Owners of spaniels with a high prey drive

[Ikeasucks]

3 yr old female sprocker who needs a lot of exercise but has a strong prey drive which means she’ll ignore me when she wants to and sometimes takes off (always comes back). How fo you deal with this - especially this time of year

My cockapoo can be like this. We regularly go back to long line training. Give a high value treat (Wensleydale cheese is her absolute favourite) when i have her sit and get off the lead and practice recall throughout the walk. Keep playing games too. Spaniel and crosses can be little buggers!

Mine is older now and I let him off hunting for squirrels and abandoned balls in the forest beside me as he will come back. But this has taken years for me to get to that point knowing deers etc are about.

In the first couple of years he was a pain in the arse and I had to work on being much more exciting and not predictable. He will do anything for a ball so we used to hunt together all the time. Now I just keep a ball in my pocket as the ultimate recall treat. I also spent months at not being predictable where I walked so would just do an about turn and walk off (in a safe place whilst knowing where he was) so he never assumes I will wait for him or walk towards him which now means he always looks to see what I am doing and comes running if he can't hear or see me.

I think the key is to work with their prey drive. Interact with them with balls/dummies etc for retrieving and hunting when out so that you satisfy that urge.

I walk a sprocker exactly like this!

I keep her on a waist belt so she can explore without pulling my arm out of its socket

She also loves swimming so we do that with her on a longline too!

any recommendations for waist belts / lead / harness setups? my collie will be old enough to begin couch25k in 3.5 months' time, according to the vet

@BiteyShark I’m interested to know how you started him hunting. My sprocker will retrieve in dull environments (home and village green). He gives not a shite in the exciting countryside.

We’ve started doing a bit of ‘hunting’ for treats in long grass areas/fields while he’s on the long line but I can’t imagine him getting excited to find a ball. A rabbit skin perhaps but he’d then like to tote it around for the rest of the walk

@Ikeasucks you have my sympathies. I risked letting mine off lead this morning in one of our 3 safe spots that he tends to steady sniff and pootle a few feet ahead. He ran two field over losing his head chasing scent and went completely deaf. Won’t try that again for a few more months 🤦🏼‍♀️

@ABitBesottedWithMyDog you want to get a proper cani-cross style harness with a bungee waist belt/lead to absorb the shock and protect you from any sudden movements.

This is a good website to look at to get an idea of things:

www.nonstopdogwear.com/en/magazine/canicross-gear/

The sprocker that I mentioned upthread does canicross and her owner uses harnesses from the above company.

@TheBigMacDougal mine is totally ball obsessed so I think that helps. When out in a forest I would take two balls, make him sit and stay and then wander off into the long grass and drop each one behind my back so he wouldn't see and then tell him to 'find it'. He goes crazy with excitement and he quickly picked up hand signals to mean left/right direction and we taught him a command which meant you are close so bloody use your nose to find it now.

All things I picked up at beginner gun dog training (we don't do that anymore because we were rubbish ).

Thanks very much @fairylightsandwaxmelts

I've got a sprocker and she's amazing... never strays more than a few feet in front of me. Our working cocker on the other hand is a little shit and has disappeared off after pheasants more times than I'd like to admit.

My go-to is a squeaky toy in my pocket and/or a tennis ball. He couldn't be let off the lead at all until he was around 2, and even now he's 9 I still hide from him/hide his tennis ball in the grass etc to try and keep his focus on me. It's a daily battle......... it's a good job he's so cute in every other way. And when the grass gets long, he has hawk bells on his collar so even if I can't see him I can hear him.