Following on from Pidges thread on "working dogs in pet homes" Found this article on another forum , and thought it might be of interest to read. As it is relervent to the subject of working strain (gundogs) in pet homes. The IWS mentioned belongs to someone on there, and has fell on his feet in his new home. http://www.thefield.co.uk/features/322142/Rescue_spaniels.html
I have now got 5 rescue springers and one rescue cocker. 2 of the springers and the cocker are working dogs although they weren't trained for the gun. One of the springers was 10 months old when we took her in and had no training at all. She was living by her survival instincts only. She was VERY difficult to train as she thought the other dogs were out to get her food. It took us about 6 months to get her into a good stable frame of mind. She is now a wonderful dog and very loving although we do have to be careful when there are other dogs around. She is not vicious and just wants to play.....but she goes in very hard so some people think of this as agression. The other 2 we have are no problem at all.................they just need LOTS of excercise!