The LBD: How the Boykin spaniel became South Carolina’s favorite little brown dog

^{A 1988 duck stamp by Jim Killen featuring a Boykin spaniel, which became the South Carolina state dog in 1985.}

I met my first Boykin spaniel in 1989, when I arrived to teach at The Citadel. One of my new colleagues in the English department invited me to his home for dinner, and that’s where I met Paxton. It was a memorable encounter: When my friend opened the door, a little creature came hurtling through the air toward me like a furry football that had been launched from a catapult—alarming, but also kind of adorable.  

The dog was introduced to me as a Boykin, but I heard “boinkin.’” It was only later that I learned that the breed’s backstory originated in Boykin, South Carolina, and that it was an Upstate name, similar to the troublesome Lowcountry monikers I was just then beginning to get the hang of, like Huger and Legare. 

The origin story of what is affectionately called the “little brown dog” takes place in Boykin, a Kershaw County town just south of Spartanburg. One Sunday in the early 1900s, a banker named Alexander White was walking to church when he noticed he was being tailed (or spanieled, as it were) by a small brown dog. After the service, said dog followed him home. Loving the canine for its loyalty, White adopted him and named him “Dumpy.”

White’s friend and hunting partner, Lemuel Whitaker Boykin (“Whit” for short), was also a dog breeder. He started crossing Dumpy with other flushers and retrievers, like springers and cocker spaniels. Whit aimed to create a dog that would fit hunters’ needs—specifically those pursuing doves, ducks, quail, and the like, from a boat. Labradors and similar bird-hunting breeds were too big for the skiffs they used, and their tails would often get in the way of the outboard motors. Hunters needed a small, compact dog with a bobbed tail that would not rock the boat. By the 1920s, after years of trial and error, the Boykin spaniel was being bred to type.

The Boykin eventually became embedded in the lore of the state. In 1984, then-Governor Richard Riley proclaimed September 1 to be Boykin Spaniel Day (coinciding with the start of dove hunting season). One year later, the legislature named it the state dog. The breed has appeared on duck hunting stamps, the covers of Orvis catalogs, and of course, it’s the dock dog you see doing what comes naturally at SEWE competitions each February—jumping eye-popping distances across bodies of water with a kind of effortless grandeur and legs like steel springs.

Now, about my own Boykin, Ivy. To be truthful, Ivy can do none of these things, but we’re both okay with that. Not a working dog, she’s a creature of leisure. The extent of her outdoor expeditions is to sniff and wiggle around the neighborhood twice a day and then be ready for the blessed relief of the air conditioning. (I think she takes after me.) 

The flip side to these hunting dogs is that they are also the most loving creatures on the planet—always happy, always smiling. Ivy’s lush, liver coat and yellow eyes are irresistible. She has two speeds, “high” and “off,” and when she gets excited, as she regularly does, her little nub of a tail twitches manically like a fisherman’s fly rod with a good-sized trout on the hook. Then, she likes to rest. As I write this, Ivy is on the floor draped across my feet, a vigilant overseer of my activities: Don’t go anywhere without me, Pops!

There are no famous Boykins that I know of—none like Lassie or the Target bull terrier, unless you count Stephen Colbert’s Boykin, Benny, who sometimes sits in the guest chair opposite him on the set of Late Night. The rest of the country would probably know nothing at all of the breed were it not for Benny. However, being a Southerner, he is mild-mannered and retiring and would never do anything to show off on television. Good dog!

So, that’s the story of how the little brown dog came to be, why I ended up with one, and why you see so many Boykins (and girlkins) across the Southeast. Camden, South Carolina, is Boykin central. If you happen to find yourself there on April 9 through 11, you can see the National Spring Field Trials and the Boykin Spaniel Society’s great work on display. You just might end up bringing a LBD home with you. If you do, know that they’ll have your heart forever.