I can’t let any of this go by. As I’m typing this my Springer Spaniel is sleeping at my feet. I’ve never been bitten by a spaniel, but my neighbor had a half-coyote and half-terrier that would silently run up behind people and, unprovoked, sink it’s teeth into the back of people’s legs. That dog didn’t live long.
I love Springers.....
I once knew a cocker spaniel that did that exact same thing. I called those dogs “sneak biters”. As soon as you turned around, they would run away. They were afraid of people. I also knew a lab mix that did that as well. The cocker was on my paper route when I was a kid. The lab was in the neighborhood I used to go jogging in when I was in my twenties. It’s been a long time since I ran accross a sneak biter.