Religious following of state dog comes to town this weekend

The answer is a yelping "yes" when it comes to the official state dog, the Boykin spaniel.

The friendly Boykin with its rich brown curls can hunt turkey, dove, ducks, rabbits, moles, you name it.

But the new, expanded and revised edition of the definitive book on the Boykin answers another important question: Where does it worship the Lord?

Accepting the right answer will require some faith.

"The Boykin Spaniel" by Mike Creel and Lynn Kelley tells about the original sire of the breed, a dog named Dumpy that may have escaped from the circus. It followed a man named A.L. White as he walked to church down Main Street in Spartanburg back around the turn of the 20th century.

Creel believes it was First Presbyterian Church the smart little dog tried to attend with its new friend, but the story changed through the years to include a Methodist version.

"Not to be outdone, Southern Baptists have also gotten involved in this debate," the book says. "As one Southern Baptist wag put it, 'Let the Methodists and the Presbyterians carry on all they want to about the religious preference of this dog, but I'm telling you that any dog in South Carolina who loves water as much as a Boykin spaniel HAS to be a Baptist.' "

Creel and Kelley will be in Beaufort on Saturday signing copies of the new book from the University of South Carolina Press. They'll be at Beaufort Bookstore from 10 a.m. to noon and McIntosh Booke Shoppe from 1 to 3 p.m. They were at Bay Street Trading Co. a couple of weeks ago.

If the Boykin has a religious following -- and its societies now claim thousands of masters from every state in the union and many foreign countries -- Creel stoked the revival. He wrote the "untold" story of the flagging Boykin breed for South Carolina Wildlife magazine in 1975 and the rest is history.

Leave it to a Beaufort County Boykin to roam the fields and streams of -- a golf course.

John F. Davis, director of golf course and property operations for the Secession Golf Club in Beaufort, takes his Boykin to work every day. He and Ellie spend half their time on the course on Gibbes Island, where Ellie helps Davis keep the links up to snuff. She keeps the geese away.

Ellie has a club full of masters who all love her, and she knows just which staff workers to seek out for dog biscuits, and in what order to make her daily rounds.

But Davis trained her to hunt, and says the South Carolina state dog should be more than a family dog.

"They've got to run," he said. "They've got to be outside. You've got to spend a lot of time with them."

And that includes church on Sunday.