Making Mr. Fuller Proud – The Sussex Spaniel

BY LEE CONNER

Sussex is a beautiful county in England. Despite being relatively close to the ever-sprawling metropolis of London, it has somehow managed to retain most of its rural charms and still abounds with hedgerow-bounded fields, woodland and charming picture postcard villages.

Historically the people of Sussex have al- ways been keen livestock breeders and the county name has been given to a breed of cattle, a world famous breed of chicken and even a breed of rabbit!

This county also holds a special place in my heart as it is where I used to spend part of the long school summer holiday as a child. Idyllic days were spent wandering the woods and meadows of my Uncle’s farm and playing with the hunt terriers and hounds (as my Uncle was Master of Hounds for a famous Sussex hunt pack).

Now, the eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted a glaring omission from the list of famous breeds of animal this quintessen- tial English county has given the world. Of course, most importantly of all (for us dog lovers at any rate) has to be the handsome Sussex Spaniel.

Like most of our breeds, this dog has a very colorful and interesting history which has been remarkably well documented by canine historians. Even more remarkable is that for most of the known historical facts of the breed the experts are in complete agreement!

Leighton and Shaw both make the claim that the Sussex Spaniel is without doubt ‘one of the oldest of the distinct breeds of Land Spaniel now existing in the British Isles and probably also the purest in point of descent, since it has for many years past
been confined to a comparatively small num- ber of kennels, the owners of which have always been at considerable pains to keep their strains free from any admixture of foreign blood.’

More than a century before the above was written (1907) the authors of The Sportsman’s Cabinet and The Sportsman’s Repos- itory were already writing in commendatory terms of the Spaniels found in the county of Sussex, and even in France the antiquity of the breed was being recognized and celebrated, as M.H de la Blanchere, in his work entitled, Les Chiens de Chasse says: ‘Cette race du Sussex etait une des plus anciennes, et probablement la premiere qui ait ete asservi a la chasse au filet ou au fusil dans la iles.’

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