PERCE

You enlighten us, why would anybody want to use your dog other than to make you money?

Syd, 10 months old out of my own bitch. Grand, laid back little dog that's taken well to his training.

If you want something that should be straight forward to train, get a labrador with a working pedigree, not a show pedigree. If you fancy a challenge find yourself a working golden retriever, again not show bred. Both to my knowledge make good family pets.

Quality

I was doing this with a Lab pup last year & it got motion sick (it's taken a her while to stop car puking) unfortunately for my cocker pup he was stood under the bag & he got covered!

http://www.felsteadgundogs.com/index.htm out according to this

I assume both of your pups are cnm pra clear, if you've paid good money they should be. Before you hip test get them eye tested, it's a cheaper test & so if they fail you don't have to bother getting the hips done. Test for hips & elbows at the same time under one anesthetic. I'd have them done as soon as they reach one year old.

If you're looking to trial you need to be getting involved with the local gundog clubs, many run group training as well as holding working tests through the summer. I've found group training a great help in working out where i am with dogs. I see working tests as a further proofing tool for training. I've currently got an 8 month bitch (I think you enquired when I advertised the litter) which will do everything yours do having only been started with in the last 2 months. She's also steady to a thrown dummy, will do seek back retrieves & some very easy blinds. Her delivery isn't anything flash at the moment & she is still a bit picky on which type of dummy she likes. She actually carries a rabbit better than a dummy! How are your irish dogs bred?

it's not a GA job, just a touch of gas.

if it's the same claw each time get the vet to take it off. It's a knock out job as they bleed a lot & it has to be quarterised, shouldn't be too pricey though. One of mine cracked a claw last winter & I had it taken off straight away having messed about with a previous breakage that eventually i had taken off as it wouldn't fix, I had her back out working within a couple of weeks.

I don't think it's as simple as that, bigguns can chuck little uns & visa versa. I own a smallish bitch & put her to a similar size dog, the pup I kept is of similar stature. If you're in the market I think have to look around & talk to people that run & own cockers locally.

Just like the colours, cockers can be any shape, any size. Prefer the smaller ones myself.

We don't have foxes where I shoot rabbits, there's a very enthusiastic keeper that sees to it. As I posted, a cocker can be a perfectly suitable candidate to take out bunny bashing with a rifle.

Don't do a lot of crawling about where I live we have big stone walls to hide behind. if I sit my spaniel on it's **** it does so until I tell it otherwise.

I'd quite happily take a cocker out with the rifle, it just depends on what you're looking for it to do. I shoot rabbits in rocky ground & they're often difficult to find as they blend in, a spaniel does this no problem.

Just a few generalisations I think I see no need for a pointer when working on a driven grouse moor. I find a labrador can be perfectly suitable as a beating dog on both grouse & pheasant. Cockers make great picking up dogs, particularly on grouse. It can just depend on the dog, they're all wired different. On the main subject, I'd never have anything other than a labrador, cocker & springer. I've no use for a pointer as I don't own the ground to run one on.

Mad as a box of frogs or should that be parrots?

You can have both voice & whistle commends, just don't keep repeating them when the dog ignores you. What your video shows is quite a complex event but it doesn't appear that you've mastered any of the basics that are required to make the whole thing happen. If I was you I'd be trying to find a gundog trainer locally to help you. One of the best ways to get on board with a trainer is to buy a dog off them but in your case, unfortunately, this ship has sailed.

i think you need to be asking about the correct use of the whistle asap, you blew what is normally a stop whistle when the dog picked the dummy, recall tends to be pip pip pip or pippip pippip pippip. You also need to grasp that a dog has to act on your one & only command to do something. You told that dog to sit at least half a dozen times either with a whislte & verbally. It either didn't understand sufficently what you wanted or it was ingnoring you. If it didn't understand, you were teaching it bad habits.

Make sure you remove all of the back passage, as I understand it this is where most of the worm in rabbit is.

Yes but she spends most of the time quoting things she's read on the net, virtually zero practical knowledge. Whilst she correctly quoted a wormer to use she incorrectly quoted the amount of times you need to dose the pup. Why do i know this? I have a bottle of panacur handy. She really ought to stick to taking pictures of her mutts. My advice to you is just use google if you want this standard of advice.

Wow, I wish i knew how to use google as well as you.

That's not what it says on a Panacur liquid suspension bottle, you really must do your researsh better.

You just have to be patient with the sensitive souls, learning to wheddle helps.

So on the laid back to the mad whizzer scale what's she like?