Boykin Spaniel

The Boykin Spaniel is one of the few American Kennel Club breeds developed entirely within the twentieth century, and its origin story is unusually well recorded. Boykin is a small community in South Carolina, named after a founding resident, Lemuel Whitaker Boykin.

Around 1900 a man named Alexander White found a small brown spaniel outside the church he attended in Spartanburg. White, a keen sportsman, took the dog hunting with his retrievers and found it had real instinct for water work. He sent it for training to his hunting partner Whit Boykin, the leading dog man of the area.

Boykin found the spaniel as good at flushing and retrieving wild turkey as it was on ducks, and built a breed around it. The result is a compact spaniel of 14 to 18 inches, small enough to sit in a boat and hardy enough to work all day.

The breed is registered by the American Kennel Club.

Size, standard by standard

• American Kennel Club — height 39.4-45.7 cm (males), 35.6-41.9 cm (females)

Full standards: American Kennel Club.

Country of origin: United States of America

• The whole breed traces back to one stray spaniel found outside a church.
• It is named after a community of about a hundred people in South Carolina.
• It is one of the few AKC breeds created entirely in the twentieth century.
• It was bred small enough to share a boat with the hunter.
• It works equally on ducks and on wild turkey.