The calm, rare country dog once on the brink of extinction
With its silky ears and even temperament, the field spaniel is gentler, steadier — and far rarer — than its spaniel cousins.
Let’s be honest — let loose behind the wheel of a sports car, how many of us would probably crash it? Replace ‘car’ with ‘spaniel’ and it might be that many people tempted by a cocker or springer would actually be better off with the slightly steadier field spaniel, suggests Jeremy Hunt (‘Minor spaniels become a major force’, February 10, 2000), praising its ‘calm temperament’. A medium-sized breed best suited to country life, the field spaniel is also a rare one — with just 73 puppies registered with the Kennel Club in 2024.
This may make the field spaniel a more suitable pet — although Peggy Grayson, in The History and Management of the Field Spaniel, issues a word of warning: ‘People must be told how big a Field will grow, what a lot it will eat and how much more exercise it will require than a run in the park… They must be told that this is not a breed for people out at work all day.’ In short: it’s still a spaniel.
Described in C. Bede Maxwell’s The Truth About Sporting Dogs as the ‘jack-of-all-trades spaniel’, the breed came about when land spaniels were divided into cockers (smaller), springers (larger, with white), and solid-coloured dogs (fields). Longer in the body than its relatives, the field spaniel was nearly lost on several occasions — something S. M. Lampson attributed to show enthusiasts who decided the breed had to be ‘long, low dogs’. This, he said, led to a generation of spaniels that ‘resembled sausages with two legs at each end’ (‘Can the field spaniel survive?’, September 13, 1962).
Out of the show ring, steady, silky-eared field spaniels are proper country dogs.
The two World Wars were also disastrous for the breed. By 1949, the Kennel Club’s studbook listed only one dog. Fortunately, breed enthusiasts helped revive it in the 1960s, returning it to a well-balanced, active sporting dog — usually in liver or black, but occasionally with tan markings or in roan.
Today, the Field Spaniel Society describes the breed as ‘a true country man’, ‘an avid traveller’ with a love of cars, and ‘an excellent rough shooter’s dog’ with a ‘highly developed sense of humour’.
Out of the show ring, the steady, silky-eared field spaniel remains every inch a proper country dog.
This feature originally appeared in the March 26, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
