On the last Saturday in September, in Coventry, people brought Sussex Spaniels to their breed’s championship show. Some of them were not there to compete. They were there so a scientist could take a cheek swab.
The reason is a number. Fifteen Sussex Spaniel puppies were registered in the United Kingdom in 2025, down from 24 the year before. The Royal Kennel Club’s threshold for calling a native breed vulnerable is 300. This is a breed whose entire registered annual output would not fill a minibus.
What the swabs are for: the Royal Kennel Club and the Roslin Institute, with the Sussex Spaniel Association, are reading the DNA of up to 150 living dogs against the breed’s pedigree record — close to the whole registered population. The project was announced on 25 August 2026 with an £18,000 grant under Roslin’s pump-priming scheme. Its lead scientist, Pau Navarro, describes the goal as “an evidence-based approach to manage a population of healthy dogs.” The Royal Kennel Club’s Charlotte McNamara put it this way: “Advances in genetic technology now give us an exciting opportunity to build on this important benefit of RKC registration.” The 26 September sampling day has now happened. Results of work like this take many months, and as of the start of October nothing has been published.
Look at what that actually is. A breed club counted its own dogs, did not like the answer, went and found geneticists, and then asked its members to bring their dogs in and hand over their data. Nobody proposed fixing it by selling more puppies. The response to a small gene pool was to go and measure it properly, so the next twenty years of breeding decisions can be made on evidence instead of hope.
So here is the part that matters, and it is the opposite of what you might expect from a page about a rare dog: please do not go and find one. A breed at fifteen puppies a year cannot absorb a wave of interest, and the fastest way to hurt it would be to make it briefly fashionable. The useful things are all unglamorous. Join or support the Sussex Spaniel Association. Fund the diversity work. Learn the breed properly before you ever enquire about a litter. And when you tell someone this story, tell it accurately — including the number.
That is what stewardship looks like when the whole gene pool fits in a spreadsheet.
Sources
- Royal Kennel Club / Roslin Institute project announcement, 25 August 2026 — £18,000 Roslin Pump-Priming Scheme grant; DNA from living dogs read against the pedigree record; sampling at the Sussex Spaniel Championship Show plus a postal option. Figures verified 31 August 2026.
- Vet Times, “Rare dogs sought for new genetic project” — up to 150 dogs; Coventry championship show, 26 September; dogs not entered in the show could attend for sampling; quotes from Pau Navarro (Roslin) and Charlotte McNamara (RKC); 15 UK puppy registrations last year against the 300 vulnerable threshold. Read 1 October 2026.
- Royal Kennel Club and Roslin Institute launch genetic project to protect the Sussex Spaniel