Breed Priorities – English Springer Spaniel
English Springer Spaniels
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By Nikki Riggsbee
I wasn’t expecting to find many breeder-judges, so we included the parent club Judges Education Committee members to the list of experts invited to take a survey on English Springer breed priorities. I was surprised to learn that there were forty breeder-judges to add to the JEC members. Twenty-seven of the judges and twelve JEC folks agreed to participate. By the deadline, nineteen surveys from judges and eight from the JEC were received, for a total of twenty seven.
Most of the judges have judged the national and almost all have judged English Springer Spaniel specialties. All have been in the breed for over twenty years, with the average being nearly forty years. The breeder-judges have been judging the breed for nearly twenty years on average.
English Springer Spaniel Virtues
The experts were asked to rank a list of breed characteristics from the English Springer standard. Below is the list in sequence by the average ranks, starting with the most important.
1. Shoulder blades and upper arm of apparent equal length, forming nearly 90 degree angle
2. Topline firm, slopes very gently
3. Correct substance
4. Length of body slightly greater than height at withers
5. Neck moderately long, blends smoothly into sloping shoulders
6. Long, ground-covering stride
7. Muzzle approximately same length as and one-half the width of skull
8. Correct size, shape, placement, and color of eyes
9. Tail carried horizontally or slightly elevated, with lively, merry action
10. Head approximately same length as moderately long neck
11. Hard, muscular condition with well-developed hips and thighs
12. Carriage proud and upstanding
13. As speed increases, tendency for legs to converge toward a center line
14. Ears long, fairly wide, hanging close to cheeks, set level with eye
15. Correct quality and condition of coat
16. Close scissors bite
The greatest agreement, seventy-four percent, put “Close scissors bite” last. It is interesting how the different breeds value dentition and occlusion, from disqualification to less important. Next most concurrence was on “Ears long, fairly wide, hanging close to cheeks, set level with eye” (14th), with two-thirds putting it in the last quartile. Ears, like teeth, vary greatly in importance among breeds.
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Posted by ralbee
on Nov 26 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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