Part 12 of Jackpot's Journey

My name is Jackpot and I’m an English Springer spaniel. You probably

already knew that but it might be new to some of you.

Lots of people ask why they see lots of gun-dog breeds being used to do

search work. Well, the thing is that we’ve been working alongside humans to

help them with their hunting, since around 700-400 BC. That’s a long time in

human years, but even longer in dog years!

This means that we’ve learnt to be your teammate for a very long time.

Hunting for animals is different, but it’s not very much different to hunt for

something else you ask us to.

All of those thousands of years of learning to work alongside humans as

hunters mean that our brains and inside our bodies are different to other dog breeds. It means that we can’t help but find searching for things super exciting.

Searching for stuff is as exciting to gun-dog breeds as eating yummy foods is to humans. Then when you throw the ball for us to chase afterwards, well, that’s a bit like you eating the stickiest, gooiest dessert ever. It’s amazing!!

Lots of dogs can do what we do because they have a nose, and it’s good for

them to use those noses. They are just as clever too, but we just do it a bit

differently.

We want to work with our teammate, we want to be as close as possible to

them, we’ve been bred to listen closely to them, and so we make it easy for

them to train us.

And we don’t really want to grow up so we have lots and lots of energy for a

long time.