276 The Dog Book ‘ 
Cleveland. From this partial list of owners it will be seen that they were 
owned in the ducking districts of the West, and when these owners and 
others like them lost interest in the breed no one else seemed willing to 
fill their places. At one time we thought that the giving up of Irish water 
spaniels was on account of sportsmen preferring the shorter-coated Chesa- 
peake, for a full-sized Irish spaniel is by no means a pleasant neighbour in 
a boat or blind when he comes in from a swim. That solution would not 
answer, however, for the Chesapeake was as scarce throughout the western 
ducking grounds of Illinois and Missouri as the Irish. Then it became 
apparent that the times had changed; our sportsmen in place of accepting 
what English writers advised in the way of dogs, formed their own con- 
clusions and adopted what they wanted and found useful. 
Our duck hunters learned that a dog was not an absolute necessity, 
as was the case in quail or grouse shooting, and as soon as that was realised 
the boom of the Irish water spaniel terminated. The bulk of the duck 
shooting is done on still water in the West, and as Mr. Joseph A. Graham 
aptly quotes a Missouri ducker: “It is as easy to pick up the ducks as 
the decoys when through shooting.” That is the reason for the decline of 
the Irish water spaniel in this country, and a duck hunter, when he wants 
a dog, takes anything that will retrieve. There are plenty of setters, 
spaniels and half-breeds that will do that and be useful in other ways. 
It is almost as a curiosity that we must now view the Irish water spaniel, 
and not as an essential in wild-fowl shooting, except in certain situations, 
such as tidal or running waters, where quick recovery of shot birds is 
necessary, and in weather which calls fora strong dog, well clothed and 
able to do the hard work of retrieving under such circumstances. 
Of the dogs of fame in this country, there were some which would 
make many of the later-day champions look decidedly common. Such 
a dog was Mr. Olcott’s Barney, though it was to Mr. Holabird, of Valparaiso, 
Ind., that we owed the introduction of this excellent dog and his mate 
Judy, both from Mr. Skidmore’s kennels. Another good one was Mike, 
also by the same sire, Skidmore’s Shamrock. Barney was the better by a 
good deal, but he had not the perpetual youth of Mike, whose maximum 
catalogue age was five years for some time. From these two dogs there 
were many descendants in the West, for Mike, after being shown by Mr. 
W. B. Wells, of Chatham, passed into the hands of Olcott and Whitman 
¢ and then to Mr. Olcott, as the Excelsior Irish Water Spaniel Club. Mr. 
