According to Dr Ian Dunbar...

[Digger]

Hi Pearly, Thank you very much for your reply-it's so nice to have some input from people who know what you're talking about, as, like you say, all dogs are different anyway, but having a cocker now, I can see how comparing a cocker to another breed would be pointless! In reply to your questions, yep- I think the books are sent to scare us and I'll be querying on here in future, as all you guys are specialists by ownership! Wine and chocolate? Let's just say, I made a batch of home brew just before Xmas and its nearly all gone. We didn't have that many visitors.. Sleep/ routine: We do have quite a set routine, off lead walk across fields/ woods in the morning , then she is washed off, dried and put in her pen in the kitchen for an hour and a half. Usually she will have a sleep at this time. Then she comes out and mills about/ lounging around in front of the woodBurner/ playing with her toys ( occasionally chasing the cat ). If I go out in the afternoon, I leave her loose in the kitchen. She has a dog flap so can let herself in and out for the loo. So far, every time I have left her she has been good as gold- no mess, no damage. I think if I'm not there she just shuts down and sleeps. I am sure she is just naughty for attention. My husband and I have both caught her on 2 separate occasions when we have snuck back in the house and looked through the window to see her snoozing on the sofa and the cat on the other one!!!! In the afternoon I might take her out in the car or a short walk or up the garden or a game or two in the house. Always one or the other. She does sleep on and off throughout the afternoon- it's the evening when she's most bitey so it could be she's over tired or it could be getting rid of that last bit of energy-hard to tell. Don't think she likes the telly.Last night she had 2 walks and was much less bitey but the day before was terrible. It varies and I'm going to start making a note of what I'm doing to see if there is a link. She has lots of teethers so that's all ok. Recall. Was amazing. Now slipping a little- I've never lost her and she does listen when I say which way we're going and I can always get her back but she's getting a little bit cheeky when she's playing with another dog- I usually walk off if she doesn't come 1st time. I hid from her the other day and that was funny to watch- she obviously does know where she's best off! I am going to get a whistle as I have noticed that she is very tuned in to them. Inca is currently snoozing on the sofa as I write this and stinking the room out! Omg! What has she eaten???!!!! Are they all terrible thieves as well? You literally can't put anything down..This and other minor issues I am trying to not to sweat for now haha. I watch with interest...

[dawn]

I haven't read all the replies, but I would like to say that Henry was a very bitey puppy indeed!

We too had the same Ian Dunbar book, and thought Henry was going to turn into an aggressive dog.

I was horrified. Anyhow, Henry stopped mouthing and biting in his own time, and it was gradual over his teanage months. Do not panic, and carry on with your training in a sensible consistent manner. And don't worry too much......some dogs take longer. Henry has a working father, and was very hyperactive.

Now he is fabulous and is NOT aggressive.....every dog develops differently and they don't come with exact manuals!

[Digger]

Dawn-Thank you so much for commenting on my thread. 
It is just what I needed to hear, as after a brief lull, Inca has been terrible again,( since hitting 6 months -Dr Dunbar's stop time!) Last night was pretty good, but the night before, she was trying to murder me!. I had to put her out of the room 4 times before she got the message. (She is definitely worse if we try to watch tv for some reason- maybe it worries her..).  My friend has a puppy the same age and they are 'all done' with the biting. As is everyone else with a puppy it seems!..It does worry me because she does it out of mischief as well as the evening witching hour. and those 'attacks' are bonkers! Anyone watching would be alarmed I'm sure, and yet I am totally convinced that she is not aggressive, as a) she could probably really cause us damage if she meant to, but rarely leaves any kind of mark and b) her default setting is really affectionate and I can do what I like to her- touch her anywhere, wash and dry her, pick her up, etc and she is great with strangers- let's them make a fuss of her no probs- and other dogs- it just seems to be a certain mood she gets in/ if she gets over excited (which doesn't take much). I am standing in the hall way now because she just thought she'd give me a quick bite while I was typing!
I do appreciate your input and we will,like you say, just keep on keeping on and hopefully she will one day understand that we don't want to play her rough games! NB ours is also from a very strong working line where the dogs were all  kept outside and I do think that makes a difference. She is great when she's out and does listen to me and recall is good, so I think she knows where she's well off! I just need to learn how to get her to be a bit more respectful that I am not her litter mate! It does test your patience to the last shred sometimes, but I live in hope that she will be a nice adult dog eventually. As yours is
How old was yours when the penny eventually dropped? I'd be interested to know how much more wine I need to get in.    Thank you again for your supportive info. X

[Pearly]

It sounds as though you are making some progress 

The “going nuts while the TV is on” is a classic cocker trick  . She wants attention and any attention will do, even if it means she is told off - that’s still attention. 

Have you taught her a Settle command? Or try some brain training before sitting down to watch TV - it may only need to be a few minutes but if you exhaust her mentally she should prefer sleep to mischief 

Coral and I used to do most of our steadiness training after work and before I settled for the evening.  This can be as effective indoors as outside.

Jayne

[Digger]

Hi Jayne, thank you for your post. Yeah I do try to do a bit of brain work with her in the evenings and she is ok to a point but gets bored really quickly and starts playing up and getting all bitey, so you have to spot a relatively positive place to stop and leave it there or it ends up being a time out situation. It's very frustrating because training is normally your 'go to' move for a bored dog Isn't it?! My springer was amazing at her age and could do all sorts and would learn stuff all night long if you wanted to but I always feel with Inca that it's a fine line between training and winding her up! It's a real tricky one. She can do stuff- sit, down, leave it (leaving treats)-although will she leave my granddaughter? / visitors clothes?/anything anyone puts down? Not a hope. She is getting the hang of a 'close' command to try to avoid pulling on the lead and will correct her position by my heel when I tell her but then pulls again after a few seconds and if there are distractions-forget it- no interest in treats at that point. I am attaching a whistle to the recall command and that has gone down really well, although, this morning I recalled her off 2 massive growly German shepherds and she came flying back to me at 100 mph for a treat..Fab you think..then as soon as she 'd got it- straight back to the other dogs again. Totally Fearless and totally cheeky!!!!She does come with me though- I haven't lost her yet. I know that they are all different and I have been trying to just pick my moments to brain train and do what I can when I can and accept that maybe she's just not ready to digest some things yet. I think the settle command is a great one but I don't think there's any hope of that at the moment. She will settle all the time you're feeding her treats and as soon as they've all gone, she'll be straight back to finding something naughty to do! And any kind of discouragement- like lifting her off the sofa because she's digging it results in her swinging round with her teeth. Not hard, but still very unacceptable. It irks me that she thinks thats an ok thing to do, and I am at a loss as to what I did to allow that situation to even arise! Thank goodness there are other cocker parents on here who seem to understand. I was crying with laughter at the picture of the torn up ikea catalogue on the post about teething earlier. There is definite comfort in the old trouble shared us a trouble halved!    Thanks for helping. X

[Holly Berry]

A book I found was an interesting read is Jean Donaldson’s The Culture Clash. It’s an insight into why dogs behave in a certain way, and surprisingly it’s not usually the way we humans do.

I’ve had cockers for over 30 years and they have all had different personalities and traits and developed at different rates. One thing I have learnt is that they are reactive and don’t set out to annoy us or be vindictive, but they do like attention and like children when they get tired they can be tetchy. She is only a baby still and learning and testing boundaries, much again like children. You have to set the boundaries, ignoring the behaviour you don’t want and praising the behaviour you do. When she starts to bite, walk away, don’t say or do anything, just turn and walk away. When she comes and doesn’t bite, give her lots of praise and again if that turns to biting walk away.

I always think they can train us much quicker than we can train them. Cockers are very intelligent dogs and soon learn, but they are stubborn so you have to be consistent in their training.

Good luck, with your guidance she will become a true friend.

[bizzylizzy]

A book I found was an interesting read is Jean Donaldson’s The Culture Clash. It’s an insight into why dogs behave in a certain way, and surprisingly it’s not usually the way we humans do.

I’ve had cockers for over 30 years and they have all had different personalities and traits and developed at different rates. One thing I have learnt is that they are reactive and don’t set out to annoy us or be vindictive, but they do like attention and like children when they get tired they can be tetchy. She is only a baby still and learning and testing boundaries, much again like children. You have to set the boundaries, ignoring the behaviour you don’t want and praising the behaviour you do. When she starts to bite, walk away, don’t say or do anything, just turn and walk away. When she comes and doesn’t bite, give her lots of praise and again if that turns to biting walk away.

I always think they can train us much quicker than we can train them. Cockers are very intelligent dogs and soon learn, but they are stubborn so you have to be consistent in their training.

Good luck, with your guidance she will become a true friend.

I can also recommend The Culture Clash. Another interesting book was The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell. Both helped me to try and work out MY dog rather than just try and follow set training schemes which rarely seemed to work for us. I also found, that once I accepted that Humphrey wasn‘t actually doing naughty things to annoy me,( that‘s a human trait  , ), I became a LOT more relaxed about the whole thing. I actually started giggling at training classes instead of bursting into tears when he wouldn‘t couldn‘t cooperate and what happened? We started getting somewhere at last! I‘m not the most patient of people usually but once I changed my perspective on Humphrey, I found things much easier to deal with. You‘ll be absolutely fine!

[Digger]

Dear Holly Berry and Bizzie Lizzie,
 Thank you very much. I will order that book-it sounds possibly more appropriate to cockers than other generic dog books. I have already learned that they are not like any other dogs!

I have been walking away or putting her out but your very clear instructions are great as I realise that until now there has probably always been a few moments of ' no' and 'off' and other things that don't work first before she gets put out/ I walk off, so - fresh start today with no discussions first!
With the jumping and nipping at visitors clothes, I assume I am right in thinking I will have to just pop her out of the room for a minute..unless you have a better idea- I am all ears!
 Thanks again for your help and encouragement. I'm sure she will be ok in the end. She is a sweet dog too. I am in no doubt that it is me that needs educating to the ways of cockers. I thought I was quite good at training dogs. How wrong I was! 

[Leo0106]

Hi digger
Leo used to literally maul visitors out of excitement when they came through the door. We decided to put him behind the stair gate, everytime someone came through the door they were told not to make a single bit of eye contact or physical contact with him. He would be jumping at the gate, crying etc and initially the minute it stopped crying I would chuck him a treat while I chat away to my visitor.. then when he sat down I would chuck a treat... then when he seemed visibilly calmer and ready to come out I would allow the visitor to approach the gate and give him a stroke, eventually I would then let him out to say hi..
We did this for 2 weeks and he has never nipped a visitor again!
He does get excited when they come through the door but usually now he says hi and then runs up and down the stairs and shows off.

[Ben's mum]

Hi Digger

When Ben was a pup he was incredibly bitey and just craved attention all the time but also was worse in the evenings.  He needed to be entertained, played with and trained he could never go off and just settle down.   I fed him three small meals a day and often his evening meal of dry biscuits was hidden round the house and he had to search for it which kept him busy and tired him out mentally.  Other doggy friends (not spaniel owners) thought I was mad but Ben never had an off switch and just needed to be busy.  The 'find it' game got progressively harder and harder until we were putting biscuits in the most bizarre places but he always found them and it was a joy watching him work to find it.  He would usually sleep soundly for a while after this.   

For a while we had a house line attached to Ben to give him time out behind a baby gate when he got really bitey without us having to touch him, but like others have said we soon found that even saying no was clearly attention so we just ignored him, took the house line and put him in the kitchen.

To be honest he was about 1 before he stopped mouthing and being bitey (sorry), it was just his personality he had mad moments, cocker zoomies and was completely bonkers but turned into a complete cuddle monster who just wanted to be on our lap snuggled up. 
We did Good Citizen training but he was board by it and learnt very quickly.  doing bronze, silver and gold quite quickly. He came alive when we introduced him to agility at 1 

I liked Jean Donaldson books as well, but to be honest I got more help on here because cockers are just completely in a league of their own!!
In some ways I think cockers bond really closely with their owners because there is so much work when they are pups and you spend a lot of time and effort with them it gives you a fantastic relationship   

 

[Digger]

Hi again Leo! And hello Ben's mum and thank you both for your advice.
 Leo-I will definitely try that. I find the biggest problem is the visitors themselves-half the time they can't be bothered to help you train your dog because they just don't understand and can't see why your dog isn't behaving itself! I think as a cocker parent our patience outstrips anyone's!
Ben's mum- Love your food idea! Inca just had her dinner scattered around the house haha! Didn't take her long to find it all but she definitely enjoyed the search
Despite thinking that you have horrified me with your news that actually Ben was nearer 1 by the time he was out of the bitey stage, you have actually made me feel much better- to know that it can take ages and still result in a gentle dog- phew! (and it kind of gives us a bit of time to work on it haha!). Come the longer days when we can get out in the evenings as well I'm sure things will be better, and I fully intend to also do agility when she's old enough.
 I had never thought of the positives of having such a high maintenance puppy but what you say about it forging a stronger relationship makes perfect sense and I'm sure it will..She is in serious debt at the moment so by the time she's about 15 we should be square!

[RobinRed]

Hi our Harry is also 6 months and yes he’s bitey too -mainly me and when he’s in a stressful situation. For Harry it’s when our old girl Missi gets out of bed the wrong side and doesn’t want to play . I’m finding this thread really helpful and Harry also had his dinner hidden around the house tonight -he had great fun finding it and  is now sparko 😊.  He does try my patience sometimes but when he’s curled up next to me it’s the best feeling  .  Thanks for the advice about visitors I’m going to try that in future - when we’re out for a walk I do ask complete strangers to ignore him so should have thought of asking visitors too.

I don’t know what I would have done without this forum for the last 4 months and don’t even read my books anymore as the advice on here is so true to cockers.

[Leo0106]

I find the biggest problem is the visitors themselves-half the time they can't be bothered to help you train your dog because they just don't understand and can't see why your dog isn't behaving itself! I think as a cocker parent our patience outstrips anyone's!

Totally get this... I used to be really embarrassed about telling people 'please don't let him mouth you' 'please don't play so rough with him' 'DON'T LOOK AT HIM!!'  but when things got really bad for us I lost all empathy for the people that said 'Oh he's fine. He's just a baby! Don't worry  ' and I took it into my own hands and put them straight. Telling them that this was the way I would train my dog and this was the way they would have to do things. From then things got a lot easier. Unfortunately you'll always have the people that think raising a dog is an easy task... So be confident in telling them it's Not! If I had done that earlier then I feel our job would have been far easier

[Digger]

Thanks again Leo. It is hard, and we're a bit off the beaten track too so we don't get very many visitors to practice on. Often my daughter will pop in briefly but she has a baby so sort of has to push the dog to arms length so she oesn't bite the baby which of course just makes things worse. Funnily enough, she is fine with my grandson who is petrified of dogs because he automatically does the turning away and not giving her any attention thing ( because actually he would prefer it if she wasn't there). Ironically, this has developed into a situation where she leaves him alone for the most part and yesterday he was happily giving her a cuddle! How is Leo getting on now? X

Robin Red - Nice to meet someone at exactly the same stage! Yes, this thread has thrown up lots of great ideas advice and comforting words which quite frankly you need sometimes!! Is your other dog also a cocker? In addition to the biting, Inca has now added a new horror...After 4 months of being totally non destructive, over the course of a week she has decided she is is going to eat the entire house. Anything made of wood is game on. I now have chunks out of all my furniture, stair gates and all. While I have been typing, she has come through the dog flap with 3 flower pots that were put out of reach in the garden and shredded them. She also likes to steal coal from the bunker and bring it in to play with- but only on the light coloured sofa of course...That and the new penchant for digging holes in the lawn, are just a few of the new additions to her repertoire in the last 2 weeks. I am hanging on to the massive positive that she has, in that she is silent. But I am not smug - I realise that too may disappear....Off to the woods in a minute to find her a massive lump of something indestructible! ..

[Ben's mum]

She also likes to steal coal from the bunker and bring it in to play with

that brought back memories    Ben at about the same age started bringing in undesirable things from the garden, stones, plant pots anything he could carry.  I read all the books that said you should teach your dog to 'swop' anything you didn't want them to have for a treat, clearly Ben had not read the same books as his clever cocker brain translated that as he needed to go out and find as much rubbish as he could to bring to get given food in exchange.  He brought me a steady stream of rubbish and I gave him a treat each time, it soon became a game of nerves as sometimes I would try to ignore the fact he had a stone in his mouth in the hopes he would get board and drop it, but if I didn't come up with goods straight away he would stare at me and rattle the stone round his teeth till I was a bag of nerves thinking of blockages and vets bills and inevitably crumbled and swopped his stone for something nice.  I swear he used to grin at me when I gave in 
cockers should come with a health warning...