Those who have been, and are, interested in promoting and breeding
these variety Spaniels deserve a large amount of credit for their
perseverance, which has been attended with the greatest success so
far as producing colour goes. No doubt there is a very great
fascination in breeding for colour, and in doing so there is no royal
road to success, which can only be attained by the exercise of the
greatest skill and the nicest discrimination in the selection of
breeding stock. At the same time colour is not everything, and type
and working qualities should never be sacrificed to it. This has too
often been done in the case of coloured Field Spaniels. There are
plenty of beautiful blue roans, red roans, and tricolours, whether
blue roan and tan or liver roan and tan, but nearly all of them are
either cocktailed, weak in hind-quarters, crooked-fronted, or
houndy-headed, and showing far too much haw. In fact, in head and
front the greater number of the tricolours remind one of the
Basset-hound almost as much as they do in colour. It is to be hoped
that colour-breeders will endeavour to get back the true Spaniel type
before it is too late.
The points of both black and coloured Field Spaniels are identical,
bar colour, and here it must be said that black and tan, liver and
tan, and liver are not considered true variety colours, though of
course they have to compete in those classes, but rather sports
from black. The colours aimed at by variety breeders have all a
ground colour of white, and are black and white, blue roan, liver
and white, red roan, liver white and tan, and tricolours or
quadri-colours--_i.e._, blue or red roan and tan, or both combined,
with tan. The Spaniel Club furnishes the following description of
the Black Field Spaniel:--
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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