We are getting a spaniel.

Alec Swan said:
So you don't agree, and then you reinforce my argument. :)
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I'm female after all :)

Your opening post read as though dogging was a risky career move for a spaniel, I was trying (and failing) to reinforce your point that as long as you're working them within their parameters, it's not really an issue.

I'm not a perfectionist though - my dogs are my pleasure and not my work and I think the distinction is an important one. I allow myself a margin of error with them and if the spaniel tows off down the boundary hedge or the retriever can't pick one bird on a day it isn't the end of the world. If I were a keeper and my dogs were my tools I suspect the margin for error with them would be a lot less. So my good little dogging in dog is not necessarily your idea of a good little dogging in dog. 😬
 
RunToEarth said:
I'm female after all :) …….. ��
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…….. not at all, I also failed to understand your points. We agree that hunting up boundary hedges is a useful exercise for spaniels and we also agree that there are risks attached to a dog getting away from us. With mature and experienced dogs which know and ignore the limits of range, that's usually cured by a dose of verbals. The strong youngster that gets away from us …. that's a different matter and it would be my argument that there have been some very nice youngsters ruined by being used for dogging in rather than it being a training exercise.

As for accepting our dogs and their abilities and/or levels of training, we all get failures and as you say, it's rarely the end of the world. :)

Alec.
 
I am finding all the spaniel training talk very interesting. I have limited experience with spaniels - mostly as search dogs for the police but as I live on a grouse moor shooting estate I seem them frequently on shoot days. They always seem such a fun breed to train - very enthusiastic.
 
They are incredibly enthusiastic - about everything!...as I say I have my first Spaniel and he has been much much easier than the terriers I have always had in the past, This is my first foray into the world of gundogs although I have always enjoyed watching them.

I liken my Cocker very much to my dear old Welsh Cob - They have a brain, and they know it so you have to train them to work for you and that the fun always comes from your direction or they go self employed very quickly, Cockers more so than Springers. I think I have been lucky with mine in the fact that I have found a good trainer and I have lovely places to walk and carry on with that training, we still make rookie mistakes, like ermmmm I need to read my dog more quickly!! But we are getting there...keeping his brain active is the best way to tire him out and me! I once heard if you would like a dog trained in 6 weeks buy a Lab, if you like a challenge get a Spaniel!

And for Alec - these are a couple of pics taken in the summer my more recent ones are on my phone and I can't find the cable at the mo!!

not bad for a freebie!!



 
RunToEarth said:
Your opening post read as though dogging was a risky career move for a spaniel, I was trying (and failing) to reinforce your point that as long as you're working them within their parameters, it's not really an issue.
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That is how I read it, too. It hasn't done my lab any harm being used endlessly for dogging in, but I would prefer not too. She will still be used to do the big fields when the pheasants are older, when you just want a dog at a gallop up their bum to get them up in the air and back home again. She also rips and bruises badly when working in heavy cover so again hopefully the spanner will have a better coat. Tawny is so trials bred she doesn't even have a proper double coat, but has a really short thin effort like a dobermann. She would last 30 seconds out wildfowling!

My dogs are both my pleasure and my work and I now actually get paid to go and work them - can it get any better! As it stands now we cannot use Tawny to dog in for a couple of days before a shoot day in case she is injured, which makes life difficult, so a spanner should be freeing her up to go and earn her keep.
 
maisie06 your dog is absolutely gorgeous - I am sure he should be far too pretty to work, but he looks and sounds like a cracker at that too. Lucky both of you. :-)
 
Clodagh said:
It is. It is about 3 days old at the moment. :-)
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Omg, jealous! I'm puppy bloody currently, but don't envy you the toilet training in the dead of winter!

Auslander said:
I'm jealous. I love spangle puppies!

They don't seem to mature very quickly. This is my parents 4 year old, bred in the purple, Crufts attending, highly trained professional... err, buffoon. You will come to dread that wild eyed look...

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Dear God, I get this a lot! Wild zoomies upstairs because I was changing the bed. Mental, frankly, although both currently curled up on a lap each, quietly waiting for the 9 o'clock pig ear.
 
Auslander said:
I'm jealous. I love spangle puppies!

They don't seem to mature very quickly. This is my parents 4 year old, bred in the purple, Crufts attending, highly trained professional... err, buffoon. You will come to dread that wild eyed look...

24068371_10156463195055730_3794524450364766475_n.jpg
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If he was a horse you would sit very quietly until he calmed down!
 
Auslander said:
Or stick your feet forward, get a good hold of the neck strap, and send the little beggar off in a spanking trot with its nose in its chest!
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Absolutely. :-)
I am paying a lot more attention to the spaniels out shooting, there were some cracking ones today. A little cocker came past me after a rabbit but when he got whistled he left it and went straight back into the line. The rabbit had mixy, poor thing, but was still pretty lively. I sent Tawny for it and knocked it on the head.
The breeder will keep our pup until she is 11 weeks as we are away for a few days in early Feb. The Grannies and children cannot do housetraining, it would not be fair (on the pup).
We need to think of a name. I like Feather. I think she is going to be black and white, we have asked for the smallest and slowest starter spanner!.
 
cinnamontoast said:
We choose one syllable names, hard letter I need the end for ease of calling. I like Feather tho, makes a change from the millions of Ferns on the springer Facebook page.
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OK...it is going to be 'Smut'. Like you, CT, OH wanted a one syllable name, it must not have a similar starting constanant to the labs as I like to sit there with all my ducks in a row and send them by name. It might sound a bit like 'Sit' or 'Stop' to a dog but I expect will be saying that a lot, too. :-) . I have long wanted a dog called 'Smut' as family friends had a springer called that when I was a child. It is actually going to be named after the black bits that filled your house when they burnt the stubble, but I like it's other connotation, too.

I still like Feather, may pencil that in for a future lab!
 
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