Origin

When Carthaginian people touched at during one of their Mediterranean or Spanish crossing, soldiers got view of great numbers of rabbits and shouted "Span, span" ( Span was a term for a rabbit).
That way Hispany (by another name Rabbit country) got its name and the dogs which made use of rabbit-hunting were called spaniels. Another theory talks about how Celtic people brought overhanging-ears dogs during the British islands colonization. Usually they was called "bird dogs", because they was used for bird hunting. They was able to sniff them for a long distances and they were slowly coming near. Next they stopped in specific distance and waited - huntsmen with net got near from opposite side and pushed the birds inside the net. Second type of "bird dogs" was smaller, ideally tailored to track the slot and drive the animals out even in shaggy green. Hunters entitled this "bird dogs" as a spaniels, probably according to their origin native country. First time when the name "Spaniel" appeared was in 948 when Welsh king Howel mentioned these hunting-dogs. Next spaniels became more and more popular. A Geoffrey Chaucer testtifies this in his Cantebury tales ("she barked on him as a spaniel") and also William Shakespeare in 1549.
At he time of Henry VIII. Spaniels were used for pushing the birds to huntsmen, who were prepared with outstredched nets so that a dog as well as a bird were cought under the net. Since 1697 the name "sitters" or "sitting spaniels" (English whippet coalfaces) was used for longlegged flushing dogs and title "spaniels" was used for shortlegged ones. There were differences in clouring and size between them by and by single breeds came up. Without doubt cockerspaniel became one of the most popular breed. It is better tailored to hunt in scrub as well as chasing woodcocks. We can understand from it that the cockerspaniel name was derived from "woodcock" or from "cockpheasant". It lasted up to 1900 till the cockerspniel standard subsequently got settled. In 1902 the first standard was founded and it stands good with small changes up to the present day.