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Does the colour of a gun dog reflect its quality?

Friends are trying to put me off buying a black and white springer bitch, saying gun dogs with this colouring are notoriously difficult to train, and have cocker in them making them hard to control. They say a 'proper springer' should be liver and white?

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Gundogs
PETER BLATCH says: Let’s get one thing clear from the start here – the colour of the gun dog makes no difference to the way it behaves, or reacts to its training.

Attitude and trainability is instead, all down to breeding and bloodlines.

For what it’s worth, three of the best springers I’ve ever trained have been black and white.

As regards the point you make about other breeds such as cockers being introduced into the ancestry, who knows?

I would’ve thought border collie was maybe a safer bet bearing in mind size and colour?

All I can say is that black and white or liver and white makes no difference at all to the training of a spaniel.