When I purchased Macy I had several people say to me, “good luck turning her into a hunting dog, we bought a dog for hunting, but that didn’t turn out so well…now they are just a pet.” I’m somewhat of a competitive person, so I viewed this as much more of a challenge than a discouragement. I’ve put hours upon hours of training into both of my Cockers, and I feel that they are getting closer and closer to being where I want them, although I imagine it will be a learning process their entire lives. In this post I would like to cover the something that I have found to be most the important aspect in training my Cockers, or any dog for that matter. One word: Consistency.
My Cockers are my pets along with being my hunting companions, and I will admit that it’s easy to not always be consistent with them. As pets, sometimes they almost feel like friends. As a result, my natural tendency is to be lenient toward them. Especially if they’ve put in a hard day in the field, or if they give me the pleading eyes! I’ve had to learn the hard way how important it is to always be consistent in my expectations for my Cockers. If one day it’s not okay for Rocky to put his front feet on the counter when I’m getting his food, then it can’t be okay any other day either. If one day I don’t let Macy jump on my lap without being asked, it can’t be okay any other day either. The same holds true for commands I give the dogs while in the field. This isn’t always as easy as it might sound. Sometimes the convenient thing for me to do is to just let the dogs do what they want to do, as long as it’s not damaging anything. Unfortunately, when I’m not consistent in my expectations for my Cockers, they always decline in their overall obedience, and my enjoyment of them consequently suffers.
Coupled with the idea of being consistent in my expectations for my Cockers is the idea of being consistent in my discipline of them. If one day I am extremely harsh with my Cockers and the next I am much softer in my discipline, this only serves to confuse them and make the transgression and the objectives less clear to them. Instead, my goal every day in my training is that when they do something wrong, I respond with consistency in disciplining them. This means I have to set aside any frustrations from the day and focus on the task at hand. Conversely, I have to be careful that if I’m having a great day I don’t go too easy on them either and let them get away with things that they shouldn’t.
Lastly, under the theme of consistency, I have found the importance of remembering that any time I am around my Cockers I am teaching them something, whether passively or actively. If I see them doing something and ignore them, I have just taught them that they can at least sometimes get away with what they’re doing. If I give them a simple command in the field that it doesn’t really matter too much if do it or not, and I let them ignore me, I’ve just taught them it’s okay to at least sometimes ignore me. If I give a command three times before I enforce it, I have taught them to wait until the third command before responding. However, if I am consistent in enforcing the “rules” the first time and every time, eventually they start to respond with the same consistency I am responding with because they know that there are no exceptions.
The hard part about all of this is that sometimes it’s easy to be consistent, and other times it’s difficult. For instance, if I take my Cockers out for a training session and it’s just me and the dogs, it’s extremely easy for me to be consistent. On the other hand, if I am hunting with a group of guys and one of my Cockers starts misbehaving, it’s extremely tempting for me to NOT do anything. I’d much rather deal with the problem the next day in training rather than drawing attention to my dog in front of the guys. However, once I’ve fallen to this temptation, I’ve effectively told my dog that it’s OK for it to misbehave in that setting. Instead, my responsibility is to swallow my pride and take care of the problem right then and there.
So, to quickly reiterate this simple concept: always be consistent with you Cockers! Be consistent with expectations. Be consistent in disciplining them. Remember that you are ALWAYS teaching your Cocker something when you are around it. And, don’t succumb to peer pressure when striving for consistency.
Cockers are extremely smart dogs, and this can be a blessing and a curse. They’ll generally quickly learn commands, but they’ll also quickly learn to take advantage of you if you aren’t consistent with them. They also have an uncanny knack at communicating things with the expressions, so don’t let them talk you into giving in to their demands! These are great dogs…take the time to cultivate them to their full potential!
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