Help with Springer! General Chat

definitely mine are both working strain and had working parents, one of which came as a part trained gun dog. You have to be prepared to get out in all weathers to the countryside, be prepared to let them off the lead, so a good level of training, even if they are not working for game, they will still need something to focus them, like hunting for a tennis ball, this will help to focus them back to you and to aid with any possible thoughts they may have to hunt rabbits/pheasants/deer or whatever they may want to chase. You will need to have something up your sleeve to give you the edge because you wont get away with walking them around the streets for any amount of time and have them calm and happy the rest of the time.

I do rally obedience and have just finished the training to join the club (we are deciding whether we will have time to compete), but this has also been a good focus and helped build a training relationship with my younger dog and he behaves very well to do it, including ignoring the rabbits that tease him from the side of the training field, because he see me and what i have as the reward. He wires up to do this and it helps keep him focussed for our general day to day life also.

My older girl isnt motivated by this sort of training but she is a very soft loyal kind of dog who is also ball motivated and will recall back for the chance of another throw of the ball. They are great dogs if you are willing to get mucky with them!

There is also nothing more fun to watch than springer zoomies, we have had to move our sofa slightly to make the zoomie gap wider now there are two of them!!

They have us in fits of giggles when they think the other one is not looking they will nip their bum, run like mad and wait for the chase. Or grab a whole leg to tip them over, roll all over each other and sit and pretend they have had enough just long enough to lull the other one into a false sense of security and then go in for the kill!

But it is only for a few minutes and then they collapse exhausted!

Willow is from show lines, I wasn't quite mad enough to think I could keep up with a working bred springer. Her Ma and Grandma were both very laid back and placid when we saw them, so she should calm at least a little in time.

She can swim beautifully - I try to keep her out of the canal because she likes to play with the swans (they aren't playing), but she has fun in the river trying to catch the little fish. The seaside is her favourite place ever - all that free space to run, and all that water!

She gets at least an hour walk a day, about three quarters of which is off-leash through fields. She has to be encouraged to go free running though, and comes back every couple of mins to check on me. I think she'll get a bit more confidence with time.

She's not too keen on tennis balls, she'll run after it, pounce on it, she might pick it up and run with it, and is unlikely to bring it all the way back. If its out of sight, she's not interested. If she drops it, she's not interested in getting it back. I reward her every time she brings it back, but she's being a little slow to catch onto this. I'm thinking of substituting a puppy kong with some P-nut butter inside, she'll probably hang onto it for longer. Thoughts?

As far as the zoomies go, yesterday I was washing up and heard much squeaking and wailing from the living room. By the time I got there Willow was making a bolt for underneath the table, thoroughly wrapped in net curtain shreds. She's being a bit more cautious around the windows now, which I'm happy about.