Macy

As much as I would like to write about some of the hunting excursions I have had with my Cockers, I think that those stories will have more meaning to the reader if I first tell you about each of my Cockers so you can understand their personalities, quirks, and strengths a little better. Since Macy is the elder of my Cockers, she’s first on the list.
When I moved back to Iowa after a several year hiatus in Wisconsin, I knew that I wanted to get a bird dog. I grew up hunting pheasants over a Yellow Lab, but that wasn’t going to work this time around. You see, I was living in an apartment at the time, and there was no way that I was going to be able to make room for a dog of that size. A few years prior, I had read an article about Field Bred English Cockers, and for some reason I still had that article in my memory. I began doing more research on the breed and contacting breeders. When I found a litter of Cockers only two hours from my house, I sent in my deposit for a female.
That’s how Macy came to be. My wife was sold on the freckles on her face, and I was sold on the pedigree and the reputation of the breeder. When she came home with me at seven weeks of age, she was a cuddly, cute little puppy. The cute part lasted for a while, but the cuddly part quickly disappeared. She quickly became a bundle of energy that never quit. She didn’t destroy things by chewing, but that may have partially been because she barely slowed down enough to chew anything, including her food! I don’t know if it was my lack of experience, but Macy was a very wild puppy. I had a terrible time training her to do anything. It definitely was not because she was not capable of learning. Just the opposite in fact. She showed early on that she was incredibly intelligent, and I think that may have been part of the reason that I had trouble training her.

           

By the time Macy was about ten months old, I felt that she was way behind in her learning. She wasn’t 100% on her recall, often wouldn’t fetch, did not always sit, etc. Then, something clicked and that all changed. In what seemed to be an over-night occurrence, she changed into a sweet dog that was very biddable and trained extremely easily. In fact, later on I joked with my wife later that if I had known how easy it would be once Macy hit ten months, I wouldn’t have bothered to try training her anything prior to that. She still had her ornery moments, but those slowly dissipated as she got older. By the time she was two years old, the ornery moments were non-existent. 

Now, Macy is an extremely sweet, mild mannered dog. The only time she acts remotely crazy is when she is having her morning or even fight (play fight!) with Rocky. The rest of the time, she likes to lay around the house or wait patiently underneath the baby’s high-chair hoping for a Cheerio or some other morsel to fall to the ground. In the field, Macy is a tenacious hunter. She goes non-stop, and does not shy away from any type of cover. She is extremely focused. Early on I occasionally used treats to encourage good behavior from Macy while at home. She would do just about anything to get one of those treats. However, several times I have tried to give her treats while she is working in the field, and she won’t even look at them. It’s as if she’s saying, “I’ve got much more important things to be doing right now instead of eating a stupid treat!” Originally I used my voice to control and direct Macy in the field, but at times it was frustrating because I felt that she was ignoring me. When I switched to using a high-pitched whistle with her, it was night-and-day difference! She became much more responsive, which leads me to  believe that she often didn’t hear me when I was using my voice.

Macy has an amazing memory, but I would be exaggerating if I said she is a great retriever. Instead, she seems to view retrieving more as an obligation than as a pleasure. She will retrieve dummies, but she’d prefer to let Rocky do it if he is around. She is much more keen on retrieving birds, but even then I often feel that her main objective is to flush the bird and that retrieving it is secondary (this is almost the opposite of Rocky). I have given her triple retrieves with dummies on lakes and she has no problem locating and bringing back all three. It seems like retrieving in the water is one type of retrieving that Macy actually enjoys. This is often demonstrated by her extremely aggressive entrances into the water (see below)! She is also passably good at doing blinds, although she struggles at long blinds. I attribute this mainly to my lack of experience while training Macy early on because she starts to lose confidence the further out that she gets.

Overall, we think that Macy is a great dog. She is such a part of the family that we couldn’t imagine life without her. The only time she is in a crate is when I am transporting her somewhere, the rest of the time she has free run of the house. We have absolute confidence that no matter how long we leave her out in the house, and no matter how many baby toys are scattered around, when we return the house will be in the exact same condition as we left it. My wife often takes Macy to “keep her company” when she runs errands because Macy will patiently sit in passenger seat while my wife drives and when she gets in and out of the car. She truly has adjusted to our family to the extent that she is almost zero trouble, and even to the point that she feels like another member of the family. She has progressed to the point that she has even recently begun to take computer classes.