Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - welcome to the teenage wasteland

[Bupster]

Buckled (under instruction 😄)

Hello everyone 👋
I’ve been lurking on this thread for a while and wonder if any of you spaniel experts could give their views on my dogs behaviour please?
I have an 18 month old WCS who’s a smashing little dog, he’s only a pet but we’ve done gun dog training with him just for ideas to keep him fulfilled. Obedience-wise he’s not tooo bad, some good days others he’s a little monster, but that’s mainly his age.
My slight worry is when he’s off lead he runs constantly at full speed. It’s lovely to see, a spaniel living his best life, I have no worry about him running off and his recall is pretty good. However, he will only stop when he’s exhausted and we have to constantly give him drinks as he’s gasping for breath. This is after 30-40 minutes, so long walks off lead aren’t possible. I’m also unsure about having to give him constant drinks. I know spaniels are high energy, but this has to be seen to be believed, people comment on it and even other dogs look at him bemused.
Is there any way to slow him down so he can savour the moment a bit more, or will it happen naturally with age?
Sorry for the waffley first post!

@BaileyKat Hello and welcome. Most of us here have spaniels, although I'm not sure many of us would describe ourselves as experts. 😁
What happens if you walk for longer than 40 minutes?
I have a 4 year old and a 9 month old. My older dog will run at full speed for maybe 45 minutes and will then slow to a more leisurely pace. My 9 month old is an absolute nutter and runs at full pelt for however long we are out. I honestly think she would run until she dropped if we walked for long enough. I can't remember when my older one started to self regulate, so don't know if it's an age thing or if she is just more sensible. (She is.)
I always carry water or walk near water sources, so they can both drink when they need to.
Where do you walk him? Is it somewhere interesting that gives him plenty of opportunities to use his nose? We walk in woods a lot, so although they run fast, they also stop a lot to investigate scents.
Can you do gun dog training activities with him whilst you are out to encourage him to be steady? Like getting him to sit and wait, before sending him out on retrieves. Hiding dummies in long grass or ferns for him to find. Activities that will encourage him to use his nose more and slow him down a bit.
If that's not possible and you are concerned, I would put him on lead at regular intervals. So maybe 20 minutes of running, followed by 5 minutes on lead to give him some recovery time. Then off lead again.

@BaileyKat Hello and welcome! He sounds fabulous!

Usual disclaimer here that I’m not a trainer and this is just what I would do/have done with my girl.

You could build in some steadiness to his training if you feel it’s becoming a problem. There are lots of individual drills that you can do but in general, you could work on (if you haven’t already) –

• some sit stays, and build up the distance longer and longer
• the stop whistle, to build pauses into what he’s doing
• hunting – getting him to work next to you rather than away from you, which will naturally slow him down, build your bond even more, and get him doing a different kind of exercise that will probably tire him out better
• offlead heel – it’s all part of being together and working as a team, you and him, and works a different set of muscles. It’s impulse control, and like you would if you were learning to run you can do it lamppost to lamppost, or tree to tree

How fit is he? I would be slightly askance if my girl (aged two) was gasping after half an hour – when it’s cooler she’ll gladly do an hour running before she even slightly flags. But that’s only going off what you’ve said and without seeing him so I may have got that wrapped round my neck.

In my experience no one except spaniel owners truly gets it, so ignore other people and their (inferior! haha) dogs who can’t keep up. The other day we were en route back to the car from a 90-minute blast in the woods and bumped into a friend with two dogs at the beginning of their walk and pupsy ran rings around them for another ten minutes. You’d have thought she was straight out of the car. It’s just spaniels.

K disappeared for a while last night, so I went to find her. Turns out the neighbours were dining alfresco, so she had gone to join them. They laughingly told me she had eaten a whole bowl of marmite flavoured crisps. FFS!
Getting a new fence or the wall built higher will be a priority this week.

@brushingboots I made it to the golf course! Bill was a superstar, there were rabbits everywhere and only once did he really try to chase - otherwise I called him away (he was on lead anyway) and he walked straight on. So that's a new adventure for us to have, especially on warm mornings.

@BaileyKat I've only got half a spaniel, and he's not fizzy like some WCS, but he often won't stop until he's completely spent. When we're out on a long walk like this morning's (a couple of hours) I will make sure there are shady bits, and I let him jump in the pond, and he wants to stop and dig and sniff regularly - which is still knackering but it's him choosing the pace. Does your pup stop to hunt and sniff and dig?

Sometimes it's just all too damn exciting for them - Bill in a new place has no chill whatsoever, and I have a long line and walking belt (he's also a bit of a nob with entire males, and his recall is perfect until it isn't, particularly when there are swoopy birds). Honestly, though, this doesn't sound wildly unusual for a WCS. I've met @brushingboots and Pupsy and she is gorgeous (both of them) but Pupsy is very much a working cocker: EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS AMAZING 😄. As she said, non-spanner owners may not understand.

@Bupster so glad you did and that he was good! It's like Watership Down there sometimes. On Friday I went down the towpath to the drains and down to the A46 bridge (if you know where I mean) where I turned around. It was absolutely excellent and you've got perfect line of sight there for seeing people coming up so I fully recommend that walk too! Indeed we can do it one day.

I'm officially now "that type of owner" that gives responsible owners a bad name.
Not sure whether to laugh, cry or jump in the reservoir tbh 😭

Meanwhile, my lovely girl has done nothing wrong, she never barks and won't even poo in public ffs! She does, however, have a mother that tries too hard to be funny. Bupster needs to give me lessons in using humour without causing offence...😬

Sorry for the interruption to the training talk (just having my monthly MN induced nervous breakdown). As you were, folks xxx

@CoubousAndTourmalet Why?!

@CoubousAndTourmalet I’m absolutely certain I cause accidental offence all the time - I’m just so crashingly clumsy that by the time I realise it, it’s too late to do anything about it, and I have the attention span of a spaniel, so I forget I’ve done it! I also want to know what you’ve said though 😄

@BaileyKat
@brushingboots and @Bupster make a good point too. Spaniels do seem to be different to other breeds. Other people are always commenting on how fast my two are and how much energy they have. If they start plodding on a walk, I know there is something up with them.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond 😊.
I did type a long reply, pressed edit and the whole bloody thing disappeared!
I think we’ve allowed him to get away with this behaviour as we thought it was ok, it so joyous to see him enjoying himself and spaniel. He’s not interested in people or other dogs so he’s never a pest and he doesn’t go too far and will always come back.
He’ll hunt and retrieve his dummies and rabbit ball in the garden, but not while we’re out, he literally just wants to run and sniff, but both at full speed.
We take him to a huge park with lots of open spaces and woodland and also to a beach most weeks.
I am planning to see one day if he will slow down if I continue. I was out at 6 this morning, it was 15 degrees and he could hardly get his breath he was panting so badly so I didn’t like to carry on. I have had him checked over by the vet a few months ago as I was concerned, but they declared him an extremely fit and healthy dog.
I need to get him to engage more I think. The walking to heel is a good idea, and using a stop whistle, though I’ve no idea how to teach it. He does recall to a whistle.
Popping him back on his lead for 5 minutes occasionally is also a good idea.
I also think that because he’s generally a really good dog I’m too soft and pretty much let him do as he pleases. It doesn’t help that my partner has been ill for over a month so all the dog stuff has been left to me.

@CoubousAndTourmalet I've been reading that thread. Absolutely bonkers replies on it - yours was the most sensible of the lot!

@BaileyKat My dogs free run for an hour or so on walks. They always know where I am and run in circles around me They recall 99% of the time and do voluntary check ins with me. So I don't see any of that as being a problem.
Without seeing your dog, it's impossible for us to know if it is 'normal' spaniel panting or not. Mine will have their tongues hanging out to the side and look knackered, but will keep going for as long as we are out. 🤷‍♀️

Thanks @brushingboots @Bupster @LandSharksAnonymous ❤

Suffice to say I think I made an idiot of myself again. I always come across as a simpleton when I get anxious. God are we even allowed to use the word simpleton any more, I dunno...🤔It might be some sort of minority slur these days 😬

I'll never understand why the level of hatred towards dogs and their owners on MN always seems disproportionate to dog hate in real life. Here it's like every other person despises dogs to the nth degree, whereas in reality I never seem to encounter these people who are phobic about any dog bigger than a chihuahua, on the grounds that it might be a Bully XL... I know dog phobia is real, I'm not making light of that, and I do have sympathy. I also know there are many irresponsible owners and it reflects badly on the rest of us... But we do a controlled walk past mummies with tiny kids almost every day and we get "hi" or "thanks" or "look at this big doggy" etc. I never really see the negativity.

Deja vu. Have I said all these words before? If so, I apologise...

Anyway, I'll retreat to lick my wounds for a bit. That did hurt.

@BaileyKat I agree that more engagement is the key here from what you’ve said. I know what you mean about letting them get away with it because they’re nice dogs that don’t bother people or other dogs and come back when asked and I’m definitely guilty of that too, but it doesn’t do them much good in the long term if you want them to do more than just run about. Just depends on what you want out of them.

There are various ways to teach the stop whistle, all of which are a bit complicated to write down but if you’re keen to try it have a look at Mordor Gundogs on YouTube. Charlie does fabulous videos and he’s done a stop whistle one recently.

I used to have the same issue where she wouldn’t work well with me while we were out and about but she would at home and the way I fixed it was to just train her consistently when we were out and about in suitable places. I made familiar woodlands places for training and now she expects to be trained there. She goes in knowing that something is coming, but she doesn’t know what it will be or when. It has helped enormously with her general engagement. You only need do five/ten minutes and then you can let him go and run about.

This morning we went to some woodland where we always do hunting together and she literally would not get out from under my feet because she was desperate for me to put some balls and dummies down for her. Now if she’s being feral I chuck a ball behind me where she can’t see it and stop her, sit her up and ask her to hunt and it chills her right out. She is a different dog after some good controlled time with her nose down. The way I think about it – and I think about it a lot – is that yes it’s their instinct, to find things, but hunting is also a muscle that needs to be worked.

We have done a lot of steadiness work and it’s so rewarding for both of us. I could jabber on about this all day and am always happy to. I’m not in any way an expert – it’s all just what I’ve done with my girl with help from my own trainer and I write partly about fieldsports for a living so see lots of dogs and am in constant contact with lots of trainers and people who work their dogs.

Don’t think of it as anything but a new exciting phase of his training. As you know, they are such rewarding dogs and working more with him will be better for both of you x

@SpanielsGalorethat sounds like Bailey, tongue out to the side and virtually down to his knees! Thank you for telling me that 🙂.
I am a worrier, and used to a much calmer breed, B was my partners choice. I do wish he’d calm it down a little though, I definitely need to work on engagement.

Forgive me @BaileyKat and @brushingboots - this may not apply to you, however...just reading through and...

At the risk of saying something inappropriate - which I frequently do - please be wary of your dog gulping in huge quantities of water after strenuous exercise. That is how Sylvie got torsion.

We have always fed small meals, restricted food for an hour before or after exercise, so we thought we were safe. But Sylvie got GDV and needed emergency surgery, just from glugging a bowl of cold water after a long walk on a warm spring day.

Not being alarmist, sorry if it is not appropriate, but the danger is there and we never knew until it happened to our girl. So I think it worth saying.

Thankfully we recognised the signs, got her straight to the vet and she was fine, but she needed major surgery and we could easily have lost her.

@CoubousAndTourmalet Worry not, I never let pupsy gulp huge quantities. She only has a bit at a time, poured out into a bowl by me, and it’s never very cold as invariably it’s been in the car.

Okay, that's good. It's just we never knew it could happen that way, and the guilt was just awful.

@brushingboots thank you! I’ll definitely check out Mordors videos. I’m actually quite excited to try training it, and picking a particular spot to do some training on one of his normal walks is also an excellent idea.

Thank you all for being so welcoming and supportive. Mumsnet in general terrifies me!

@CoubousAndTourmalet thanks for the tip 😊. It’s something that I’m aware of and the main reason I worry about his need to have a drink. He gets little and often and the vet said he’d be fine with that.

Okay, that's good then 😊You're obviously all more clued up than we were at that point.

Hope it's ok to join in. My golden retriever is just over six months old and definitely showing teenage behaviour! All of a sudden lots of things are scary and must be barked at and even though she is doing great with obedience training she just outright refuses to do anything when we go to the puppy classes. When we first started she was good as gold!

On the other hand she sleeps though the night and has stopped the incessant biting which is a relief.

@Hemskis what time is your training class? If they're during witching hour, you might want to consider changing them to during the day or earlier in the evening!

She's very pretty 😍

@BaileyKat mumsnet terrifies me too! That’s why I only post on this board. I’ve found everyone to be very supportive and sensible, and I’ve picked up some great tips.

@Hemskis she is beautiful. I know what you mean about the classes. Midge was so responsive in his 1-1 lessons but an absolute hooligan in the group class. I’ve recently gone back to group classes and I’ve found that now he’s older he’s much less likely to get distracted by the other dogs. He’s just passed his KC bronze award so I’m hoping to start the Silver classes in September. At 18 months he’s one of the older ones in the class and those few months have made such a difference.