Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Boykin Spaniels

I'm watching a Boykin Spaniel right now and boy is she a sweetheart! She's very gentle and rarely makes a peep in or outside and as far as I can tell, I don't think she sheds either which is a surprise. I laugh when she wrestles with my GSP pup because they just spin and mouth each other in total silence.....you'd think it was a video with the sound set on mute!

She's a family dog and has fit in well but I pulled some pigeons out to tease her with last week and she was incredibly birdy too so I bet she'd make a good bird dog. Anyone else have one of these? I'd like to hear more about the breed and what all you do to train them for home and field.....thanks.

I had a Boykin and now have a Field Bred English Cocker Spaniel that looks and acts almost identical to the Boykin. Both dogs are flushers and great pheasant dogs. They do shed. Mine was very social and a great family dog. I lost him to leukemia at 6. Because they are on the small side for a bird dog, they can work cover that bigger dogs might have trouble getting through. They are excellent swimmers and usually love water. They have webbed feet having been originally bred in S. Carolina as turkey dogs and duck retrievers in small boats. Historically, the tails were bobbed so they would break up a flock of turkeys then sit (without rustling leaves while tail wagging) with the hunter while he called birds back in. They work hard and like most spaniels I've been around, they can be a little head-strong at times. But they are a wonderful dog and I highly recommend both the Boykin and ECS.

Not familiar with Boykins.....can you educate me some.....
I love your GSP....I sure miss mine....especially since moving back to the farm and the growing quail population...got me thinking about getting another dog...

As mentioned they are flushers. Same as English Springers and Cockers and the training would be the same. Work the same and pretty much the same personalities and they make a great family Dog. Their size makes them compatible with traveling. They shed, same as ES and ECS. Harder to find a good field Boykin, but they are out there if one does their homework.

Have always had ES and ECS, but would jump for a good Boykin if one showed up.


Addition: They take a gentle hand. A hard one will quickly shut them down completely.

Agree with all except the head-strong. Chessies define head-strong. ES-ECS even more-are mischievous and inquisitive. Life is their apple. They just want you to be someone to play with.

Nebraska,

Very limited experience here, but I will pass it along because the single member of this breed that I met made a fairly strong impression on me.

When I was hunting sharptail grouse in Manitoba one day, I met another lone hunter with a Boykin spaniel and he invited me to hunt with him.

His dog was the spitting image of the one in your post except her tail was not docked.

The dog worked great, and during breaks I found that she was clearly a dog who REALLY liked people -- very affectionate.

I recall that the owner said she loved children and was calm & gentle with them.

He also said that he basically took the dog hunting and she was a natural. The only real training he had to do was to get her to drop a bird on command after she brought it back to him.

We hunted together a few times that fall, and the dog was great each time.

John

I watched a Boykin field trial last winter as I was thinking I might be interested in the breed. The field trial dogs were way too fast for me. That is just the nature of field trial stock of any breed, I'm sure. Still, it kind of put me off. Those little dogs looked like they'd been shot out of a cannon!

On trial day they know the goal is to cover the ground and find the Birds before the other Dog.

Get them out in the field and they will quickly learn to pace themselves for the longer run. They quickly learn the difference between a trial and an actual hunt.

I'm with Battue on the Boykin or ECS adjusting to you as you hunt. And a quick working dog is a real asset when you get into birds that want to run. It's pretty easy to tell when the dog gets birdy so you can move with the dog. I hunted both through my 60's and have been able to keep up most of the time.

I starting to have a hard time keeping up when they take that line and bore in on it. But it is OK, I'll stick with the Springers and Cockers. Or a Boykin if one should show itself.
They make me smile with their happy go lucky attitude.

At the event I saw the dogs were run singly, so there wasn't another dog hunting with them. Still, I hear you when you say they can learn the difference. Cover makes a difference, too. The planted birds were in a very open area of scant cover, so there wasn't much to slow them down. They make me smile too; then again, most dogs do.

The Boykin is a natural hunter, as others have said. Sorta raw emotions right now, as we just had to put ours down a few days ago, but his story will give you an idea how deep the hunting blood is in this breed.

Our Boykin was originally owned by someone in Southern California who should have never owned a dog. For the first few years of our dogs life he was kept in a back yard and overfed (never trained as a hunting dog...he apparently was supposed to be a gift to the owners' kids, but he didn't like kids and snapped at them quite a bit, so they banished him). Then the owners turned him in to the pound, he was adopted again by some people in south central LA (don't know how that happened, but it's in his rescue papers). He looked like a cute, cuddly little bear of a dog, and that probably is why people kept adopting him, but he didn't like being handled too much by kids and it looked like one or more of his owners really abused him (quite a few scars on his sides when we got him).

So at about age 7, after having spent more of his life in pounds than in homes, he was about to be euthanized and a spaniel rescue saved him a day before it was to happen. We've supported the rescue over the years and when the rescue looked for a new home for him, we took him in. He was skittish, clearly afraid of people, etc.

But in the first week or so that we had him, I took him out pheasant hunting with the lab we had at the time and the Boykin was like a pig in slop. He immediately took to the field and it was like he immediately forgot about the crappy life he had been living. He was naturally birdy, even though he was at the time closer to a senior dog and had no training or exposure to hunting whatsoever.

He hunted with me right up until about 2 years ago, when age started to get the best of him. I'll never forget how fast he went from being a dog on death row in the hood to being a hunting dog doing exactly what his blood told him to do. The look on his face when he first hit the corn field is something I'll always be comforted by.

Great story Remsen and I'm sorry to hear about your Boykin. I can definitely see how one of these could end up as a great hunting buddy....

I have had a Boykin, SC state dog and many of them here in SC being the home of them. Good small dog for the swamp on Waterfowl, good in the dove field. Bred to hunt turkeys in the fall, flush the flock, sit beside you while you kee kee run call, and the dog would hear them walking back to the call before the hunter would. Just look where the dog is looking. I bought mine from the Boykin family in Boykin, SC about 28 yrs. ago, she was good in the dove field, would tolerate water, good flusher, better retriever.She was good with my daughter, would sleep with her at night. They have to be trained soft, will give up with hard training. Can't be trained like I did my Chessie. Seems like everyone now has one here, 30% are maybe hunted the rest paraded around town on a leash. Did use mine 2 times to track a deer.They can be high-strung and love to run, but overall good dogs.

Hope this helps.

BTW, don't think they can be papered with out a docked tail.

That is a fine example of a Boykin in the pic, looks to be slightly taller than most, no star on the chest which is good.Probably be good combo with the GSP on upland birds.

This is kinda cool.

Ole Karoo is proud as a peach, chased that goose down and back without a hitch, can't ask for more.

Ole Karoo is proud as a peach, chased that goose down and back without a hitch, can't ask for more.

Merlot lost his bud Toby and I've been considering getting him another. A Boykin is going to be considered more than casually..

This is based on the one and only Boykin I've owned, so take it for what it's worth...

Mine was a male, purchased at 8 mo's from what is probably the best-known Boykin breeder in the country, although that program is dedicated almost entirely to retriever training/trials. So, while he had his start in the water, I took him from the hills of S.C. to the plains of the Midwest and trained him as an upland flusher. We hunted S.D. for the first time when he was 18 months old, and while keeping track of him an controlling his range was difficult (had not done any e-collar work with him at that point... we were basically teaching each other), he did a great job of putting birds in the air and retrieving those we shot.

Two years later we were back again (Iowa's phez hunting was terrible during those years) after a lot more work and he was nearly perfect as a flusher/retriever. He never pointed- not that they do- nor did he ever pause before a flush. You had to be on your toes at all times, because he never stopped moving. He could get into places my larger Labs could not, and excelled at rooting birds out of dense cover. He was relentless.

As he got older, he learned to work well with pointing dogs, content to let them do all the leg work then move in for the retrieve once the bird was down. Many quail have been retrieved by that Boykin after the dogs that pointed them gave up looking for them after the shot. Sadly, he was diagnosed with degenerative arthritis in both hind knees at age 9, and I had to retire him from full-time duty the following year.

Here's what I'll tell you from my experience:

1. Very loving and affectionate, but my male could also be very stubborn in the field.
2. Good nose, but like a lot of retrievers, has to be taught to hunt with that nose, rather that with their eyes, if you're going to use them for upland hunting.
3. Because of the spaniel ears, ear infections are a constant battle- especially the more they're in the water.
4. Work exceeding well as a retrieving complement to pointing dogs.
5. I will not own another one. Not due to any fault of the dog or breed, but because of their coat maintenance. The cover in which I hunt is rife with cockleburrs, sand burrs, goat heads, stick-tights, etc., ALL of which find their way into a Boykin's coat. A four-hour hunt usually req'd 1.5-2 hours of coat maintenance that night, just to keep him in the game the following day. And that was with precautions taken- hair cuts, rubbed down with mane-n-tail conditioner, protective vests, etc. I loved my Boykin, but it's nothing but short haired dogs from here on out for me.

YMMV

MMDV

Have had nothing but English Springers and English Cockers out of hunting blood strains.

Have yet to have the ear problems associated with the American Springers and Cockers. So it's not all Spaniels

The ones I own were bred to be flushers so training to use their nose was getting them into Birds. Pointer/flusher/retriever, you have to train them to use their nose and it takes Birds. Either planted or wild.

Natural born retrieving should be a given out of good hunting blood.

I've been around a few Boykins and their coats are the same as ES and EC. Clip them short during hunting season and brush them out. I could brush out a Chessy in two hours. (If he was in the mood. :D)

They do work well as a retrieving complement to Pointers. However, unless they are "good" Pointers, the flusher will put more Birds in front of the gun when it comes to Pheasants and Ruffed Grouse. I wouldn't say the same when the game is Wild Quail. Pen raised Quail or Pheasants--50/50.