Working cocker , advice please

[Ameliexx]

Daisy is our 5 month old working cocker.When we got her I had no idea there was even different types of cocker spaniels and its only through COL I have learnt she is a working type. We have her as a family pet , and her main walks are as part of the school run twice a day with off lead runs in the park which at the moment are enough for her ,but I have read threads on here though that workers have high energy levels and I am getting worried  wondering what to prepare myself for as she reaches adulthood and wether or not I'll manage. I do not have the money to do things like training classes.I have two children so they have to come first, but I do obviously want to make sure Daisy gets what she needs. What can I expect her to need daily in the way of excercise and what games can I play in order to stimulate her enough so that she can be part of our family but get what she needs too.

[ali]

hiya!

every working cocker is different and i'm sure that it largely what they are allowed to get used to, but in my experience with barkley (who is now 2), he is definitely a 3 walk a day kinda dog. he gets maybe an hour offlead in the morning, then between 30 minutes and an hour in the afternoon, and an on-lead 20 minute wander around the block last thing. but this is the routine that we have got him into, and is primarily because we don't have much of a garden.

the lengths of walks do vary, and if there is lots of stimulation at home, like visitors, then he doesn't need as much. but if he has a day with less than this, we definitely know about it in the evening as he becomes very fidgety. 

all dogs really are different though. i know people with a working cocker bitch who gets much less- she is however very mischevious (sp?) at home, which i would put down to not enough stimulation through being out and about.

with games, barkley's favourite by far is hide and seek with toys. we get him to sit and stay, hide a toy and tell him to 'find it' and he's as happy as larry searching the house. games like this are great for a dog that likes to think and seek things out, which workers often do.

hope this helps a bit.

[Mrs G]

hi,
I had a working cocker, I would walk him 2x daily for about 45 mins each walk, he would also go in the garden several times a day, on sunday afternoons I would take him to the woods for anything between 45 mins and 1 1/2 hours. he loved chasing a ball and hide and seek games, every evening my OH would lay on the floor and play tuggin games with his toys  he was very active in his younger days and we really noticed the difference as he became an old man
hope this helps

[Ameliexx]

Thanks for your replies  I will try the hide and seek games

[*Theresa*]

Hi I have two workers and my two get 20mins half and hour first thing, another about 10ish, another about lunchish, another at tea time and another before bed all off lead. However we do not always manage them depending upon shifts or some days we manage alot more due to having a spare few hours.

Both my dogs manage just fine on what they get and if I have a poorly day then they are happy to spend the day curled up next to me and only get their morning and evening walk. Alternatively they will happily go for a 3 hour romp and still be raring to go. They are very adaptable as we tried to get them no too set into routine but we can see a difference in them at night if we have skipped a walk as they are really restless and full of beans 

[happydog]

I have an eight year old working cocker and due to changes in family health  she only gets one off lead walk a day of about an hour, (during which she covers about four times the distance that I walk    ).

She isn't left totally alone for long periods during the day so does have human company. She is fine with this- although I am sure she would happily do three or four hour walks a day or more.

Fern gets bored if I don't interact with her at home and make her  use her brain. She needs to work, even if she isn't flushing and retrieving pheasants. You can easily emulate this sort of work at home (It's OK, no need for real pheasants ).

Hiding games are good. Teach 'find' as well as 'fetch', and gradually introduce new commands when she has got the others fully understood. You can use named toys or treats (beware of this -as it can easily lead to inadvertant overfeeding and there is nothing worse than a fat spaniel). If you feed kibble then use small pieces from her normal food portions. I have taught Fern to fetch the post, although it can be a bit tricky at the beginning,  if you haven't taught  a reliable retrieve to hand and 'leave'   .

You could teach tricks too. I don't but others here have got their working cockers and show cockers doing some fabulous things. There is a book around someone here got from Amazon, that gives you ideas of tricks you can teach at home. I am sure there will be plenty of suggestions. Don't worry too much. you have recognised the possibility of boredom in time and I am sure she will be fine as long as she isn't expected to sit around and do nothing at home   . working cockers need to be useful, so let her  .

[Top Barks]

Gosh I'm such a bad owner my lot get only one walk a day although it is off lead and in fantastic working cocker territory.
We do lots of training to keep them amused though with everything from tricks to gundog work.
Give workers plenty to occupy their mind and try and give them an outlet to display the behaviour they were bred for and your on the right lines.
Mark

[Cob-Web]

Perhaps you could ask for some dog-orientated books as gifts - or borrow them from your local library/or find them on freecycle?  There are some excellent books recommended at the top of the behaviour board - I particularly like "The Complete Idiots Guide to Positive Dog Training" by Pamela Dennison; it gives loads of step by step guides on how to train your dog to do tricks as well as all the basic obedience commands that are essential for a polite family dog 

Classes would be ideal; there is nothing like seeing someone else demonstrate a technique or give you a boost when things aren't progressing  They need not be that expensive; I have generally paid less for the classes  I have been to that I do on dog food each week 

[Nicola]

To an extent all dogs are different although in general working cockers do need high levels of exercise and stimulation - they are bred as working dogs and therefore are bred to have the energy and stamina to run and hunt all day. They have strong hunting instincts and need an outlet to use these. When my dogs are at daycare with Jo they pretty much run and play for 5-6 hours solid and on days when they are with me they have around 3 hours of exercise which is generally split between a 30 minute morning walk, a 2 hour afternoon walk which usually incorporates swimming and then a 20-30 minute training session and runaround in the evening. They can go for a day with limited exercise if necessary, say maybe just an hour of running plus some training/games but if that continued any longer they would be bouncing off the walls. Alfie has been on limited exercise for the last few weeks following surgery and he is extremely bored and agitated so I've been breaking my back trying to keep him occupied with clicker training, hiding/seeking games etc. which is ok to an extent but I hate seeing him getting himself wound up and distressed because he's brimming with energy and has no outlet for it.

[Doggone Mad]

My working cocker Hamish is just over 7 months old so I stick to the 5 min walk per month of life rule up to 2 / 3 times a day right now.  He gets an offlead 35 mins run first thing, then another 35 mins offlead early afternoon and about 30 mins onlead (due to be dark at moment) mid-evening.  That seems to suit him fine and he seems quite happy with that.  If he is restless in the evening I do hide & seek with some of his dinner which he loves.

I dislocated my knee at the weekend (Hamish was the culprit as he jumped right on my knee and knocked it out !  ) so have been unable to excercise him as I usually do for the last 4 days and I definitely notice a difference ie he is very restless and looking around for things to chew/nick etc.  My friends have been great helping out with taking him out for onlead walks (they are too wary to let him off lead) but he really needs offlead runs so I've been using dog walkers since yesterday to give him a really good run each day which has made a HUGE difference.  He came back from his offlead dog walker run around 12.30 today and has been snoozing/sleeping since then !  I've booked the dog walker all next week as been told I have to rest my silly old leg. 

[crazyspaniels]

mine certainly dont get hours of exercise, dont think it does them any good at all to expect long walks every day as they have days when they dont get that. They will take as much as I can give them, or as little, dont let other owners on here worry you, just do what you have been doing and dont get hung up on the whole high energy working cocker thing that seems to be hammered into everyone on here by a few people, having had show and working cockers in my house I am well enough placed to say that a show cocker will take just as much as a working cocker and from my experince tend to be more active in the house, under your feet, into everything, getting up to mischief  Enjoy your dog and lets hope that folks on COL will stop trying to put the fear of nightmare hyper dogs into all these new working cocker owners and let them just enjoy their dogs. When I first joined COL many years ago with my first working cocker nobody batted an eyelid and certainly didnt jump in to tell me that I had better be prepared.

[cazza]

I have two working cockers one is nearly 2yrs old and the other is 8 months old  i also have a black lab (my old boy) - and 2 kids too, not forgetting the OH ofcourse 

My routine has changed as I was walking them lots more than what they are getting at the mo and i've had no complaints from them 

My routine at present is
An off lead walk in the morning where we are out for approx 45 min (they run around like lunatics and cover a load more ground than I do  )
Then an on lead walk in the afternoon (this walk I just concentrate on lead walking and staying on the pavement and sitting when I stop - general road safety  ) Plenty of visits to the garden too 

I find that clicker training is great for tiring them out mentally too and try and do some everyday for about 10 min at a time - if you can't get to training classes why not see if there are other COLers in your area that use clicker training that you could meet up with and they could perhaps show you - as it's easier to be shown than to just learn out of a book 

[happydog]

 

dont let other owners on here worry you, just do what you have been doing and dont get hung up on the whole high energy working cocker thing that seems to be hammered into everyone on here by a few people,

Enjoy your dog and lets hope that folks on COL will stop trying to put the fear of nightmare hyper dogs into all these new working cocker owners and let them just enjoy their dogs.

That's a bit harsh Freya, if you don't mind me saying so 

[crazyspaniels]

That's a bit harsh Freya, if you don't mind me saying so 

I am just saddened to keep seeing posts from people joining who are loving their dogs and enjoying them and giving them a great life, but then are made to feel guilty that they arent doing agility or clicker training or walking them for 3 hours a day, the show working split is just getting so pushed into new members which didnt used to be the case 

[Helen]

I'm more saddened that it seems more working cockers (and some very young) are coming into rescue perhaps because people have underestimated them....