Training a show cocker

[Maccarjm]

Has anyone had any luck training a show type cocker to retrieve and be a decent hide dog ?

Would ideally like to take it beating on a few days through the season aswell

[washerboy]

It will need some clipping if it's owt like the three in my street 

[panoma1]

Luck? No!.....30 years plus ago I had a lovely soft, strong show pedigree cocker, demanded to be with me 24/7......total nut job! Drove me to distraction......brilliant nose, On his day, a very good game finder, good retriever, even hare and goose!.......other days wilful, disobedient, disinterested, turned his ears off and did as he pleased.........peg dog? Never! Hide dog? Never!.........Rough shooting dog? Occasionally! Lol!......he was given to me by a work colleague, who had bought him for his young daughter! They couldn’t handle him!.....I should have run a mile....but took him on and he lived till he was thirteen! I have never recovered!

Maybe partly down to me?........and inexperience?.........but I would never go for a show bred/second hand! Lol! dog ever again!

[Lloyd90]

Do you already have the dog? 
Or your planning to get one? 
 

If you already have the dog then you might just make the best of it... but if you don’t have one already id say why make it hard for yourself from the off? 

[Maccarjm]

I have purchased the dog yes, picking it up in a week or so.

I was aware that it wouldn’t be ideal but was just wondering if it was achievable to train them for this purpose.

 I am planning on keeping its coat short, will get clipped regularly 

[Lloyd90]

7 hours ago, Maccarjm said:

I have purchased the dog yes, picking it up in a week or so.

I was aware that it wouldn’t be ideal but was just wondering if it was achievable to train them for this purpose.

 I am planning on keeping its coat short, will get clipped regularly 

 

Then I suppose you don't have a choice, the dog is already bought.

The dog may come good if you put the work in. If you just want it to sit in the pigeon hide I would do a lot of retrieving stuff to build desire when young, and take it for walks to build its confidence when out and about. (When I say a lot I mean the focus of initial training ... not doing it every 5 mins so the dog is so fed up of retrieving that it never wants to pick a dummy or bird again). 

Then once the pup is a bit older, keen and confident, start doing some steadiness work, and training so it will sit well in the hide and behave. If you want the dog steady this will be important, if you don't care about the dog running in then not so much. 

 

Don't train the dog so much as a pup that you take all the drive out of it (as a show cocker it might not have loads of drive to begin with), and don't scare the thing to gunfire by taking it to a clay ground and seeing loads of shots fired in the area of it. 

 

Good luck with your new dog. 

 

 

 

Just curious, why a show cocker if you wanted it for gundog work? 

[Walker570]

Start now, obedience first, sit, stay and walk to heel.... no ifs no buts and then once you have that down to a fine art you can start letting the dog work. Have a look on youtube and see what people have done with all sorts of dogs, trained to agility etc etc., even bulldogs.    Getting the obedience done first is the key and that starts now.

[Lloyd90]

11 hours ago, Walker570 said:

Start now, obedience first, sit, stay and walk to heel.... no ifs no buts and then once you have that down to a fine art you can start letting the dog work. Have a look on youtube and see what people have done with all sorts of dogs, trained to agility etc etc., even bulldogs.    Getting the obedience done first is the key and that starts now.

 

Interesting... I wish I had done less sit and stay with mine and more hunting cover to build his confidence through cover and things. 

Some will start obedience from the off ... others will just let the dog be until 6-8 months before doing any as they feel it really knocks the drive out the dog. 

 

As with all things, everyone does it differently   

[Walker570]

2 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

 

Interesting... I wish I had done less sit and stay with mine and more hunting cover to build his confidence through cover and things. 

Some will start obedience from the off ... others will just let the dog be until 6-8 months before doing any as they feel it really knocks the drive out the dog. 

 

As with all things, everyone does it differently   

Whatever you did with your new pup he seems to be responding well. For someone just starting it is far better that their first dog is solid on obedience first and foremost, having a super performance high speed dog really is not what a first dog person needs.  After some 14 hunting dogs of various breeds I have always insisted on my dogs being well behaved and I am sure they got invites not me on many occasions.   I have never had problems getting my dogs to hunt and retrieve they knew more about that than I did.  I know each season I come across idiot owners who have absolutely no control over their dogs at all...yes the dog can hunt with vigour but not necessarily at the right time.

[Lloyd90]

3 hours ago, Walker570 said:

Whatever you did with your new pup he seems to be responding well. For someone just starting it is far better that their first dog is solid on obedience first and foremost, having a super performance high speed dog really is not what a first dog person needs.  After some 14 hunting dogs of various breeds I have always insisted on my dogs being well behaved and I am sure they got invites not me on many occasions.   I have never had problems getting my dogs to hunt and retrieve they knew more about that than I did.  I know each season I come across idiot owners who have absolutely no control over their dogs at all...yes the dog can hunt with vigour but not necessarily at the right time.

He is starting to come good, but I kick myself at some of the mistakes I made. 

Im sure taking him out on game too early started off his running in to game and shot, which was a ****** to fix, but I got it sorted  

 

I think perhaps if he was a better socialised and more confident dog as a pup he might have a bit more guts to get into cover but then again he will go in when he thinks it’s worth it so we’ll see how that develops this next season  

 

 

I agree entirely about people on shoots, far too many dogs there where the owner has no control over them. They don’t seem all that concerned though, or are just ignorant to what they should be doing. 
 

[Maccarjm]

Thanks for all your helpful replies !

The show type cocker was bought because they are deemed slightly less energetic than the working type. So for day to day round the house thought it would be more manageable. I don’t shoot enough to have an out and out working dog, therefore it will also be a pet as such. (shoot pigeon once a week)

I am going to try and make the best of the situation and train it. If I can train it to the level of being steady in and around the hide and carry out basic retrieves I would be over the moon !

I have started reading the book ; Training spaniels by joe Irving

Any other suggested reading material?

[matone]

I`d agree about the obedience 1st given what you want the dog for,there`s nothing worse than uncontrolable dogs when shooting....or any time come to that.