Steve,
Our puppy trainer once made the comment “Having a springer as your first dog is like learning to drive in a ferrari”

6 years on I don’t totally agree with that but the sentiment is correct, they are high energy, active and intelligent dogs but in my limited experience dog ownership operates on a similar basis regardless of the breed.

Meeting other people with their dogs has made me so grateful we got the basic training engrained whilst she was a puppy, especially recall.
Maintaining concistency of commands is important, if anyone is looking after our springer we give them a list of commands that she recognises, otherwise you may as well talk a different language (same for all breeds).

My folks had a springer so I though I knew what I was in for, totally wrong and I now realise I had the luxury of borrowing the dog on a part time basis and not the responsibility of two walks a day, restrictions on travel and holidays.

Whilst it won’t give you the long term ownership experience could you borrow a springer for the weekend or stay with friends who have one ?

We don’t leave ours for more than 6 hours at a time, self imposed guideline and we’ve never had any problems.

As others have said, resist long walks for the first 6 months or so and don’t start her running with you and the bike for at least a year. Be mindful that they are very keen on rummaging through hedgerows and so if they have a full tail this can/will get cut quite a bit. Daisy has a full tail and its her most common injury. She gets plenty of injuries.

True, Alice the intrepid explorer she is has got herself caught in Brambles and had to be rescued (by my wife) luckiing one of the people she was walking with had a torch and a knife (this in North Wales and not the mean streets of Leyton).

She’s also ripped a hole in her chest on barbed wire last summer and at christmas she manage to slice the fornt leg open on god knows what. It didn’t faze her one bit she was running around with a 4 inch slit on her leg with the underlying muscle and tendon on show for all to see.

Both the above required trips to the vets and the chest gash required an over night stay.

When we walk her in the woods she can often been seen running around dragging buts of shrubbery that have caught up in the tail feathers.

On the positive side that big hairy tale does make an excellent fan in summer

Paddy by JasonDStapleton, on Flickr

6 months now and embedded firmly with the family. At work with us during the day and I think that has helped with bonding and experiencing new things. As said above, ours does have an “excited pee-on-shoes” issue which can be embarrassing when clients pop in for a meeting 🙂 He also loves to show off his bedding, toys etc.

To be honest, I wish we had borrowed a friend’s dog for a while to see how it would impact on family life/routine etc as it sure has – but mostly in a completely positive way.

He is ace with kids, our cat and has been nothing but a joy and long may it continue.

Good luck finding the right dog.

My mum is planning to breed her working Cockers this year and we’ve been promised the picks of the litter. Can’t wait! Spaniels are great dogs.

Brilliant guys, all the information is really helping us.

Going to see the dog Tom night, so all going well we will get him on the 16th..

We’re on our 4th springer at the moment.
We had Rolo as a 13 week old puppy from the NWESSR (the 3rd we’ve had from them) and this is what he looked like a couple of hours after we picked him up

He celebrated his 1st birthday last week and this is him from a couple of weeks ago

You’re never alone with a springer, they just seem to attract people when out walking.

It’s worth spending some time training them as the rewards are well worth the effort

Paddy- our rescue springer- has a few issues but is a proper dog- will do anything to keep you happy.
Racks up the vet bills mind cus he crashes through all sorts without any thought to his health!

Paddy by Larkin Pop, on Flickr

Roxy

She’s been with us 12 days now. Found as stray in Ireland, now in Scotland. She was nervous of pretty much everything at first (including me), but is settling in well.

We bought her a new bed.

It’s still new.

Here’s Riley back in August when we first got him:

upload by http://www.sussex-mtb.com, on Flickr

Here he is now (8months):

PC120013 by http://www.sussex-mtb.com, on Flickr

He’s totally bonkers, wees on people’s shoes when they visit! But is awesome with the kids, will run with a bike and is well behaved as long as he’s had some exercise.

Proved to be a good escape artist from his crate when we’re out. We had to beef up the security! Now he can open the front and back doors so we have to keep them locked.

Fabulous dogs guys, keep the pics coming!!

Absolutely love our Springer, his odd traits just make him more lovable. No sense of self preservation though, he’ll jump off/over/through pretty much anything.

he can open the front and back doors so we have to keep them locked.

Yep. Last night the wife was complaining the house was cold, and Charlie had opened the front door…

Here is a picture of the springer, getting her 2 weeks today..

We actually got one locally and got a bitch instead of a dog. Really need to get my finger out and get a list of things i need to buy – quickly! 😆

What size of cages do you guys use for the springers?

Cheers 🙂

Had 3 springers, 2 were great but the first one was the most useless dog ever – too highly bred, cost us a small fortune to buy, was allergic to everything including dust and human hair! She was the greediest dog I’ve ever seen and we couldn’t get here to do anything. Cost us a fortune in various vet bills – in the end we eventually had to have her put down aged 9 as she went blind and deaf and various other issues which meant she was living a life of misery – was the saddest day of my life…

Other 2 were great dogs though – intelligent and gentle. Only issue we had with one was he managed to snag his tail in a barbed wire fence when out walking and we were unable to find him for 2 days. Hunted high and low for him and it was only when we took his brother out on the second day to look for him, he managed to locate him. He was really dehydrated but made a full recovery – wouldn’t have happened if we were still allowed to dock their tales as pups!

Current dog is the first mongrel we’ve owned – bought from a farm and supposed to be a King Charles Cross, but she is the size of a Cocker, looks like one, but slightly longer legged. She’s almost 4 and been the best dog ever – incredibly gentle. She hasn’t missed a cross country run (3 x per week) with me since she was 5 or 6 months old. Never put her on the lead and she will run alongside me. If she stays behind to wee, when I hear her running behind me I put either the left or right hand out to tell her what side to overtake me on!
I never shut our driveway gates yet she never leaves the garden unless I tell her to. Started taking her out when biking to trail centers and she stays on my rear wheel the whole time without a lead. Haven’t been more than about 15 miles on a bike run with her in case she gets too tired out, but I’ve yet to see her tire. Funny thing is she is quite happy to lounge about the house all day if I’m not in the mood for exercising too. My only criticism of her is she is a bit of a coward with other dogs – perhaps that’s what comes with being so gentle. Maybe I’ve just been lucky with this one, but when I compare her lack of breeding and cheap price of £200 it makes you wonder what all the fuss about breeding is!
Managed to get Rachel Atherton cooing over her too at Fort William this year too – bonus 😀