The author congratulates his English cocker, Rascal, on a job well done.

In North America, the adjective English conjures a vision of tweedy gentlemen with fine etiquette. This image, however, simply won't do for the field-bred English cocker spaniels I've known. The cockers of my experience are more accurately personified as amply liquored south Londoners with a heavy Cockney accent, the sort who call you "Mate" and laugh boisterously at jokes that fly past a bewildered Yank.

In order to fall in smoothly with such people, an American must invest considerable time and acquire a new sense of humor, but the resulting fun is well worth the effort. The same goes for field-bred cockers. They are a pint of stout, not a cup of tea.

Which English Cocker?
By now the observant reader will have noticed the recurring qualification: "field bred." I have thus cracked the lid on a can of worms, and might as well dump them out. There is a definite split in this breed, and space limitations compel me to focus on one side of that split. I do not mean to diminish the worth of show- or dual-type English cockers. Rather, I am both confessing my ignorance and making a judgment about which type of dog most readers of this magazine would be happiest with.

I am certainly no expert on show dogs, and will leave their discussion to people more qualified than I. (See "For More Information" at the end of this article.) My modest firsthand experience with dual-type cockers leaves me convinced that a dual-type cocker is basically a show-type cocker that can pass a "hunting test."

More worms will squirm free with my encapsulation of hunting test in quotation marks, but I'm willing to bear the scorn. I've spent a quarter century hunting eight species of upland birds and 10 species of waterfowl in wild habitats from Georgia to Alberta, and I killed those birds over nine breeds of sporting dogs representing all major categories: pointers, retrievers, spaniels and versatile breeds.

Dell, Billy and Bud Light await commands from trainer Martin Bell, demonstrating the breed's eagerness to work. (Right) Bud Light, a honey-colored English cocker, delivers a Dokken dummy to trainer Martin Bell.

I've also witnessed hunting tests for all these breeds conducted by several parent clubs and registries. Among the spaniel ranks, the difference between hunting tests and wild bird hunting seems analogous to the difference between passing a quiz and having a real job. I apply this critique especially to Working Dog tests (WD, WDX). "Working Dogs" are more a cup of tea than a pint of stout. If you want a dual-type cocker, stick with bloodlines having a preponderance of AKC Junior, Senior and Master Hunter suffixes (JH, SH, MH).

At the present time, I believe the cocker field trial circuit--though not perfect--is a better proving ground for hunting cockers than are hunting tests. Trials more closely simulate the demands and conditions of real hunting. And spaniel field trials are currently dominated by field-bred dogs. Good field-bred dogs are identified by pedigrees showing ancestors with "FC" pre-fixes (Field Champion).

In appearance, field-bred cockers have longer backs, tails and muzzles than show- or dual-type dogs, and their ears are shorter and higher-set. All of these characteristics are advantageous in the field. Look at the pictures in this article, and you'll see what a field-bred cocker looks like.

There. Those are the dogs I'm talking about.