History
The Russian Spaniel is the youngest of the Russian gundogs. It originated mostly from English Cocker Spaniels and English Springer Spaniels. Breeds known as Russian Spaniels have been mentioned as early as 1891 in New Zealand.
The first recorded spaniel in Russia was a black Cocker Spaniel owned by hunting enthusiast Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich towards the end of the 19th century. Because of its noble connections, spaniels of various breeds were imported to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Some were used for hunting, but the smaller spaniels were not of much use in Russian bird hunting due to the weather and terrain conditions. It was at the beginning of the 20th century that selective breeding began for longer legged spaniels; specifically importing Springer Spaniels to create a rather mixed Russian Spaniel.
By the late 1930s there were a variety of spaniels in Moscow, Leningrad and Sverdlovsk that did not fit any specific spaniel breed standard, but were not yet standardised into the modern Russian Spaniel. Purposeful breeding after World War II led to the original Russian Spaniel standard in 1951. Further revised standards were issued in 1966 and 2000.
The popularity of the breed in Russia increased after the early 1990s, with Moscow dog shows since that time annually including between 120 and 131 Russian Spaniels, which qualifies the breed as one of the most popular, along with the Irish Setter. In 2002, the Russian Spaniel Club was set up in the United States to increase the knowledge of the breed outside Russia and to enable owners to register their dogs.
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