Our Story

My love for Cocker Spaniels started as a young child when one Christmas morning I woke to find Santa had left me an adorable little buff colored female Cocker Spaniel. I affectionately named her Teddy. How I loved that dog. She was my best friend and I loved playing with her!

As newlyweds, my husband and I got a Cocker, again a buff color, but a male this time named Luke. What a wonderful dog he was and was great with our young children. Time went on, life got busy and after we lost Luke at the age of 12 we didn't get another cocker. We eventually got two Shih Tzu, Chloe and Ali.

One night after a long day at work, I pulled into the driveway to find our son, Daniel holding a little brown bundle of fur. Yep, a chocolate Cocker Spaniel pup. I was so mad. We already had the two Shih Tzus, I was working full time, and we had young children still in grammer school. Who would have time to spend with her and train her? Life was hectic to say the least. Of course my anger didn't last. Who could resist this beautiful, little chocolate bundle?  Our son did take the bulk of the responsibility and everyone pitched in to help.  Dakota immediately fit right in here and she was a delight!

Daniel and Dakota....the dog that rekindled my love for Cocker Spaniels 

Then our life changed, like many families after 9-11.....our son being a United States Marine got deployed to Iraq and now she was with us all the time. Oh how she missed Daniel. She would keep going into his room looking for him and would just sit on his bed. She would lay on the top of the couch and watch out the window, waiting for him to pull in the driveway. She was definitely Daniel's dog! We all somehow got through the months of him being away and thankfully he returned home safely. What a happy day for all of us! Dakota was thrilled to see him! She would not leave his side.
Then the day came that Daniel moved out on his own and of course Dakota went with him. The house seemed so empty without the energy of a cocker. We missed them both soooo much. So that led to a new search for a cocker and how I have my current cocker crew : )

I wanted a black female cocker and found a beautiful little girl from a breeder in the Pocono Mountains. Which is one of our favorite places! What could be more perfect than getting her from there? Lexi is a joy and what energy she brought back into our home. Then three months later, I thought maybe she needed a playmate. So back to the breeder we went in search of a buff cocker, our Lily. What great friends they are. They are always together, playing, sleeping, eating...best buds : ) .

This past Fall we needed a little "Hope" in our life. I happen to go on the same breeder's website that we got the other two girls from and saw this adorable little white and buff girl. I had to go see her and of course immediately fell in love with her. She turned eight weeks old on Christmas Eve and we went to pick her up that morning. We named her Hope....that's just what we needed at that time, Hope.
Boy oh boy is she a ball of  mischievous energy...lol. One day while being outside with her I noticed what nice movement she had. She had the prettiest walk I have ever seen on a cocker. I said something to my husband and he had noticed it too. That led me to start looking into showing her. What I found out was ACA (what she is registered under) does not do any shows in the north-east. That started me looking into AKC dogs shows. We attended several shows and I was very interested in pursuing this. I loved it and it sucked me right in. That brings us to our story of our precious little Sadie, which is in my very first post on the blog.

Hope and Sadie are best buddies. I love watching them play together. I am so happy that they have each other.

Everyone has a story....what's yours?
I would love to hear other people's stories of your start and love for Cocker Spaniels or any other dog.  Please feel free to post your story in the comment section below.



Seems I always have a cocker in my lap when I am writing my blog....but I wouldn't have it any other way   : D

Two Handling Classes and a Show

It has been a busy couple of days for us. On Saturday we went to the Springfield,  MA show. Sadie had never been to an indoor show.  She did incredibly well. It was a lot noisier than an outdoor show and it was crowded.  It didn't bother her at all. She had a lot fun meeting people and having them tell her how cute she is. She does very well being around other dogs and it seems the bigger the dog, the less afraid she is. This girl LOVES going places and is wonderful traveling in the car. When she knows she is going somewhere she bounds down the stairs, it looks like three at a time!

With only approximately three weeks until Sadie turns six months and could technically be entered in a six to nine month group in a show, I thought maybe it was time to pick up the pace. As I had said in earlier posts, Handling class has had many dogs recently. While it is good for her, we have a lot of idle time while the instructor works with another  dog. I felt we needed some one on one instruction. I am so glad we went. It is a different place and building, which is great, so she doesn't always expect the same environment.  We were able to discuss questions, concerns and work on things that I felt we needed to improve on. One concern I had was there are always only females at the classes and I wanted to see how she would be with a male judge. The instructor's husband was there and he played the part of judge and I was delighted to find that she did great. Another thing I wanted to discuss was conditioning Sadie. She had wonderful ideas and helpful hints. We will be working on conditioning Sadie little bits at a time so we don't overdue it with her for the rest of the week and then reevaluate on Monday.

Tuesday night took us to group Handling class. Last week and this week there was a different instructor. At first I wasn't so crazy about the idea because the other woman knew what we were about and where we were at with our training. But I found it very helpful to be instructed in different ways and the class be held differently. She is tougher on us as handlers than the other person. At first I cringed, but as the class went on last week and this week, it has helped me to be more thick skinned and take the criticism and turn that into improving on what I did wrong. I am glad that she tells me when I am not doing something right or suggests to do it a different way. I have found it very helpful.  Sadie stacks fine on the table but as soon as the "judge" comes over she is all wiggly and just wants to be talked to and pet and played with. She is such a happy girl and loves everyone! The instructor gave me some tips and we tried them and it worked like a charm. And she wasn't even on the "happy legs!" With how tough she has been, it really meant a lot when it came our turn for the second time and she told us to do a diagonal down and back and when we were done she looked at me and said, "that rear movement down was drop dead gorgeous"  and "I don't do this breed but even with not knowing the cocker standard I can say she has a beautiful head and front". Wonderful encouraging words!

So in the words of Greg Strong, we continue to......condition, prepare and then hopefully present!

Not Losing Sight of the Journey

I came across this saying below and instantly loved it. I am going to make it our motto for Sadie's journey. I don't ever want to get so caught up in trying to get to the "destination" that I forget to take the time to appreciate the journey and the wonderful, helpful people we have meet along the way.

"We are so often 

caught up in our

 destination that we

 forget to appreciate 

the journey, especially

the goodness of the

 people we meet on the

 way. Appreciation

 is a wonderful feeling, 

don't overlook it."

I always want Sadie to be this happy girl
and to be with her every step of the way, enjoying every minute of it.

Handling, Grooming repeat....

Anyone that has or had Cocker Spaniels knows that it takes a great deal of time and patience to keep them groomed. As I mentioned in previous posts I have had a couple of lessons so far and I ordered my grooming supplies. So I figured I would try my hand at it. There's nothing like doing it yourself to learn. I started with my quiet buff girl, Lily and then my black girl Lexi. They both were very cooperative and did great. They both came out fairly good for a first time on my own. A couple of days later I tried my buff and white girl, Hope. Well, I'm glad I didn't start with her! She is only 8 months old so she was all over the place. I tried everything. I had someone hold her,  just had the clippers on by her, ect, ect. Finally I found it worked best for just her and I to be in the room and to take a very, very calm approach. I went slow with her and gave her breaks in between. Not to mention the goldfish crackers that were a good bribe : ).  Finally after many hours and my first (I'm sure of more to come) grooming cut to my finger....ouch! those thinning shears are sharp! we were done and she looked pretty good. Both her and I were exhausted after that...lol. I have trimmed Sadie's face and ears a couple of times since my last lesson with Judith but I want to wait until we can get together for another lesson to do the rest of her. I know I can do it, I just want the moral support to guide me through it.

For the first couple of weeks of handling classes there were only one or two other dogs there. The past three weeks there have been six or seven. It has been a good mix of different situations for Sadie. She's not the youngest one there anymore and she has been the demonstrator of how to use the "Happy Legs" for the other puppies. Although even now that there are younger puppies, she is still referred to as "the little baby cocker".  Tonight at class there was a different instructor, which was good because she had some new helpful tips and things to do. Also it hopefully helped get Sadie and I used to the fact that things will be set up differently at shows and there will be different people.

On another handling practice note....my husband made me a set of "Happy Legs" for Sadie to practice on at home. I had looked up ordering them online and they are $200. YIKES!