My first-ever interaction with an English Springer Spaniel was when my wife, Emily, brought one home. When considering which dog breed our first hunting dog should be, we ultimately landed on the one with which Emily was most familiar. She grew up with Springers, and consequently, that is where we landed. At that time, we weren’t aware of the differences between bench and field bred dogs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as our involvement in bird hunting deepened, so did our knowledge of the breed.

Our first dog, Dixie, was most likely a bench bred dog. Bench bred dogs are those who are bred with the goal of placing in the show ring. I say most likely because she came from an inconspicuous farm litter but was physically more similar to a bench dog (we’ll get into that in a bit). 

As Dixie got older, we got on a list for a field bred Springer Spaniel. These dogs are bred with the rigors of field trials and hunt tests in mind; hence the term field bred. Our first field bred dog, Timber, died from a gastrointestinal fungal infection before her second birthday. At that point, we got Fern. Then, roughly a year later, Wild, who has the same mother as Timber, joined our family. 

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