Maybe I've missed the reason for the question. In fact I must have. You have a dog that's been trained to work, quartering, flushing, sitting to shot and ultimately retreiving. This little dog responds to whistle, hand signal and voice command. Right, he or she might not see a hand signal in the dark but the other atributes are still there. Do you think a lurcher would have any of the aforementioned? Why therefore ask if a Spaniel would do any different? Only an ask.