#cocker comparison

[doomspaniels]

I do love watching these two chase scent trails, particularly when they're in Spaniel Sniffin' Sync.

[doomspaniels]

Your two spaniels look so different! Are they American or English spaniels? Is one a mixed breed? Also I love them and they are adorable!

Thank you! They're delightful, and I am so glad to share their silly faces with everyone.

Tristan is a 3-yr-old American cocker spaniel, bred for the conformation ring. Guinevere is a 1-yr-old English cocker spaniel, bred to hunt in the field all day. They're not just different breeds of cocker, they're as far apart as they can get and still both be "cocker spaniels." But it's so fun to watch them, because the brains inside those skulls still have essentially the same set of instincts.

Because they're both pets, and I teach mostly fun tricks, all their scent behaviors are pretty much instinct and their own practice. They catch the same scents, they move with the same bouncy trot, they follow trails with the same amount of assuredness, together or independently following the same paths.

They enjoy tricks, they like to carry toys and fetch, they want to play, they want to cuddle, they have the most unbelievable ability to get into things they should not be able to get into.

Here's a post I wrote briefly comparing all my cockers, though I don't know much (if anything) about the backgrounds of my three previous cockers.

And I wrote this comparison of Tristan and Gwyn after watching them together for two months.

I have loved the attentive, playful mischief brains of all our cockers. It's very enjoyable to see these two together, so different but so the same. I'm looking forward to Guinevere as an adult, with a little less undirected puppy fidgets and a little more attention span.