@ComeTalkToMe
Of course! I have written about some of these on the puppy and the adolescent threads before so there will be some more of this if you search for it, I expect, and I might have repeated some here/left others out.
These bits below form a combination of some of what I did with my cocker when we brought her home and some of the stuff my gundog trainer got me doing before we met, and then in the first lesson. It’s all pretty basic and there’s no reason you can’t start B on it straight away. All of this should knacker her out and some bits more than others as it will really work her brain.
– Heel, both offlead and on. Obviously you want to work on her lead walking but one of the most useful skills you can teach her is to walk to heel when she’s off too. Exactly the same as onlead but she’s choosing to be next to you, ideally engaging in some eye contact, but not pulling ahead. Ideally for this she wants to be actually at your heel and you can reward with treats or a clicker if you’re using one.
– Coupled with offlead heel is the autosit. So helpful! And also looks cool. So when you stop she stops – that’s it really. You can train with the lead on to start with and graduate to off lead – or even with a trailing lead attached so you can easily stop her. But she should want to be with you so this should be pretty easy to teach. Again can reward with treats when she’s in the right position.
– A proper ‘sit’. I’m sure you’ve taught ‘sit’ to mean sit down, but a lot of gundog trainers (and I def subscribe to this) want ‘sit’ to mean ‘sit until I say otherwise’. If you can crack that you don’t need a ‘stay’ because she will just sit there until she’s asked to do something else, be it a release with ‘ok’ or whatever other command. I have said this before here but you want to be careful of doing too much steadiness work with her, ie slowing her down or stopping her just yet as you don’t want to kill her joy, but I think teaching a proper ‘sit’ to mean ‘actually sit down and don’t move until I say’ can’t hurt. Keep these sessions super short as it is tiring and you don't want her to get bored and 'fail' because she doesn't want to do it.
– ‘Look’ – super helpful! Just literally teaching her to look at you, so you reward for eye contact. You can start just sitting her opposite you and without a cue just reward her when she chooses to look at you. That graduates to her always checking in with you wherever she is when you’re out and about and just all comes together nearly as part of the engagement that you want.
– Introduction to hunting. This is very fun and will almost guarantee to tire her out as it's sniffy work. You can do it at home and you can do it out and about, basically anywhere and it’s not just a good exercise for future gundog work and hunting for balls/dummies (if you want to do that) but useful if they’re a bit whiny or need something to focus on for some reason. There are loads of exercises you can do but a good one to start with, which is also a recall drill, is to start with her sitting opposite you, and then throw a treat (that she can easily see) into the grass and ask her to find it. (You can add a hand signal into this and show her where it is – that in itself is really handy, I use hand signals with pupsy every day to direct her into cover or whatever.) When she’s found it and she looks back up at you throw another one the other way so she crosses your path and just repeat, going side to side in a zig zag. That’s level one – you graduate it into longer grass and harder places, and front and back and different directions, and move on to tennis balls or rabbit balls or dummies etc. But to begin with start near your feet so she learns that the fun comes from near you, as that bit is key.
– Introduction to retrieving. As above I’d be wary of steadying her too soon so with little retrieves – can be balled up socks or a puppy dummy or a rabbit ball, the last of which will be very sought after – just keep it fun and short. Do tiny little retrieves, 6 metres or so, literally mini, you can do it in the kitchen, in the garden, in a corridor (ideal as she can’t run off with it then as it’s a narrow space) and just encourage her for bringing it back and picking it up. Don’t worry about her delivering it to you in any fancy way as you can sort that later. Just reward her for bringing back and being enthusiastic about it. Let her jump on your knee saying ‘hi mum look what I got!!’ and, if she’s like mine, wrapping her legs around you in excitement. The goal is she picks up and brings back and does so with glee.
I also taught ‘this way’ as a turn command, which I coupled with the turn whistle (two pips), but ‘this way’ is fun for everyone. To teach it you can run around the garden/dog field changing directions and shouting ‘this way’ every time you do so that she learns to follow you. I use ‘this way’ every single day, it’s essential. It’s somewhere between a recall and a turn but it’s so handy – gets you out of trouble an awful lot as the dog moves towards you and perhaps comes in to you but if they don’t it’s not a failed recall because you just wanted them to turn and come in your direction.
And finally finally, this isn’t a gundog thing but getting a settle at home sorted is vital, which I’m sure you’re already doing. So many of the cocker ‘horror stories’ you read more or less derive from the dog never being taught to lie down quietly, so get that cracked and you’re already 50pc of the way there, in my book.
Well done if you got this far. I could go on and on so DM if you want some more ideas! And if you happen to be in Lincs I can wholeheartedly recommend my trainer and some scenty spots to take B to to flush pheasants in due course!
Cockers are very fun to train as they're very bright and I bet B is desperate to learn. People say 'oh no you don't want a clever dog' but I did: I wanted a dog I could work with, and that's the goal with a cocker – to get them working next to and with you not away from you, as that's what they were bred to do.