UPDATE ON MILLIE THE COCKER

[lozrob]

 

i have been reading about everbodys new puppies with loads of interest, reading about their failures and wins.

Millie  is a working cocker spaniel bitch , and about as mad as a box of frogs as you can get . 

training has been a really frustrating time , almost to the point of giving up.

but i kept on , a little bit every day , just the basics though, 

she is now 12 months old and only just starting to walk nice , let alone retrieve a dead bird .

she still finds my slippers much more interesting than anything else.

i joined the CAMBRIDESHIRE GUNDOG CLUB --puppy classes .

it was such hard work to get millie to do anything she was supposed to. she loves to poss about with the other  dogs . not nasty in any way though.

then after six months of going to the saturday morning events , the club tell me its time for the "working gundog puppy test "

**** , i think to myself , theres no way we are going to pass that , anyway we went.

by this time , me and millie are the only ones still going on saturday mornings as the others had givern up.

got to the test area and there were 3 adult  gundogs with their trainers in a row , we had to join the line . **** i thought theres no way she will sit still.

then from there we had to weave around the other 3 dogs , nightmare because millie just wanted to say hello to her new best friends,

do a couple of  sit and stays  , walk to heel , retrieve a dummy back to hand  twice. recall on the whistle , stop on the whistle.

it took a lot of patience and a few loud growls from me  , but we did mange to complete the tasks , not very cleanly but complete.

then the judges asked me if there was anything i would like to do with millie before i finish , 

so we did a memory retrieve , i walked her out from the line about 40 yards and dropped a dummy ,then both walked back  , and then sent her out for the dummy.

she went straight out , and straight back , no messing about, 

even the other 3 gundog owners clapped us.

needless to say we passed the test.

we are still doing the basics with dummys and some times a long line to try and get the message across before she flicks about.

 

speak soon.

loz.

 

 

[Agriv8]

My sprocker pip finally started to listen at 18 month she’s 3 now but still has moments of looniesy.

keep working and I recon the switch will click on next 6 months to a year and you will have a cracking spaniel!

Agriv8

[B725]

It's a lovely looking pup, there is no time line for when the dog is ready it takes as long as it takes only you will know when that time is. 

Mine is having a run of the squits nearly a week now and £110 at the vet's. 

[Yellow Bear]

44 minutes ago, lozrob said:

then from there we had to weave around the other 3 dogs ,

We were lucky as our "normal" puppy class trainer set great store by "meet, greet, move on" and we did this exercise at the start and end of each class.  We went round the circle twice each time, with on the first run the dogs were allowed to touch noses to the dog but had to ignore the handler.  The other 3 times they had to ignore both.

So good was his method that even 9 years later she still ignores other dogs unless approached and then it is a sniff and away.   I have even had to start a "be sociable" command for those occasions when someone has asked to make a fuss.

It is sad that his gundog classes at the time were cut short by a nimby neighbour using planning consent issues.