Thread: Crossing show lines

First, a quote - "the dog is more important than the pedigree" - Dr. Leon Mortenson.

This statement above would back breeding to ability of the dog not its breeding being either or either show or field



Ardoon Gundogs

Speckle of Ardoon





In the Sporting Dog (Oct-Nov 1989) Keith Erlandson looked upon by many field trial enthusiasts as one of the greatest gundog handlers of all time recalled candidly two of his finest dogs in an article entitled 'The Greatest Trial Dogs In My Life' one was Speckle of Ardoon, and the article is reprinted below.

Another client, Will Sloan from Northern Ireland - known as The Ardoon Man' and nowadays better known in pointer and setter circles than in spaniels - acquired by devious means a cocker bitch which would not work. He mated her to a golden show dog, from a strain which had still retained some working instincts and reared two pups.

He ran them on to seven months, developed plenty of drive in them by letting them free-hunt rabbits in thick whins and having the odd hare course.

He phoned me up and said he would send the bitch over for me to train. She was the greatest thing ever, he said. I told him I didn't believe him. She was by a show dog from a non working dam. It could not be done. Well, Nature, in her capriciousness, had decided to take a hand, just to remind us how little we know about breeding, and that at the end of the day, she is still the boss.
Keith Erlandson with Speckle


'Speckle' duly arrived and even thought the Irish are sometimes known to exaggerate this was not the case this time. She was everything, and more, that Will claimed. She would hunt any cover with absolute venom, with great drive and style. She would not retrieve to hand but invariably went in the opposite direction and buried the dummy or whatever.

This was rectified easily. It is frequently a feature of the breed, but once sound on retrieving to hand, she would throw a dead hare around like a sparrow.

She was red roan, like raspberry jam spread on concrete, weighed twentythree pounds fit and had the most perfect bone and balance, being short coupled and well up on the leg without being stilty.

Pound for pound, she was the deadliest working machine of all the twenty field trial champions I have made up, covering a period of thirtythree years. At this time, I had a team of seven trial spaniels, all requiring shooting experience, so the amount of game I shot for her was limited.

It didn't matter. She had such inbuilt quality that she could handle any trial situation without vast amounts of game being shot for her beforehand. In her first season, she only had eighteen head of game shot over her before she gained her title, and that includes game shot in the actual events. She won four open stakes that season and ran an exceptional Championship, but things seemed a bit political that year and she only won a diploma.

For the next three seasons I eased up on her in competition as I had another very good young bitch I was wanting to bring on, but in her second season I won the Cocker Championship at Blenhiem for Will Sloan. She came into my ownership at the end of that season.
Speckle of Ardoon
Keen in retirement
F.T. Ch Speckle of Ardoon at 12 years of age.

Altogether she won three Championships in succession, the only spaniel of any breed to do so, and the record remains to this day. She won the title of nine open stakes and won the Game Fair tests against springers when the test was an individual challenge and not an international team event.

Like 'Sele,' ( F.T. Ch. Dinas Dewi Sele) she never bred anything in her own class but her sons and daughters have had a tremendous influence on the breed. She retired from competition at four and a half but lived to be fourteen and four months. She was brilliant, dauntless and dangerous to know.