English Springer Spaniel Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
39 free English Springer Spaniel trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This English Springer Spaniel trivia quiz covers the flushing gun dog from John Caius's 1576 Treatise to today's sniffer-dog units. History questions trace why the breed 'springs' game, how springers and cockers came from the same litter, the Norfolk and Shropshire spaniels behind the breed, Kennel Club recognition in 1902, the AKC in 1910 and the first Field Champion, Rivington Sam, whose mother was a registered cocker. The breed section covers what may be the widest show-versus-field divide of any breed: gene pools segregated for 70 years, the docked stub versus the working tail, coat colours from liver-and-white to blue roan and tricolour, the UK standard's 20-inch height, and the health studies on hepatitis, hip dysplasia and life expectancy. Working springers get their due: Dickin Medal winners Buster and Theo, London bombing search dog Jake, and noses trained on everything from bumblebee nests to C. difficile. White House springers Millie and Spot Fetcher, plus Max the Miracle Dog, round it out. Questions run from easy to expert with a difficulty score on each, so it suits a family quiz or a real gun-dog buff. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and breed references and each question carries its citation. Also try our Dogs and English Cocker Spaniel quizzes.
30 of 39 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Springer spaniels got their name because they were used to do what to game birds?
Flush them into the air
Flush them into the air. Before sporting guns existed, a springer's job was to startle game out of cover so that waiting hawks, nets or coursing hounds could take it.
Q 02Until the early 20th century, springers shared litters with which breed?
Cocker Spaniel
Cocker Spaniel. Size alone sorted a litter: the smaller pups were sent after woodcock and called cockers, while their bigger brothers and sisters were worked on other game.
Q 03The English Springer descends from which mid-19th-century spaniels?
Norfolk or Shropshire
Norfolk or Shropshire. Dog writers of the day called the Norfolk label a misnomer, with no real tie to the county, and it was dropped once the Kennel Club recognised these spaniels as English Springers.
Q 04At Crufts, the English Springer Spaniel competes in which breed group?
Gundog
Gundog. The Kennel Club's own standard calls the springer the oldest of the sporting gundogs, a type that was already hunting beside falconers long before anyone carried a gun.
Q 05The word 'spaniel' comes from an Old French phrase with what literal meaning?
Spanish dog
Spanish dog. Old French 'espagneul' records where medieval hunters believed these bird dogs came from, though whether the first spaniels really were from Spain is uncertain.
Q 06George H. W. Bush joked that Millie's pups slept on newspapers, the first time the press had been used to prevent what?
Leaks
Leaks. Bush told a Kentucky fundraiser in 1989 that the pups were bedded down on the Washington Post and the New York Times, and that all six were already spoken for.
Q 07Which English physician described the spaniel in a Latin treatise translated in 1576 as Of Englishe Dogges?
John Caius
John Caius. He wrote it in Latin as a letter to the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner, and his English translator filed the spaniel among the 'gentle dogs serving the hawk'.
Q 08Spot Fetcher's father, Tug Farish, came from a Kentucky farm far better known for breeding what?
Racehorses
Racehorses. Tug belonged to Will Farish of Lane's End Farm, a thoroughbred stud, and George H. W. Bush joked that a sire named Tug Farish III was just what his elitist image needed.
Q 09What is the fringe of longer hair on a springer's ears, chest, legs and belly called?
Feathering
Feathering. Both breed standards want it moderate, and American exhibitors may thin it for the ring because too much 'destroys the clean outline desirable in a sporting dog'.
Q 10The Dickin Medal, won by the springers Buster and Theo, is known as the animals' version of which decoration?
Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross. The PDSA created the medal in 1943, and in its first years most winners were not dogs at all: 32 of the 54 wartime medals went to messenger pigeons.
Q 11At which dog show had English Springers won Best in Show six times by 2025, most recently in 2007?
Westminster
Westminster. Only two terrier breeds have more wins there, and the 2007 winner, a dog called James, was sent into retirement straight after his victory.
Q 12Since 2007, English law has banned which practice on dogs but exempted working springers and other spaniels?
Tail docking
Tail docking. A vet may still dock a puppy from working stock in its first five days, on the argument that a full-length tail gets injured when the dog works in thick cover.
Q 13Compared with show springers, field-bred springers have coats that are what?
Shorter and coarser
Q 21English Springers are prone to a severe chronic inflammation of which organ, often striking unusually young?
The liver
The liver. The disease is chronic hepatitis, and researchers have tied the breed's risk to inherited immune-system genes, a sign that the dog's own defences may be turning on the organ.
Q 22Which inherited condition leaves some springer puppies unable to feel pain in their paws?
Acral mutilation syndrome
Acral mutilation syndrome. From about four months old affected pups lick and bite their own feet, because a mutation shared with pointers and French spaniels dulls the pain that would stop them.
Q 23Buster, a Dickin Medal springer, found a hidden arsenal of weapons and explosives in which country?
Iraq
Shorter and coarser. A field dog's coat seldom needs more than an occasional brush, while a show dog's longer fur takes regular grooming and clipping.
Q 14Which mountain did Kerry Irving climb with his springer Max a year after the dog got him walking again?
Ben Nevis
Ben Nevis. A road accident had left Irving unable to walk and severely depressed; two years later he met Max, and twelve months after that the pair climbed the mountain together.
Q 15After the springer Buster sniffed out a hidden arsenal, attacks stopped and British troops swapped their steel helmets for what?
Berets
Berets. An earlier search by soldiers had found nothing before Buster located rifles, grenades and bomb-making kit sealed in a wall cavity behind a wardrobe.
Q 16Which of these is a recognised English Springer colour combination?
Liver and white
Liver and white. Black and white is just as acceptable, but the American standard rules that off colours such as lemon, red or orange 'are not to place' in the show ring.
Q 17Where does the American standard put the tan markings on a tricolour springer?
Eyebrows, cheeks, ears and under the tail
Eyebrows, cheeks, ears and under the tail. The American standard maps the tan that precisely, while the British one stops at three words: 'with tan markings'.
Q 18Which Scottish terrier shared George W. Bush's White House with the springer Spot Fetcher?
Barney
Barney. The pair co-starred in the White House's 2003 holiday film 'Barney and Spot's Winter Wonderland', made shortly before Spot's death in February 2004.
Q 19Which recurring health problem is the English Springer especially prone to because of the way it is built?
Ear infections
Ear infections. Long, floppy ear flaps cut the airflow to the ear canal and trap moisture inside, which lets bacteria and yeast build up.
Q 20A Kennel Club survey of UK breed clubs found what to be the most common cause of death in springers?
Cancer
Cancer. The same survey found it was the leading killer of pedigree dogs as a whole, ahead of old age and heart conditions, so the springer follows the general pattern rather than a breed quirk.
Iraq. Buster was the only arms and explosives search dog working there at the time, and his find in the village of Safwan was credited with saving the lives of soldiers and civilians.
Q 24Jake, a Metropolitan Police springer, won a PDSA Gold Medal for his searches after which London attack?
The 7 July 2005 bombings
The 7 July 2005 bombings. At Tavistock Square Jake cleared a safe route through glass and twisted metal so that an explosives officer and paramedics could reach the wrecked bus.
Q 25Toby, a springer trained for a British conservation charity, was taught to sniff out what?
Bumblebee nests
Bumblebee nests. They are small and usually hidden underground or in dense vegetation, so researchers who wanted to count colonies needed a nose to find them.
Q 26Theo, a bomb-detection springer, died hours after his handler was killed in which country in 2011?
Afghanistan
Afghanistan. Liam Tasker was shot while on patrol with the Irish Guards; Theo was carried back to Camp Bastion, where he suffered a seizure and died, and the two were flown home on the same plane.
Q 27Millie, the springer of George H. W. and Barbara Bush, was named after whom?
A family friend
A family friend. She was called after Mildred Kerr, a long-time friend of the couple, and years later the White House still listed her formally as Mildred Kerr Bush.
Q 28Royalties from Millie's Book, the Bush springer's 1990 bestseller, were given to a foundation for which cause?
Family literacy
Family literacy. In 1991 the book earned $889,176, more than four times the president's $200,000 salary, and Barbara Bush passed the after-tax proceeds to her literacy foundation.
Q 29Millie's White House litter was born in 1989 on which holiday?
St. Patrick's Day
St. Patrick's Day. The same day George H. W. Bush told reporters he would bet on six puppies, 'and we've done no sonograms', and Millie duly delivered six.
Q 30George W. Bush's springer Spot Fetcher was named after a player for which baseball team?
Texas Rangers
Texas Rangers. Bush was an owner of the club when the pup arrived, and he named her for its infielder Scott Fletcher, bending the surname into a job description.