdspaniel Klub Deutschland) and bought a bunch of British yearbooks to study the breed and pedigrees internationally, a passion I still have to this day. There is no greater pleasure for me as a breeder judge than judging my breed internationally and evaluating breeding stock from people who have been working hard to preserve this breed. I want to thank to all the breed clubs who have given me the privilege to judge my breed and gundogs in their countries, and evaluate their breeding stock.
Covering the whole breed as judged on conformation in one book is impossible if I want to do it properly. I suspect that this book will have several further editions with additional countries included. Based on my opinion, extensive research, and years in this breed internationally, I’ve decided to create an A1 list of the countries in this breed. I feel that these countries are of the most significant importance for the breed based on its popularity, quality, amount of BIS winners produced, dog show entry size at Specialty level, number of World and European winners bred, and the strongest world-wide influence via exports to other countries. In my opinion, undoubtedly these countries are England, USA, Australia and Scandinavia. Then, I had to decide what the modern history for the breed was, so I wound the clock back to 1975, the year I was born. You will find very little about the breed prior to 1975 in this book, because it was covered so much in many lovely books that you can buy from the past.
There are many outstanding books out there that can teach you anatomy and structure of a dog. I hope that this book will come to your hands when you already know the structure, and that will help you understand the essence of the breed type and its variations globally.
“Study the past if you would define the future”- Confucius