retriever vs sporting dog

retriever and sporting dog both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
retriever	Yes	No	No	No
sporting dog	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, sporting dog is a hypernym of retriever; that is, sporting dog is a word with a broader meaning than retriever:

retriever: a dog with heavy water-resistant coat that can be trained to retrieve game
sporting dog: a dog trained to work with sportsmen when they hunt with guns

Other hypernyms of retriever include gun dog.

retriever (noun)	sporting dog (noun)
a dog with heavy water-resistant coat that can be trained to retrieve game	a dog trained to work with sportsmen when they hunt with guns