Although the moniker, “Swamp Poodle” tickles our funny bone, the Boykin Spaniel’s other nickname is “the dog that doesn’t rock the boat.”  A photo we came across in Garden and Gun Magazine‘s Top Reader Photos from 2015 illustrates nicely why South Carolina’s State Dog earned this description.

Back in the early 1900s, hunters navigating on South Carolina’s Wateree River used as vessels tiny “section boats” that were transported, and often used, in pieces. Each piece could fit one person and one dog, but most retrievers were too big. Boykins could not only fit into these small boats, but jump out of it without rocking the boat, and be hauled back into it without tipping both dog and hunter into the water.

Photo of “Jazz,” a Boykin Spaniel from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina