HAVE WE HIT ROCK BOTTOM?
A CENTURY OF NUMBERS
Do not kill the messenger. There is no sugar coating the fact: cocker spaniels registrations for 2015 are
as low as the 1930s. For 2015 the estimate is for 3,750
cockers! The AKC has the Cocker Spaniel holding to
#30 as the USA Top Dogs for 2014. And for the year
2015 there isn’t much change in total registrations.
This is the good news. For almost three years in a
row the registration number will remain the same,
halting a stunning 25 years decline.
Cocker Spaniels ranked number one from 19361953. Beagles attained top spot after that from 19541959. Poodles would become the most popular
breed, reigning from 1960 for the next twenty-two
years until 1982. Cocker Spaniels made a comeback
and were number one again from 1983-1990, making
them the dog with the longest total reign in the top
spot at 25 years. In 1991, the Labrador retriever took
over and remains the leader of the pack today for the
24th consecutive year, continuing the longest reign
as the USA’s top dog in AKC history. In 2002 cockers
were 15th and continued to plunge to 16th in 2006,
to 17th in 2007 and 23th in 2009.
2014 TOP DOG (AKC)
#1
•
LABRADOR
#178
•
COCKER SPANIEL
•
NORWEGIAN LUNDEHUND
#30
Source: AKC Registration Statistic
JEAN DELISLE
AKC’s peak year for registrations was 1992 with
approximately 1.5 million dogs. By 2010, the total
annual AKC dog registrations were 563,611. This is
an astounding 63% decrease.
H o w m a n y Cocker Spaniels are registered in
the USA today? Since 2009 AKC does not publish
this statistic. But there are ways to estimate the numbers.
MORE THAN NUMBERS
Looking at the last one hundred years of cocker
spaniels registrations, you can see 2 peaks (Figure 1):
1947-48 and 1990-91.
From 1920 the
American
Spaniel
Club
gave
its
Specialty at the Hotel
Roosevelt in New
York early January
each year. And the
Cocker Spaniel parent
Club’s annual rendezvous grew in reputation. In 1923 ASC
introduced
the
Futurity Stake to
encourage breeding
Ch. My Own Brucie,
better
Cocker
Life Magazine Feb. 1941
Spaniels. In 1925 ASC
had about 65 members and more then 400 by 1945
and over 600 by 1959. The popularity of the Cocker
spaniel quintuples between 1920 and 1930; this fame
was helped when W.T. Payne’s Ch. Midkiff
Seductive was Best in Show at Westminster in 1921.
QUINQUENNIAL COCKER SPANIELS REGISTRATIONS
U.S.A. (1915-2015)
continued on page 22
AMERICAN SPANIEL CLUB, INC. BULL US