Gun Dog Forum

You'd do best to buy an athletic labrador. There's a reason everyone in Minnesota hunts pheasant with Labradors. The boykins I've seen don't have the strength or the legs to get through big, dense cattail sloughs. If you are dead set on a spaniel (which is fine, I have one myself), you should get an...

I have a 7 wk old American Water Spaniel who caught and killed a small bird in the yard today. We play fetch, he's pretty good with bringing toys back to my hand, and we have start working on "sit" and "come" to whistle and voice. Of course, he paraded the bird around quite proudly and refused to co...

Thanks. It sounds like the breeds are pretty similar in terms of performance, all though I've spoken to a few partisan who swear AWS can't hunt upland and that Boykins are too small for waterfowl. Sounds like my decision is going to come down to breeder more than the actual breed. An other breeder r...

I'm planning on buying my first gundog and would like to know if there are any real functional differences between Boykins and American Water Spaniels? I hunt turkey, rabbit, pheasant, quail, dove, some ducks and the occasional prairie chicken (in that order of interest/importance). I have a 30' x 4...