Rocky

Rocky came to be with us at the end of this past June. I was waiting for a litter that was going to be ready in October, but when I found that we were expecting our second child in February, I decided if I was going to get a second dog right away. The litter due in October would have been about five months old when the baby was due, and I didn’t think that sounded very sane (and I do consider myself to be at least somewhat sane!).  I made some phone calls and sent out some emails and discovered that a breeder in Minnesota had an 11 week old puppy that he was planning on keeping. But, he was also getting married in a few months and already had about five Cockers. He explained that he was planning on keeping this Cocker because it was showing as much or more potential than he had ever seen in a Cocker at this age and he thought it was a strong possibility that he would be breeding him in the future. However, his life already had a fair amount of stress due to the upcoming marriage and the other dogs, and he really didn’t need a puppy to think about right then. After contemplating the situation for a night, he called me back and said he’d sell Rocky (then Christened “Rocket”) to me if I would agree to keep Rocky “in-tact” and allow him to breed to Rocky in the future.

After getting Rocky at 11 weeks of age, I will never again try to get a puppy younger than that. Even though Rocky had not been living in a house prior to me acquiring him, I can count on one hand the number of accidents he had in the house. Once we realized that after he ate his breakfast we had less than one minute to get him outside before he had a bowel movement, we didn’t have any more accidents in the house! He seemed to be extremely advanced socially (both with humans and other dogs) when we got him, and I am attributing this mainly to his opportunity to stay with the litter and his dam for a longer than normal period of time. Even if staying with the breeder had nothing to do with his social skills, the lack of “accidents” in the house were enough for my wife to declare that we would never get another puppy under ten weeks of age!

Rocky’s personality is extremely addictive, for lack of a better word. Very few people that meet him don’t want to take him home! He is an extremely sweet, calm, affectionate dog. That’s not to say that he doesn’t get excited, but his excitement is usually reserved for when he first sees me in the morning and when he knows he is going out to train or to hunt. His is very laid back with kids, and allows the baby to do just about anything to him. One time my wife found the baby calmly pulling up Rocky’s lips and touching his teeth while Rocky patiently stood there and let her examine away! He seems to accept everything in life as if nothing is a big deal. I believe that part of this is because he is extremely loyal and trusting; if he knows I’m okay with something, then he figures it must be okay for him.

Rocky is also extremely athletic. When he runs he gets low to the ground and really stretches out. By the time he was seven months old, he was already as old as Macy and nearly as good at jumping. At just over seven months of age I watched him jump in and out of the back of a 3/4 ton truck with ease! I love watching the Cocker go through cover as he seems to look for obstacles to jump over, rather than simply going around or under. Just today I had him out in a field retrieving frozen pigeons, and he was jumping over bushes bringing the bird back to me. He’s extremely enthusiastic and coupled with his athleticism, it makes him exciting to watch!
As far as Rocky’s hunting prowess goes, he is a fanatical retriever. If Macy’s strength is finding and flushing game, Rocky’s strength is definitely in the retrieve. Whether it’s a ball, a dummy, or a bird, Rocky will NOT quit until he has found the object and brought it to me. If he has failed to make a good mark, he will continue to make wider circles around an area until he has found it, even if it takes five minutes. In fact, one of the things I am working on with Rocky right now is calling him off of a retrieve as he becomes so engrossed in the retrieve it is almost to a fault. If he is having difficulty locating the object and I give him a recall whistle, he will ignore it so that he can continue looking, and when I grab him to bring him back, he looks shocked that I’m making him quit! He also does a great job of following hand signals. He is much further along in his skills than Macy was at that age, although I attribute that mostly to my improved training and handling abilities. For not being even eight months old yet, he continually amazes me at his ability to take “back” and “over” commands. I never formally taught him these commands, but apparently he picked them up from watching me use them with Macy. Rocky also has great stamina. On a recent trip to Kansas for Pheasants (I’ll write about it later), he put in numerous hours of hunting every day, but at the end of the day he always seemed to have more energy left than any of the other dogs or hunters!

 

At just under eight months of age, Rocky weighs about 27lbs. He is a lot leggier than Macy, and I’m guessing he’ll top out in the low 30’s for weight. He has an extremely thick, curly, coat, especially along his back. I was worried that this might cause him to get warm too quickly in mild temperatures, but this hasn’t seemed to be a problem at all yet. His markings are nearly perfectly symmetrical, and even though I didn’t buy him for looks, he’s a pretty handsome lad! Overall we have been extremely pleased with Rocky. We were at first a little hesitant about acquiring a second dog because we didn’t want to mess up what we had with Macy, but he has firmly imbedded himself as part of the family and we can’t imagine life without him.