diff --git a/scrapy/shell.py b/scrapy/shell.py
index 258c03ba6..3def28290 100644
--- a/scrapy/shell.py
+++ b/scrapy/shell.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ class Shell(object):
         self.crawler = crawler
         self.update_vars = update_vars or (lambda x: None)
         self.item_class = load_object(crawler.settings['DEFAULT_ITEM_CLASS'])
+        self.spider = None
         self.inthread = inthread
         self.code = code
         self.vars = {}
@@ -57,15 +58,22 @@ class Shell(object):
             start_python_console(self.vars)
 
     def _schedule(self, request, spider):
+        spider = self._open_spider(request, spider)
+        d = request_deferred(request)
+        d.addCallback(lambda x: (x, spider))
+        self.crawler.engine.crawl(request, spider)
+        return d
+
+    def _open_spider(self, request, spider):
+        if self.spider:
+            return self.spider
         if spider is None:
             spider = create_spider_for_request(self.crawler.spiders, request, \
                 BaseSpider('default'), log_multiple=True)
         spider.set_crawler(self.crawler)
         self.crawler.engine.open_spider(spider, close_if_idle=False)
-        d = request_deferred(request)
-        d.addCallback(lambda x: (x, spider))
-        self.crawler.engine.crawl(request, spider)
-        return d
+        self.spider = spider
+        return spider
 
     def fetch(self, request_or_url, spider=None):
         if isinstance(request_or_url, Request):