Cocker Spaniel breed guide

Cocker Spaniels are eager playmates for kids and easily trained as companions and athletes. AKC calls this a people-pleasing breed that wants to be good in order to please its people and is sensitive to a disapproving tone.

Harsh correction does not work with such a responsive dog.

Cocker Spaniels live 10 to 14 years. AKC says the breed has good longevity. The American Spaniel Club has a health committee that recommends required health testing to breeders and a conscientious breeder can show records of hip, patella and eye testing on both parents.

Cocker Spaniels need regular, thorough grooming and missed sessions are not easily made up and lead to tangles or mats. AKC calls a professional-quality metal comb with fine and medium teeth a necessity, with a gentle slicker brush as a follow-up but the comb as the key.

The Cocker Spaniel is a sporting breed that should keep good muscle tone, though it does not need a lot of exercise to burn off abundant energy. Cocker Spaniels often get theirs by retrieving a ball or toy or going on walks.

The spaniel is a breed type of great antiquity, believed to have originated in Spain, since the words Spain and spaniel are closely related. Spaniels helped bird hunters before the rifle, when hunting dogs worked in tandem with nets.

For centuries European and British spaniels were grouped loosely as spaniels that worked on land and spaniels that worked in water and by the 19th century, as written breed standards, dog shows and field trials took hold in England, they were classified as specific breeds.