Talk to me about Cocker Spaniels...

[Dollygirl2008]

Would dearly love one and after doing my homework for a year, I've settled on getting a puppy in the Summer.

I yearn for a cocker spaniel as I grew up with one, but obviously I didn't see the hard work my mum had to do!!!!

I've more or less decided they're not a "first time owners"'dog - or can it work?!

He's gorgeous!!!!!

If you go in with your eyes open you’ll not regret getting a spaniel. Technically she’s our first dog but I grew up with dogs and shared a lab puppy in my late teens and researched a lot before we got her.
We have a working Sprocker, we were looking at spaniel rescues but struggled to find a suitable rescue dog with 2 young DC and a cat. She’ll go and go all day, or sleep all day whatever we’re doing she’ll do.
She thinks she’s a child, or the children and puppies one of the two and they’re often just being maniacs together, or just vegging out cuddling on the sofa.
She’s probably more bonker than lots of dogs but this is why we love her.
Found her to be super trainable as well, excellent recall, very willing to learn for a treat.

@sandwiches77 yep. He's a little toad during the witching hour but he's also my furry shadow and I luffs him

Here’s Sprocker princess pup

My first dog is a cocker spaniel, show type. It was very hard work and I had moments of wondering if I had done the right thing, especially at around 7/8 months and the teenage years hit. I did her training and I think I did do pretty well considering I'd not had a dog before let alone trained one.

Things I would do different. Not restarted her vaccinations as our vet did a different one. I would have stayed with her first vet until they were done and then moved her. They she would have socialised more at the right age, not another month or so on.
I would have started either getting her groomed or grooming her much more from the word go. She hates it and I end up doing rubbish clips a few times of the year.
I would have been much stricter with regards to mealtimes (ours) and been firmer about her being in her bed.
But, she is the most wonderful dog and I love her so much. She is my shadow.

Z

Ahhh keep the pictures coming!!!!

Aww GuyFawkesDay what a beauty

Here is another one of sandwichpup

We have a working cocker. She gets around 2 hours off lead walks a day and competes in agility. She’s a great dog - very cuddly, quite calm round the house, great with kids and other dogs but quite highly strung. It’s easy to train her to do tricks and she’s brilliant at agility but quite hard to train her out of bad habits. She’s nervy about a few things despite a lot of socialisation early on and doesn’t like being alone (probably because we rarely leave her). In my experience spaniels follow you round constantly- you can’t get up without them trotting after you. I think working cockers are good if you have a lot of time to spend with them and are very active. Under exercised cockers or cockers who don’t have sufficient attention can be real trouble.

We've an 8.5 year old working cocker... and a 3 year old sprocker. The WC is the light of my life.... but his prey drive is huge, and he has taken a lot of training, in fact training never stops. He has hawk bells on his collar so I can always hear him, and his 1st 2 years were hard going at times. They're bred to work, not be pets, even though he's a 2nd generation "pet". A family friend got a gamekeeper bred cocker and her life is a misery, her dog is batshit and incredibly high maintenance.

Our sprocker on the other hand is the complete opposite. She's so biddable, never leaves our sight, and is incredibly low maintenance in terms of her energy needs. Both get around 90 minutes exercise a day, plus a big garden to chase balls in.... if our cocker gets more, he's a horror and it's a finely balanced line between enough and too much.

Both are exceptional with our very young grandchildren.