So this week we have been working on walking to heel with a short lead a loose lead and off the lead (this last one is obviously practiced at home in the hall as outside there are too many distractions), and we have continued to work on recall - I have even been brave enough to let her off the lead whilst out walking and so far we have had success as long as I have plenty of chicken in my pocket. We have also worked on stay and wait but have limited success.
I have started to get up at the un-godly hour of 6am to take Jynx out for a walk so that it is just the 2 of us. I thought that a bit of girl time was in order - actually it has been an attempt to wear her out but it has not as yet succeeded. Next week I am going to get her used to running next to a bike in the hope that this will tire her out - she is like an ever-ready bunny!
When we walk with number 2 son in the pram she has started to - when she gets fed up of walking - jump into the shopping basket of the pram! She is the laziest cocker spaniel ever!
Another one of her foibles is to walk perfectly to heel when going out on the walk but to pull like a steam train when on the way back.
She walks really well to heel in the house and when I am pushing the pram but can pull a little when its just me and her.
On Tuesday next week is the last puppy class and we have a test, I must admit I am feeling very competitive and I am aiming for Jynx to get the highest score, here is run down of the competition:
Oscar - Chocolate Lab, will do anything for food but may have trouble with lead walking
Minnie - Patterdale, will be good on drills but doesn't like having her feet touched and growls a bit
Bob- Fox Terrier, lovely little boy but can be a bit dominant
Pie - Beagle, lovely girl but may have trouble with recall
They are all lovely dogs and owners.
I'm not sure who our main competition will be but I'm putting in lots of practice so we better win!
We are heading back to Essex for the weekend dog included so I am hoping she will be on her best behaviour.
So thats it for this week I will update after puppy class on Tuesday
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
First Blog
Ok so I am new to blogging but I want to keep a record of our new puppy's training.
First a bit of background, I am a 30 something mother of 2 boys aged 9 years and 19 months (I know its a big age gap!!!) and we live in Northampton with our newly acquired working cocker spaniel puppy 'Jynx', 2 cats and 4 chickens.
I am a housewife at the moment but I am also a qualified veterinary nurse with 15 years experience. I have had the pleasure of owning a lab cross when I was a child and more recently a rescued (from work) rottie x bitch called 'Diva' who was my introduction to obedience training, she was a wonderful dog and a blood donor who saved a couple of dogs lives. She was already trained when we got her but I continued with this so I have done basic training but never trained a gundog.
So why did we choose a working cocker spaniel? After we lost Diva I knew I would eventually get another dog but as we have moved around a lot in the last few years this was never practical until last year when we bought the house that we are living in now, it has a huge garden (one of the main reasons we bought it) . We live in a village with a large park on the doorstep and we are surrounded by country parks and forests - ideal dog walking country.
So when I eventually got my DH to agree to me getting a dog we then had the discussion as to which breed. As my DH has enjoyed shooting in the past and we have 2 boys the oldest of which is a crack shot with an air rifle a gundog of some description seemed to be the obvious choice. I could get back into training and hopefully train my first gundog and the dog would make a shooting companion for my DH and number 1 son. I wanted a Labrador but DH vetoed that saying he wanted a smaller dog (due to years of having a 30kg rottie sitting on you and laying on your legs in bed), so the choice was going to be from the spaniel group. I have had experience though work of the common spaniels so I got onto the Internet to research the rest of the group and after days of research I presented my findings to my DH we decided that a working cocker would fit in with our family the best.
So I went back to the Internet and I spoke to a few gundog trainers and breeders via email and they all gave me excellent advice. as we have children we thought that a home bred rather than kennel bred cocker would suit us best so again I trawled the gundog websites for a litter of home bred puppies after a couple of false starts we located a litter in Canterbury. Emails and telephone calls ensued, pedigrees and prices were discussed and we set a date to go and view the pups.
I was determined not to be swayed by the cuteness of the pups I put on my veterinary nurses head and we even thought about not taking the boys, but that ended up not being practical so we set off after warning number 1 son that we might decide that these pups were not the pups for us luckily he is a very grown up 9 year old so he understood exactly why we might not want to have one of these puppies.
When we met the pups, mum, dad and their humans, we were really pleased to find that both mum and dad were lovely well mannered dogs and the puppies looked fit and healthy. There were 4 gorgeous puppies, one of which, a dog, had already been sold so there were 3 bitches left to choose from, a lemon and 2 lemon and whites. We had already decided we wanted a bitch and after speaking to the breeder I had thought that the lemon girl would suit us best. It was a very tough decision to make and I swayed between the lemon girl and one of the lemon and whites who had some really cute freckles on her nose. My DH left the decision to me and after much deliberation I decided to stick with my original decision and we paid our deposit and went home to make plans and go shopping!
We picked Jynx up from the breeder in Canterbury Kent on 16th January 20010, since day one she has been a delightful little dog if a bit of a handful sometimes!
Her first few weeks with us have passed very quickly and it seems as if she has always been part of our family!
The boys adore her and she loves them right back ..... very enthusiastically normally by jumping all over them and play biting!
House training was relatively easy, she only had a few accidents, we chose to have her crate in the bedroom at night for the first few weeks so that if she need to go to the toilet I would hear her and could take her out rather than leaving her downstairs. On the whole it worked very well we only had a couple of accidents in the bedroom and these were due to me not getting up quickly enough! We didn't have the problem of her fretting at night as she was close to us and now she is in her crate at the bottom of the stairs every night and she doesn't whine or whimper and her bed is dry every morning.
We have been attending puppy classes every Tuesday and Jynx loves everything about it, the people the other puppies and the training and on the whole she is good at it, doing everything she is asked to do as long as she gets a bit of chicken in return.
The only couple of issues we have are that she loves to chase the chickens and she also play bites both these problems we are working on and she is improving slowly.
So that's it our life with Jynx so far. I'm hoping to share with you the trails and tribulations of training my first gundog.
Lets hope it all goes well!
First a bit of background, I am a 30 something mother of 2 boys aged 9 years and 19 months (I know its a big age gap!!!) and we live in Northampton with our newly acquired working cocker spaniel puppy 'Jynx', 2 cats and 4 chickens.
I am a housewife at the moment but I am also a qualified veterinary nurse with 15 years experience. I have had the pleasure of owning a lab cross when I was a child and more recently a rescued (from work) rottie x bitch called 'Diva' who was my introduction to obedience training, she was a wonderful dog and a blood donor who saved a couple of dogs lives. She was already trained when we got her but I continued with this so I have done basic training but never trained a gundog.
So why did we choose a working cocker spaniel? After we lost Diva I knew I would eventually get another dog but as we have moved around a lot in the last few years this was never practical until last year when we bought the house that we are living in now, it has a huge garden (one of the main reasons we bought it) . We live in a village with a large park on the doorstep and we are surrounded by country parks and forests - ideal dog walking country.
So when I eventually got my DH to agree to me getting a dog we then had the discussion as to which breed. As my DH has enjoyed shooting in the past and we have 2 boys the oldest of which is a crack shot with an air rifle a gundog of some description seemed to be the obvious choice. I could get back into training and hopefully train my first gundog and the dog would make a shooting companion for my DH and number 1 son. I wanted a Labrador but DH vetoed that saying he wanted a smaller dog (due to years of having a 30kg rottie sitting on you and laying on your legs in bed), so the choice was going to be from the spaniel group. I have had experience though work of the common spaniels so I got onto the Internet to research the rest of the group and after days of research I presented my findings to my DH we decided that a working cocker would fit in with our family the best.
So I went back to the Internet and I spoke to a few gundog trainers and breeders via email and they all gave me excellent advice. as we have children we thought that a home bred rather than kennel bred cocker would suit us best so again I trawled the gundog websites for a litter of home bred puppies after a couple of false starts we located a litter in Canterbury. Emails and telephone calls ensued, pedigrees and prices were discussed and we set a date to go and view the pups.
I was determined not to be swayed by the cuteness of the pups I put on my veterinary nurses head and we even thought about not taking the boys, but that ended up not being practical so we set off after warning number 1 son that we might decide that these pups were not the pups for us luckily he is a very grown up 9 year old so he understood exactly why we might not want to have one of these puppies.
When we met the pups, mum, dad and their humans, we were really pleased to find that both mum and dad were lovely well mannered dogs and the puppies looked fit and healthy. There were 4 gorgeous puppies, one of which, a dog, had already been sold so there were 3 bitches left to choose from, a lemon and 2 lemon and whites. We had already decided we wanted a bitch and after speaking to the breeder I had thought that the lemon girl would suit us best. It was a very tough decision to make and I swayed between the lemon girl and one of the lemon and whites who had some really cute freckles on her nose. My DH left the decision to me and after much deliberation I decided to stick with my original decision and we paid our deposit and went home to make plans and go shopping!
We picked Jynx up from the breeder in Canterbury Kent on 16th January 20010, since day one she has been a delightful little dog if a bit of a handful sometimes!
Her first few weeks with us have passed very quickly and it seems as if she has always been part of our family!
The boys adore her and she loves them right back ..... very enthusiastically normally by jumping all over them and play biting!
House training was relatively easy, she only had a few accidents, we chose to have her crate in the bedroom at night for the first few weeks so that if she need to go to the toilet I would hear her and could take her out rather than leaving her downstairs. On the whole it worked very well we only had a couple of accidents in the bedroom and these were due to me not getting up quickly enough! We didn't have the problem of her fretting at night as she was close to us and now she is in her crate at the bottom of the stairs every night and she doesn't whine or whimper and her bed is dry every morning.
We have been attending puppy classes every Tuesday and Jynx loves everything about it, the people the other puppies and the training and on the whole she is good at it, doing everything she is asked to do as long as she gets a bit of chicken in return.
The only couple of issues we have are that she loves to chase the chickens and she also play bites both these problems we are working on and she is improving slowly.
So that's it our life with Jynx so far. I'm hoping to share with you the trails and tribulations of training my first gundog.
Lets hope it all goes well!
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