Irish Water Spaniel Information & Dog Breed Facts

Introduction

The Irish Water Spaniel is intelligent, playful, and eager to please breed. With their poufy topknots and boisterous personalities, Irish Water Spaniels have often considered the clowns of the spaniel family but these humorous dogs are just as skilled at retrieving game as they are making humans smile. Its characteristic rat tail, distinctive enough to have earned the breed the nickname “Whip Tail” and “Rat Tail”, is not found in any other breed. The breed’s eager and independent-minded character is in sharp contrast to the mild tractability of most British-derived retrievers and spaniels.

History

The Irish Water Spaniel is a dog with a long history, dating back to the time when the spaniel family was split into land and water variants millennia ago. The water spaniels included the now extinct Tweed Water Spaniel as well as both the English and Irish varieties. A book called the “Histories of the Foure-tooted Beastes”, published in 1607 describes and illustrates the “Water Spagnel”, but there is no evidence that this was a separate Irish breed, distinct from its ancestors. The earliest specific documented artwork of the Irish Water Spaniel was completed in the 1840s and 1850s.

According to experts, the Irish Water Spaniel was created in Ireland from two strains that existed previous to the 1850s, the South Country Water Spaniel, and the North Country Water Spaniel. Both were distinct types in terms of color and size. The Northern Spaniel had small ears and legs with little feathering, but a thick coat with a lot of curls. The breed’s color was liver with more or less white markings.

On the other hand, the Southern Spaniel’s coat was always solid liver, with long, feathery ears and short, sharp curls throughout. The Irish Water Spaniel as it is today most closely resembles the Southern Irish variant. Furthermore, dogs shows began to offer a special class for the Irish Water Spaniels in 1859.

In Dublin, a sportsman and attorney by the name of Justin McCarthy sought to isolate the breed type as we know it today. He is credited for bringing the breed’s different variants together into a single, reproducible type. Boatswain, one of his most famous dogs, was one of the first pure-type Irish Water Spaniel.

Although it is not known whether McCarthy saved a dying breed or “manufactured” one from the different varieties at the time as he didn’t leave detailed records of the dogs he used to produce water spaniels such as Boatswain. One thing he did for sure was fix type, no existing breed of dog has a more marked individuality and no breed has shown less inclination to diverge from it.

The Irish Water Spaniel was quickly received by both Irish and English sportsmen for its bold and daring retrieves, its extreme hardiness in the cold North Sea waters, and its superb disposition. By the 1870s, the reputation of the breed had spread to America, and a number of dogs were imported at that time. The breed was the third most popular sports dog in the United States by 1875.

Other genetic possibilities

Breed experts have noted that old photos from 70 years ago of the Afghan Hounds show a striking similarity to the Irish Water Spaniel, smooth face, topknot, all four legs well feathered with a smooth patch just above the foot, and the body coat shorter than the leg coat. While similarities to the Middle East’s Afghan Hound is likely just coincidental, McCarthy did travel more than once to France, where he would have had access to the Poodles, Barbets, and possibly Porties that have left a residual mark in the Irish Water Spaniel’s genome.

If this is the case, it can be deduced that he was more concerned with producing a new breed than with preserving the old. The only resemblances between the Poodle and the Irish Water Spaniel are a great nose, a desire to hunt a game, and a coat that will cord if neglected or allowed to grow long.

However, it is also a possibility that McCarthy used breeds that were more readily available in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In a letter to a dog magazine of the period, McCarthy noted that the Irish Water Spaniel could not maintain its type when crossed with any breed other than the Bloodhound, which would add the desired length of ear and improve scenting ability.

Recognition

Despite its rarity today, the Irish Water Spaniel was an incredibly popular show dog during the Victorian era. In fact, it was one of the nine original breeds recognized by the fledgling American Kennel Club as a member of the sporting club, when it was founded in 1884. The breed has also been recognized by the United Kennel Club since 1948.