Hi - I'm Julie and Mich & Joy got their two chocolate cocker puppies from me a few weeks ago. Am fairly new to this forum lark (work permitting
) but would be really interested in keeping in touch under this subject heading I have 3 older cockers at home (aged 12, 7 and 3) all of whom work. Breeze the youngest was the mother of the two pups. We still return to Berkshire every weekend for beating and picking up, having not found anywhere local to Kenilworth. I have actually trained the dogs myself with the assistance of a local Working Gundog Club down in Berkshire which was a god send in the early days, I haven't found anything similar since being up in Warwickshire. The Club used to meet at on a keepers ground the first Sunday of every month throughout the year and we used to do the gundog demonstrations at local Country Shows and also the Game Fair when it was at Blenheim & Romsey.
My husband now takes his young labrador to an excellent lady over in Meriden though.
Cazza asked about what age you would start - I have always started as young as possible. Although the last puppy we have from this litter is only 13 weeks tomorrow, and leaves for his new home tomorrow evening , I have already been doing the basics of sitting, mini-retrieves and basically getting him wound up about something in my hand, like an old sock. What I have always been told to do is to hold it it your hand so he can't get to it and run it over the floor (you need to be on your hands and knees!).
You are starting the "hunting" instinct with the reward being getting the sock for a few seconds to charge around the kitchen with you only need to do it for a couple of minutes each day. Acer has already learnt to bring it back to me quickly so we can start all over again!. You want all the fun to happen around your feet and if you can continue this through into adulthood you are doing really well. You want them to quarter around you as closely as possible - the problem I had with Breeze was that I had to make her work further away from me - but obviously there is a happy medium!
My middle cocker is TOTALLY tennis ball orientated and even at the age of 7 1/2 I can go back to the basics of covering a ball up with my hand, and getting her to try and get it from me - it just tightens her up before we start shooting in September - so many people make the mistake of hanging up their dogs at the end of January, let them have the summer off and then expect them to behave perfectly on 1st September when you go off on your first partridge day! Obviously if you are into trialling you are busy all summer but once we finish shooting I give them all of February "off" and then start with a weekly session before I go to work - just one retrieve or hunting session, building it up to every other day in August, heat conditions permitting after this year but 6am in the morning was just perfect.
For a novice at this seem to have waffled on for quite abit - sorry but abit passionate about working, working cockers!
Sorrrrryyyy!!!