spaniel vs sporting dog

spaniel and sporting dog both are nouns.

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

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

spaniel: any of several breeds of small to medium-sized gun dogs with a long silky coat and long frilled ears
sporting dog: a dog trained to work with sportsmen when they hunt with guns

Other hypernyms of spaniel include gun dog.

spaniel (noun)	sporting dog (noun)
any of several breeds of small to medium-sized gun dogs with a long silky coat and long frilled ears	a dog trained to work with sportsmen when they hunt with guns