Which breed? feeling overwhelmed!

[Theonewiththreechildren]

Hi all, I'm a long time lurker but don't post often. My family and I have been thinking about getting a dog but I'm feeling a bit confused. We really like spaniels and we thought we had decided on a cavalier king charles spaniel as from what I've read they seem good family pets. However I'm concerned about the health issues with this breed. Obviously I would insure any dog I get but I'm worried that no matter how well I think I've researched breeders etc I could still end up with a dog that suffers.

So now I'm looking at cocker spaniels. How are these as family pets? I have 3 children aged 8,6 & 3. My main concern is that I've heard people say you can never wear them out! I'm a stay at home mum so whilst I am around much of the time, it's inevitable that the pup would have to be left alone at some point in the day (for example when I need to go to supermarket or school run) and I would hate to think it would be bored and unhappy because I hasn't worn it out enough!

Can anybody who has a cocker tell me how much exercise/simulation they need. Is there a great difference between show and working?

I should've said we live in a modem detached house but garden not huge. In s village surrounded by woods and fields so plenty of lovely walks. My husband and I have never owned a dog as adults but had family dogs as children - we do have a cat and a tortoise though.

Thanks in advance for any help, sorry if this is garbled - thinking as I'm typing and confusing myself!

Just want to say re the '3 hour workout', whatever dog you get, whether it's a spaniel or another breed, working or pet, please don't fall into the trap of thinking 'it's hyper, it must need more walking!'

Walking is great for keeping dogs fit and it exercises their mind to a certain extent with the sights, smells etc.
BUT the more exercise you give a dog the fitter they get.

If you routinely walk for say 1 hour and that tires your dog out, eventually, you'll reach a point where it takes 2 hours to tire, then 3, 4, you see where I am going with this?

To make a dog tired, mental stimulation is your friend.
This means food served in Kongs, chew toys, food scattered in grass, hidden in boxes, teaching the dog to find toys hidden round the house, retrieve items by name, load and unload the washing machine etc.

For working breeds especially, excessive exercise and excessive training, eg, a 3 hour daily run plus an hour of training plus agility and fly ball at the weekend is very, very bad!
Elevated adrenaline levels can take months to go down, the dog becomes hyper alert and anxious and an absolute flipping nightmare if there's an emergency and you can't stick to your usual routine.

Most dogs, but these breeds especially, need to be taught to be calm and chill down when asked.

That's really helpful and useful to know, thank you.

My cocker was the best dog ever. I could trust her 100% and she was wonderful with DD. I found her very biddable and easy. She was toilet trained within a couple of days and very easy to train generally. A bit of puppy chewing but nothing terrible. Just do lots of research into breeders and go meet the dogs to get a feel for the breed.

Over energised dogs can indeed be a nightmare to teach to calm! Also remember if you are getting a puppy (alth lots of spaniels come into rescues, so maybe you could look at that rather than buying from breeder?) that you need to increase their exercise gently to avoid join damage when young, rough guide of 5 mins per month of life; so few shorter walks rather than one big long one when young. If you do decide on a working cocker, make sure you tell breeders / rescue that intend for it to be a family pet, not o work. I know someone who trains hers in agility and obedience as well as everyday usual daily training, so is well versed in dog training, and even she is struggling to keep occupied the gorgeous intelligent live wire she has having asked for a good worker! Working breeds that don't have enough to keep them occupied can become very stressed and unhappy dogs, even going as far as self harming to find some stimulation, so it is important that you ensure ou don't end up with one in that situation.
That all said, I adore spaniels and only wish I coyld afford another, ah well, maybe when I win the lotto!

Trains hers in agility and obedience as well as usual everyday dog training - - struggling to keep occupied

I don't know this woman or her dog so obviously can't say for certain and might have it completely wrong.
But I suspect this is the overstimulation I referred to earlier coming into play.
Heightened adrenaline resulting in a hyped up dog that can't relax.

if you're not in a rush (and really it's not a decision which should be rushed ..) you could go to dog shows this summer and if you're anywhere near London in November there's another Discover Dogs

Do any of your friends have spaniels? Spend time with them and ask their owners what they're like to live with. They're not all bright and easy to train - I had a rescue cocker when I was a student - he was 6 months when I got him and had been kept in a shed all his life. He was gorgeous but oh so dim! He was almost impossible to train so it was a good thing he was so beautiful, sweet-natured and loving as that helped make up for his lack of brains

I personally like the look of working lines of most dogs more than the show ones - their appearance is much less exaggerated - however the split between working and show lines means that the drive in the working lines can also be much higher

My dog's breed has no distinction between working and show lines - they're supposed to be able to turn their paw to anything!

Re tail docking I'm going to be possibly controversial and say I'm completely against it even for working dogs...

Less than 50% of actual working dogs receive tail injuries requiring vet treatment (there's studies out there) that's not amputations, just injuries - but the whole litter is docked even though many of those May well end up not being suitable for working anyway.

Physically it's no less traumatic to do it to a puppy than an adult dog - they're just too young to express it and anecdotally more than one Rottweiler breeder has said that after the docking ban came in that they noticed that their puppies had a new growth spurt that they hadn't had when they were docked.

I don't think it's fair to dock a whole litter because one or two of them may become working dogs and one may injure it's tail and even less than that will require it to be amputated.

A friend of mine recently got a more unusual breed of dog. She went and spent a weekend staying close to the breeder so that she could be 'vetted'. From being very brusque and disinclined to offer her a puppy, the owner clearly decided that she might be trusted with one of them - it seemed to me that this was the ideal way to work out whether it was a 'good' breeder or not - unwilling to sell the pup to 'just any' household but willing to hold out for ones that were going to be suitable...

Re docked tails... It is very much easier for other dogs to 'read' the body language of another dog with an undocked tail. It might mean that you can't put your coffee cups down on the table though!

I have a show cocker, although their exercise needs are said to be lower than a worker ours would happily go all day ( regularly goes out all day and leaves our working lab standing stamina wise) but would be equally happy with days of 'normal' walks. He's great fun with a huge streak of mischief thrown in, he does obedience (mostly on his terms!) agility and is shown too ( open and fun shows). Lovely dog to have around the house, excellent with children and is often found upside down with a child petting him.

his only downside is his coat maintainance as he has a full show coat and is stripped not clipped. Because his feathering is full he brings in a huge amount of dust and muck, oh and he likes to roll in anything dead so he's very used to being bathed!

If you do go for a cocker, either show or worker please make sure that you go through a reputable breeder who does the necessary health checks on the parents etc.

Wow! Loads of great advice - thanks.

One of my friends has a 7/8 month old cocker crossed with a springer who is absolutely lovely (although I think she is taking after the cocker side more as she is not very big). But I wasn't sure if they'd just got lucky or whether she is truly representative of spaniels. Hence asking here for more opinions!

Technically I'm not in a rush but now I've decided I want a dog, I want one now but my sensible side is telling me to calm down.

Your friend has a Sprocker, these are very popular with gamekeepers who have bred them for years although they are becoming much more 'mainstream' now

Hi, i have two CKCS but fully understand the health concerns. They are the easiest,most loving dogs i could wish for with bags of personality. Neither of us had owned dogs before so had no experience and this was the perfect choice for us. No kids of our own but lots of nieces and nephews and the dogs are great with them.

You have a couple of choices if u really want this breed. Look at the champdogs website. Here you can look up breeders and view all test results for both parents of any potential pups. I would definately want to see MRI results to minimise risk of syringomyelia, but that is just my personal opinion. We went down this route with our first dog (5 yrs and picture of health so far).

Your other option is the one which we did for our second dog (and likely to do for all future dogs). As we love the breed but felt guilty by contributing to the problem by getting another pup, we decided on a rescue. True that u dont fully know their health probs etc, and our boy definately has a few symptoms of syringomyelia. However, we feel our conscience is clear iyswim as we are providing him with a good home, and they are such people-centred dogs that they really don't do well in kennels.

Also, try looking on some of the online forums on the breed to inform yourself a bit more on the realities of living with some of these health problems. Unfortunately many of them do develop heart murmurs or syringomyelia, but can live trouble free with heart murmurs for years, and apart from the heartbreaking severe cases of syringomyelia, many live symptom free or are well controlled with meds. Hope this helps

I have a working cocker, his parents were proper workers and all his siblings went to working homes. He is amazing, the kindess happiest dog I have ever met. However he needs 1.5 hour min walk a day, plus lots of play, the beauty of him is he is so ball obbsessed you can take him to the park and throw a ball down a steep hill for an hour an properly wear him out. He loves swimming. He stinks and malts everywhere and if left bored he will chew anything. That said I have had to go back to work and he is left alone for periods but we have another dog so they keep each other complany and I always leave him tons of stuff to play with. This is how he spends his evenings.

Re tail docking I'm going to be possibly controversial and say I'm completely against it even for working dogs...
I don't think that's controversial at all, tabula. Your argument pretty much sums up what I used to feel. But our dog's tail amputation was preceded by weeks of pain and discomfort for him as we tried to save his tail and avoid what proved to be a very painful op with very protracted healing (more pain and discomfort). He doesn't even work: he did the damage on a normal walk in the woods. It's a really tough issue. We might well dodge the issue with our next dog by getting a x with a breed that isn't docked because it has a sturdier tail.

Sorry, OP, slight thread hijack there... On the subject of sprockers (cocksprings, as DH calls them), the one I used to know was a cracking little dog.

Just to add to your confusion, I have a Welsh Springer Spaniel who is my dream family dog. Trainable, sensible, even though he was rescued at 18months from a pretty bleak situation and he was not handled or socialized as a pup. I don't think this is always typical of the breed but my goodness, we lucked out with our boy.

Much as I love the CKC I think I'm not prepared to take the risk

Dita - your dog is gorgeous! I like the idea of throwing a ball so dog gets worn out but I don't!

I have emailed the cocker spaniel club so hopefully they'll be able to point me in the right direction for breeders.

I'm reading all these adverts and they're all saying this stuff about the pups and what the parents have done and all I want is a healthy dog to love and care for and have fun with. I don't really care if it has papers or whether it'd be a good show example!

If my children were older I'd consider a rescue dog because I must admit the one part I'm not looking forward to is toilet training (didn't enjoy it with my children either!) But I think a puppy will suit us better as it and the children will grow together and get to know each other.

This is probably a daft question but is it possible to have a show type spaniel but keep its coat shorter?

tropical oh I love welshes! One day hopefully!

buttholelane no, not over stimulated / exercised, just a very high drive from being a wee little pup, gorgeous little thing but needs lots of brain usage to keep happy!

You can of course clip a show type cocker but it's still a bit of a ballache - either £££ every few weeks for a trip to a professional groomer or buying your own kit and learning how to do it, with a motheaten looking dog until you get it right.

www.powerscourt-cockers.co.uk/advice_pages/cocker_coat_care.htm

Also look on www.cockersonline.co.uk you'll find loads of very valuable information, questions and answers on their forum.

"I'm reading all these adverts and they're all saying this stuff about the pups and what the parents have done and all I want is a healthy dog to love and care for and have fun with. I don't really care if it has papers or whether it'd be a good show example! "

The reason stuff like that matters is you're right chuff all to do with whether you'll get a nice pet dog...it's about supporting a breeder who is breeding two dogs for the right reasons...and a little bit because, what's the point of picking a breed if it's not true to type? If you're going to give money to somebody for a puppy you want to give it to somebody who has bred carefully and thoughtfully rather than churning out puppies to make a profit.

Btw, rescues have puppies - just to add in a curveball, yes you're unlikely to find a pedigree puppy, but spaniel crosses are pretty common.

Hi. Not read the whole thread, but got the gist. We have a 9 month old working cocker. He is first dog for us as a family and DH and I in general. We read into it and decided a working cocker would suit us better than a show. We chose one who wasn't from a strong working line - dad works but mum is a family pet. He has been perfect for us and we have two DC who are 10 and 6. He is great with the children, quick to learn (he was best dog in our training classes) and he is so loving, I have never seen devotion like it.

He get a good walk every day, sometimes two if we can fit it in. Age appropriate so we are up to about 45-50 minutes now and sometimes walk longer. And its almost always off lead in woods/fields, so he does really go for it. But with that and lots of company/informal training and playing with us, he's not at all crazy or uncontrollable.

Also, he does have a docked tail. Generally a cocker's tail is docked to 3/4s so he still has quite a reasonable tail and it is getting feathering now, so it still looks attractive. I'd have preferred undocked but given how much he loves chasing through undergrowth it's probably just as well with hindsight. Will see if I can find a pic.

I'd second cockersonline as a great source of information and support if you do go forward with it. And champdogs is a good place to look because they do list before pups are born and because you can search specifically for working cockers - not all other places specify. I found my pup here.

Hope that helps!

This is him - and his tai

We have a 2.5 year old working cocker, from purely working lines, and he is a fantastic family pet. We got him when our youngest two were 3. One of them has learning disabilities and challenging behaviour, and the dog has developed a strong bond with him, and he is very intuitive in this regard.

Exercise - he has a walk in the morning (up to an hour off lead) and a shorter walk in the evening (off lead during the lighter months). At home he will spend hours sleeping on the spare bed while I am working or generally just follow around whoever is at home. I cannot recommend the breed highly enough as a family pet. His only fault is he is e terrible food thief!

Tab - that makes sense when you put it like that. I'm not sure where our nearest rescue centre is (I'm in Northamptonshire) but, although I have looked into some crossbreeds, I wasn't sure if that was even more of a risk because you know even less about what type of dog it will become?

Writingbeagle - your post is just the sort of post I was hoping for! Your dog is lovely - I must admit to being drawn to the black puppies although I don't mind about colour really. And I'm pleasantly surprised at the length of his tail - is that the standard length for docking do you know? I have been looking at some pictures online (they may have been old, I'm not sure) where the tail was little more than a stump which was very unattractive and also, as I understand it, can affect a dog communicating with other dogs?

Truly - sorry X post. He sounds lovely too. I'm starting to feel more positive that a working cocker would be right for us - we have some lovely woodland and fields here which would be perfect.

Food thief is ok - my children seem to drop half their food on the floor so it'd save me hoovering so often