The Cocker Spaniel 257 



Premier just touched the top Hmit of weight when in condition. The 

 well-known and miich-liked Mr. George Dunn was a welcome visitor at 

 New York this year, and his successes with Freedom, Rose of Ruby, Pre- 

 tender and Black Knight of Woodstock, a dog he did better with on other 

 occasions, were well received. Mr. C. H. Mason introduced us to Surprise, 

 a black bitch, which hardly realised all the expectations of her owner, 

 though in every class shown she was one of the placed bitches, and took two 

 firsts, including that in open. The judging was a little ragged here and 

 there on this occasion, such, for instance, as a very pretty little red, Pitti 

 Sing, getting no mention in puppy class, second in novice, and reserve in 

 open, while Mr. Payne's good particolour Romany Rye was second in one 

 class and dropped back to highly commended in his next one. It must be 

 said, however, that the classes were large, the puppy class having thirty 

 entries alone, and the task set the judge was as difficult as was ever given 

 a man at New York, on account of the evenness of some of the competitions 

 and perhaps a lack of strength on the whole. 



During the past five years it has not seemed to us that much advance 

 has been made in cockers. The decrease in size is not to our mind, for, 

 although it is the custom to talk of merry little cockers, they are yet dogs 

 intended for work, and some of the champions, even of the present day, 

 are not much heavier than good-sized toy spaniels and are shorter on the 

 leg. The change in the weights of the cockers made four years ago was 

 not because it was absolutely desirable to get smaller dogs, but because they 

 could not be kept up in size to what was formerly the case when they ran 

 from twenty-two pounds, as a small dog, up to the limit of twenty-eight, 

 and shown light at that. We can very well remember being taken to task 

 by nearly every spaniel man except the owner of a neat cocker of about 

 nineteen pounds which we had placed up in the prize list at a prominent 

 show in the New York district. A very short time ago we were judging 

 the breed, and in one class there was a most diminutive specimen, of which 

 we asked the weight. "Eighteen pounds." That is the low limit. We 

 would have liked to put her on the scales, but there were none at the show, 

 for on looking at the catalogue we found she was a champion, and we are 

 very well certain that unless fed up for the occasion she could not scale the 

 required weight. Yet this toy was not so very much smaller than the run 

 of the cockers of the present day as to excite any particular comment, 

 whereas twenty-five years ago she might have got a highly commended 



