Talk:Spaniel

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[edit] Contradict

There is a problem with the gender agreement of the French words in the last paragraph. It should either be "Epagneul Breton" and "Epagneul Francais" or "Epagneul Bretonne" and "Epagneul Francaise". At the moment the gender of epagneul seems to vary throughout the paragraph. Zargulon 08:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brittany

I removed the information below is better placed on the talk page. Although the Brittany is no longer refered to as a Spaniel in many circles, its inclusion here is proper. The Brittany and the Breton are both likely decended from the dogs from spain (spaniel) that were the foundation of most Spaniels. The spaniel title was dropped to avoid confusion about their manner of work (flushing vs. pointing) (Fergus 2002). Flushing breeds can be taught to point and then selectivly bred for this trait. This is likely how setters came to be in the first place. The pointing labs are only the most recent example of this effort. Brittanys are just an older example of dogs from flushing stock that were bred for pointing traits to produce a pointer.--Counsel 17:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It is absolutely a misunderstanding that the 'Britany' is a Spaniel - it is not - it is rather a Setter type - and its hunting behaviour is like a setter or a pointer. The misundersatnding comes from poor language skills. 'Epagneul Breton' means 'Long-haired Briton'. The terms 'longhaired' and 'short-haired' are common for Continental bird-hunting dog breeds (Most notably the German types). In hunting dog competitions in Continental Europe the 'Epagneul Breton' competes with the English breeds (pointers and settes) not the German and Central European breeds. In most of continental Europe the 'Epagnaul Breton' is simply name 'Breton' (Germany, Scandianvia for instance).
There also is a 'Epagneul Francaise' It almost went extinct 20 years ago but survived as a breed. It is a bigger and heavier more 'Continental-type' dog specialized in bird-hunting, but with the same colours schemes as the Breton (and practically the English Setter). But even the 'Epagneul Francaise' is more like an English Setter than like a German bird hunting dog.
THE autoritative source on the Breton is here: http://epagneul-breton.chez-alice.fr/
I agree that Brittanys no long hunt like flushing spaniels and the change in name was a good one. However, many still call the brittany by its traditional name and leaving a link on this list makes it more useful. The statement above about the poor language skills is perfectly ironical. Obviously the author speaks little French. If you are curious, put Epagneul in any only french-english dictionary. Here http://www.wordreference.com/fren/Epagneul It means spaniel, which came from the word "español" which means spanish as these dogs came originally from Spain.--Counsel 00:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tibetan Spaniel and Japanese Chin?

The Tibetan Spaniel isn't a spaniel, it's a lap dog and a guard dog. It isn't and has never been a gun dog. Therefore, I'm removing it from the list. I'm also removing the Japanese Chin for the same reason. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 16:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)