I don’t wish to disagree with the above, however, I must defend the wonderful 19-month-old working cocker lying on my knee, as she is truly the light of my life.
I grew up with spaniels but she’s my first dog as an adult, and I went in eyes open. Apart from the puppy blues that I’d have had with any breed, she has been a pretty easy dog – because I have put the effort in. We do a lot of breed-specific work to meet her needs, a huge amount of hedge diving, flushing, gundog work, sitting doing nothing, steadiness training etc… it goes on and on. And it does need working at. I give her as close to a working lifestyle as she can get in a pet home, and she might work a bit when I’m ready later this year/next year. She’s not perfect but she’s a work in progress and I’m mostly incredibly proud of her.
I work from home and she gets between 85-150 mins of exercise a day depending on what we’re up to. (I posted a run-through of her life on another cocker thread recently.) But that’s mainly because going out twice a day suits me and she adapts to what I’m doing – I need the walks too so we go out into the fields and see no one because it helps me not to burn out at work. Conversely, I know loads of working cockers who get half as much exercise and some that go a day or so without a walk and they’re all well adjusted – because their owners do breed-specific work with them, and in many cases work them. It is often said that the fitter they are the more they need. I think I could go out with mine less but I’m happy with what she does and I can maintain it.
They are truly wonderful dogs. Mine lives to please me and you can’t match that. She’s very clever and she has an attitude – she will huff if she’s not happy with what I've asked of her but ultimately she does it because I’m her world. She is always on the go when we're out and about, but in the house she sleeps most of the day and when she’s not asleep she’s chilling, or ‘helping’ me. People say they never stop but that’s usually because they haven’t trained them to chill out. She is very low maintenance grooming wise, doesn’t chew, barks only a tiny bit, was easily house-trained, can be left for four hours though it rarely happens.
I’d never have another breed. I don’t know anything about show cockers and I’ve never met one round here so can't compare. There are plenty of problem working cockers, without doubt, but a lot of the problems that people encounter are down to lack of effort/training rather than the dog’s inherent issue, so I wanted to give a positive view from the perspective of someone who has put a lot of work in.