Old dog signing in

[woollypigs]

Hi all.

Been lurking for a while and you lot seem like a friendly bunch of dog nutters lovers.

I'm in the process of talking my partner into getting a dog. I have had dogs around me all my life, well until I moved from Denmark to London in 1995. I have my eyes set on a working cocker spaniel, she does like them too so I'm nearly there. Though then there is all the questions etc.

Since my family have always be very dog keen, I don't think it should be that hard to get back into it again even after 15 odd years break. That is why I'm trying to read up and will in due cause start to ask you a million and a half questions.

Dogs owned and what close family and friends had over the years includes ... 3 show cocker spaniel (1 golden, 2 black), 3 mini puddles, 5 or so German Shepard's, 2 Doberman, schnauzer poodle, golden retrier, springer spaniel and then all the others.

My job as a cycle instructor takes me to many different parks here in London and it is getting to me watching all these dogs been walked, played with etc. A few months ago one came up to me and dropped its ball asking me to trow it. I think that was when the urge to get a dog again really started.

I'm a avid cyclist and will for sure take my dog with me cycling or when we go cycle touring. I'm already redesigning the bicycle trailer to have our dog in it while out touring. This is the reason why I'm so keen on getting a working cocker spaniel since they are happy to run around a lot and easy to train and above all great and friendly family dogs.

As a part of my talking my partner into getting a dog, I have been digging out all my old photos and telling her stories about them all. So I have scanned a few of them and put them on my blog along a little story about each of them that I can remember right now.

http://www.woollypigs.com/2010/03/here-boy/

So COL please help me talk my partner into owning a dog

[Bluebell]

Hi woollypigs!
Welcome to COl
Tried to follow the link to your Blog, but it does not seem to work

[bajoleth]

Hi, what a great intro I am sure you will give a Dog a great home, I can't seem to open your link either A good way to interest your OH is to show her the puppy pics or the rescue pages

[Pudding]

yer i was looking forward to seeing that as well

[woollypigs]

doh my bad.

The link should be fixed now, but here it is again http://www.woollypigs.com/2010/03/here-boy/

yes I have been trawling the net for pictures which have caused lasting damage to my ears, since she does go a bit hypersonic when she sees something cute. How is life with a deaf dog and man, is that possible ?

[Hurtwood Dogs]

Welcome!

Can't wait to hear how you get on   I cycle a bit with my two and we all love it. I have a 3 yr old show cocker and a 5 yr old Weimaraner. What I would say is that the cocker can keep up but it's hard work for him and he needs lots of breaks whereas the Weim is much more able to keep a decent pace - purely because she's so much bigger so not having to run as hard as the cocker. I had a similar issue with my last show cocker who was very lively (more so than most of the workers I know) and quite tall for a cocker he adored running too but did seem to have trouble with a constant steady pace over a period of time. Cockers seem to be good at stop start running - which I guess goes hand in hand with what they were bred for, so the constant pace needed to keep up with a bike can be a little hard for them whereas my Weim being a bigger and very athletic dog, will happily and easily keep pace with us for 30-40 mins or so at a reasonable speed - something to think about if you really want to do a lot of cycling with a dog.

I don't particularly like doing road work with them as I think it's a very hard on their joints but we love mountain biking through the forest here with them

Does your partner have any reasons why she wouldn't like to own a dog?

[woollypigs]

That is why I will be towing a trailer for the longer, faster and busier bits off our journeys.

Well there is all the questions about, where should it sleep, how to bring it up, how do we take it with us when going to her parents in the north of England, what if we going on holidays in foreign bits and so on and so on.

I'm pretty good a training the dog for normal house rules. One set of rules for both humans and stick to them never bend the rules, places where the dog can go and can't etc.

I'm dead against kennels, since I saw my golden show cocker, Laica, being dropped of at one and them picked up 3 weeks later. She was not amused and it took a few days before we go our old Laica back. So we need to find friends to baby sit when that happens. Or simply take the dog with us.

[Hurtwood Dogs]

I've never put mine in kennels but I'm sure there are some good ones these days. We've had some great holiday's in the uk with the dogs - lots of holiday cottages are dog friendly, but when we don't take them they stay at a dog sitters - they get to live in the house and are with the other dogs all the time. They're exercised in a big field and taken on a woodland walk once a day - so there are alternatives to Kennels around you've just got to find them!

[Uli]

Welcome to the COL! What an extensive, yet wonderful introduction! Do you have a trailer already? In Germany we like those of CHARIOT very much.They are a little bit more expensive, but the quality is very good and you can also use them as baby buggy.

[woollypigs]

Yup I got a trailer already which shouldn't be a problem to modify into a mobile home for a dog

Today I managed to spot two chocolate working cockers in the park, it very hard to consecrate on your work when you spot such a beautiful dog.

I even managed to spot one on the way to the park next to our home and dragged my other half out of the house for a quick dash to the park. So that she could see what I have been going on about the last few weeks in real life.

It was Milly (I think) a one year old girl, as she was walking to the park she was a bit scared of the noise the cars but when in the park, she was running all over the place happily.

I got the ok, that is the dog we should get \o/ So the next step is to get our big trip to Australia and New Zealand out of the way, so we can get one.

So Rodney, by this time next year we will be millionaires dog owners