By Nikki Riggsbee

The Sussex Spaniel was among the first ten breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club when it was formed. The breed was developed in the 1700s in Suffolk County, England, as a long, low, rather massive dog to hunt in dense cover.

The initial individuals registered in the AKC stud book were not recorded as producing any litters. Other Sussex Spaniels were imported from England in the 1920s. These and their descendants produced the dogs in the United States from the 1930s through the 1950s. After World War II, there were more Sussex in America than in the United Kingdom. None of those imported before the war are in the breed’s pedigrees today.

Interest in the breed revived in the United States in the 1970s. Dogs imported then are behind the Sussex Spaniel lines that are active today. The breed has likely always been a low entry breed. It is listed 175th in the most recently available AKC list of breed popularity based on registration statistics.

We found thirty-one Sussex Spaniel experts to invite to take a survey on their breed’s priorities in evaluating conformation. Twenty-two agreed to participate. By the deadline, fifteen completed surveys were returned. The experts contributing have been in the breed for an average of over twenty-seven years. Those who are judges have been approved for thirteen-and-a-half years on average. Most of them have judged their national specialty and other Sussex Spaniel specialty shows.

Sussex Spaniel Virtues

The experts prioritized a list of desirable characteristics taken from the AKC Sussex Spaniel breed standard. Below are the virtues–in sequence–by the average of the experts’ ranks, with 1 being the most important.

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242 – April, 2026

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233 – April, 2026

By William Given

It was, by all accounts, a wonderful day. Our Penny had won Winners Bitch and BOS; it was her third major, and she earned her championship title. We were on our way home from the Nebraska Kennel Club dog show–and I do not believe we had gone ten miles when I looked at my wife and said, “I am so glad she finished today.” My wife’s response was, “I am so relieved.” I asked, “Why relieved?” She responded, “She is 3½ years old now; it has never taken you this long to finish a dog.” And, my wife was correct when she stated how much we had spent to accomplish our goal. We knew that our girl was correctly constructed, a superior mover, and possessed an outstanding temperament. She deserved to be a champion, and our every effort to show her until she earned it.

Here are a few things we did not immediately think about:

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226 – April, 2026

]]> https://dev.caninechronicle.com/current-articles/the-power-of-persistence-2/feed/ 0 https://dev.caninechronicle.com/current-articles/helping-hotels-welcome-our-dogs/ https://dev.caninechronicle.com/current-articles/helping-hotels-welcome-our-dogs/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:00:51 +0000 https://caninechronicle.com/?p=354614 Click here to read the complete article
212 – April, 2026

By Sandy Weaver

If you’re on your club’s show committee, you know hotels understand that allowing dogs is good for business–and believe that allowing dogs is potentially bad for their properties. They can be balky about how many dogs per room and the size of dogs they’ll allow, and it can be financially injurious to your exhibitors with those rising non-refundable deposits.

Those who show dogs know that it’s way more fun to stay in a hotel that not only allows dogs, but also welcomes them. Here’s how you and your dog-showing travel buddies can help more hotels not just tolerate show dogs but welcome them. (And if you’re on the show committee, read this all the way to the end–there’s something here just for you!)

1. Be a great guest. This should go without saying, and yet so many people treat hotel rooms and properties far worse than they’d treat their own homes. Being a great guest means bringing sheets or blankets to cover the hotel furniture that your dog will be allowed on, not using hotel towels, the sink, or the tub to wash your dogs, and putting plastic sheets under your crates in case of spills or accidents. You can use tablecloths from the Dollar Store. They work great and can either be folded for reuse or tossed when you’re packing for home.

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212 – April, 2026

By Jessica Braatz

As someone who aged out of Juniors relatively recently, I’ve found myself drawn to the numbers. While rankings or total entries may first come to mind, my favorite statistic is actually lifetime wins, and even more so, the stories that those wins tell.

When you talk to past great juniors, the majority of them won’t tell you about their wins. They’ll tell you about the fierce competition they faced throughout their entire career–from large entries in the Novice classes, to extremely competitive Open Intermediate and Senior classes, all the way to Best Junior. To place was a good day, and to win was an honor. Those days, the entries of a single class would rival the total entries at a local show today. These previous Juniors have now gone on to campaign dogs at the highest level, and many are assets in the form of breeders, handlers, and assistants. They’ll tell you that they won 10, 20, or even 30 Best Juniors throughout their entire career. For most of them, they won’t come near the inflated numbers of today. Now, I regularly see Junior Handlers approaching “the hundred club,” a term I never would have even considered possible when I first started competing.

Even throughout my own time in Junior Showmanship, I watched as both competition and entries dwindled. I vividly remember watching the Open Senior class and Best Junior Handler at the Manatee Kennel Club show in Brooksville, Florida, when I was a Novice Junior. The juniors I watched battle it out became my icons; I wanted to be just like them. By the time I was their age, there was much less of a draw–and entry as a whole. Had we become the next generation for the youth to aspire to? Or had we all become a little more lax, with priorities shifting and judges becoming less enticing to compete under?

I want to revisit some of the past juniors whom I so admire. When asked about their time in Juniors, they describe it as a time of learning, a time of showing their puppies, new breeds, and a never-ending quest for knowledge. They raised their own dogs and pivoted to new projects when they became comfortable. Junior Showmanship was practice and preparation for careers in dogs. It was not an opportunity for a “junior’s career.”

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208 – April, 2026

Curated By Elaine Lessig

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194 – April, 2026

By Elaine Lessig

Yes! Expeditious is a real word. It implies being both quick and efficient. Look it up in a good dictionary. There, you will also get a greater understanding of the word. Dear readers, it is very important that you know. The tale to be shared with you will take you on an unexpected journey. Five American Kennel Club judges thought they were lost–only to find one another, and more, during a 3-day expedition. Together, with great empathy for each other, an effective, prompt, and skillful approach to return to their homes was set in motion. Without wasting any time, the five judges competently jumped into action without any hesitation or resistance. Determination is a good thing!

For me, the story begins on Saturday, February 21, 2026. I left the snow-covered wilds of New Jersey on February 18th for a four-day dog show in Madison, Wisconsin. All the weather reports estimated a two- to four-inch snowfall for our area. With three large snowstorms before this one, the amount seemed minuscule. At noon on the 21st, while at lunch, I received a text from United Airlines, which is never good news. Several others received one, too. My flight back to Newark Airport on Monday morning was cancelled. The Northeast was preparing for the most dangerous of the snowstorms this season. Blizzard conditions were expected beginning in the wee hours of Sunday through Monday morning. I rebooked my flight home for later on Monday after my flight early on Monday was canceled. By then, I anticipated the storm would be over and the runways cleared.

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192 – April, 2026

By Jordan Moore

I have been incredibly fortunate to become an advocate for assistants through the opportunity to publicly write for The Canine Chronicle. One of the most frequent questions I am asked is, “How do you not get burnt out?” The truth is, that is a complicated question.

When I was working for Erin Piercy-Foreman in California, she said something that has stayed with me ever since: this is a passion-based job. This is not a 9-to-5 job where you clock out and go home. You must truly love what you do to show dogs. Over the years, that statement has been proven to be true time and time again.

Every single person in this sport, not just assistants, begins for the same reason. We love the dogs. From there, exhibitors choose different paths. For many, becoming an assistant is about education. It is about learning the craft, understanding presentation, conditioning, timing, ring awareness, client relationships, and the countless details that go into being successful in this sport.

Now, let us get into the reality of it.

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186 – April, 2026

By Caroline Coile

In many species, odd colors are welcomed to the point that sometimes entire breeds are created around them. But in dogs, we tend to be conservative, especially when a color is related to possible health problems. We like our merle dogs to remain in our merle breeds, and our standards disallow the results of merle to merle breedings. They certainly disallow merles in non-merle breeds, silvers in non-silver breeds, and albinos in every breed. That said, the pet market has a demand for off-color dogs in every popular breed. Could the next fad “rarity” be colorpoints?

And how do these relate to albinos and Burmese-like patterned dogs?

Albinism and colorpoints are well-known in many mammals. In most of them, both traits appear to be caused by recessive alleles on the C locus. But that does not appear to be the case with dogs. In dogs, colorpoint is still caused by a recessive mutation at the C locus, but albinism is not.

What does seem to be shared throughout species with these coat patterns is some kind of mutation that affects the production of the tyrosinase enzyme that produces melanin. But the mutation need not be on the C-locus, as we shall see is the case in dogs.

Albino Dogs

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180 – April, 2026

By Lisa Dubé Forman

The future of purebred dog breeding may be hanging by a thread. Whether it is your hobby or your life’s calling, its future teeters on the tough realities we confront, ‘running dogs’ every day. Our sport and passion clash with growing costs that threaten all but the wealthiest or luckiest among us. Can ethical, small-scale purebred breeding survive today’s economic pressures?

As many of us have read, the AKC has been grappling with Net Operating Losses, largely because of declining dog registration revenue. Post-COVID, numbers have fallen below 2018 registration levels, revealing a sharp decline from the 1990 peaks. Breeders’ financial struggles are clearly influencing this steady shrinkage in registration numbers.

The inescapable macroeconomic factor is the rising cost of veterinary care, which is soaring and outpacing most breeders’ ability to keep up. Pet health insurance for a kennel full of dogs is a fantasy for many. Multi-dog policies are financially unattainable, and even basic plans are full of loopholes, require add-ons, or are capped at meager annual sums like $5,000 or lifetime caps of $10,000. The situation worsens as major insurers like Nationwide have canceled 100,000 or more policies, abandoning countless dogs–many aging or already ill–without coverage. Others may soon follow.

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166 – April, 2026