It’s hard to ignore the influence that members of religious life have had on different dog breeds. From the Benedictine monks of Saint Bernard to Pastor John Russell, and all the nuns and Buddhist monks in between, many breeds have been developed, preserved, or nurtured by ecclesiastics. Recently, we found another one.

With its fringed long ears and deep round eyes, the Saint-Usuge Spaniel is an obvious member of the spaniel family, and a very old one, at that. That its origins in the Bresse region of France date back to at least the 16th century is confirmed by tapestries from the Palace of the Popes and various castles in Avignon. The hunters’ diary of 1838 also mentioned the qualities of this breed, but history falls short of telling us why the Saint-Usuge was nearly extinct by the end of the Second World War. Had a newly ordained young priest not had his heart set on hunting with a local breed, this handsome breed would be lost to us forever.

Enter Robert Billard. Not long after WWII, Billard received his Roman collar. He was assigned to a parish in Saône-et-Loire in the Bresse region of France, and it didn’t take long for his parishioners to learn that their new priest was an active hunter. He was in need of a gun dog and preferred to have a local breed, and that’s when locals told him of the Epagneul de Saint Usuge. Finding one in 1947, however, was a challenge.

Father Billard visited hunters living in nearby villages to inquire about such dogs, and then contacted the Societe Centrale Canine to find what happened to the breed. That’s when he learned that the last record of a Saint-Usuge Spaniel was from a dog show in 1936 in the nearby town of Louhans. Undaunted, he continued his search and eventually found a bitch named “Poupette” who fit the description of a Saint-Usuge Spaniel. By now, Billard had a notion to resurrect the breed.

In 1950, he struck gold, so to speak, when he found “Dick,” the son of “Braco,” the dog who had won Best in Show back in 1936.  Over the coming years, Billard assembled suitable dogs to include in his reconstruction of the breed. In 1962, for example, he included a Small Munsterlander female named “Bianca von der Rumerburg” because the phenotype of her breed standard was similar to the Saint-Usuge’s.

Over the next thirty-three years, Father Billard’s breeding program produced nearly 250 dogs. In 1980, the program was handed over to a local conservationist, M. Serge Bey, who shared his vision.  The breed was received in the LOF (French Origin Book), and in 1990, an official club – the Club de lEpagneul de Saint-Usuge – was founded. The Societe Centrale Canine recognized the Saint Usuge Spaniel in 2003.

To our knowledge, no other registry yet recognizes the breed, but word is getting out about it. There are dogs in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, and there is a Saint Usuge Spaniel Society of North America site seems inactive. Intelligent, sweet, and easy-to-train, about the only flaw the Saint Usuge Spaniel has is that it is hard to find. Were it not for a simple parish priest, there would be nothing to find at all. A good place to start looking, however, is its Facebook page.

Image: Posted by DanielV27 onto Wikimedia Commons