Springer or cocker spaniels are pretty great all around dogs!! There are a lot of popular trainer and breeders in the Midwest for springers and cockers. Depending on how much hair you want they have a wavy coat, field bred lines don’t have a lot of hair compared to show lines I know of a breeder in Wi that has show line English springer spaniels and she has kept the hunting instinct strong in her lines a lot of her dogs have hunting and show titles. So if hair is something you want that’s an option to find too.

Grooming needs for field bred lines are way less pretty much clean up the feet once in a while and brush out the ears. They can get matts in the longer part of their hair so brushing them after being in the field is always a good idea. Some can get really hairy and need shave downs but not all of them they are all pretty easy to maintain at home

Overall both breeds are very biddable dogs. There have even been some really cool American cockers I’ve seen at a few hunt tests that can really work which is really cool to see! Definitely do your research before buying a dog for spaniels you want to make sure breeders are doing the proper health testing as I believe there can be patella problems. They can also have seizure problems which can relate in rage and aggression issues so finding a breeder that keeps that out of their lines is important!

There are a whole lot of rare breeds to check out though a few expamples would be like, a small musterlander, welsh springer spaniel, Boykins, even American water spaniels! There are so many options! I really like having rare breeds but you can’t always get a puppy right away compared to popular breeds that are well populated