The Zim Family Cocker Spaniel Forum

Hey Donna:

Here's a resizing tool for you to use:

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Welcome back!

Hi fellow cocker spaniel lovers!
My name is Rose. My husband and 2 children (7 and 8 years old) live in southern WI. I stumbled upon this great site when we decided to bring into our lives a new puppy and was researching different breeds online. I fell in love with the american cocker spaniel and we brought KC home in late March. He is only 4 months old and he has won our hearts!

A little bit more about me is that I work at a preschool with 2 and 3 year old children. I love my job but it can be stressful at times. I love art, music, and dance. I am also very family oriented and when I am not at work, I'm with them, or here .

Hello all, I haven't posted since before the crash, so most probably won't remember me (I wasn't very talkative back then either).

I am happily owned by a 10 year old Black and White Cocker named Tyrant (yes, that is his name, he would collect all the toys in the house, pile them up and then lay on them or sleep on them...the stinker) and a 6 year old German Shepherd named Tempest.

Hopefully this pictures come out....cannot seem to find the more recent photos of Ty.

Hi Tina! Welcome back Ty and Tempest are both beautiful. I hope you can stick around and post more pictures for us to ooh and aah over.

Hello fellow Cocker owners and lovers. My name is Igor Lakić and I come from Serbia. I'm 17 years old (but will turn 18 in August.) I own a puppy Cocker who is currently about 6 months old. His name is Kiki (written that way but pronounced with an e, like Keekee or something)
I have came across this forum looking for help with my puppy. Today he barked, rawr-ed and almost attacked me. He came across a small piece of a chicken bone (actually he took it out of the trash can) and started chewing on it. Didn't swallow. When I noticed he has something unidentified in his mouth, I tried to take it away from him. He started rawr-ing at me (don't know the actual English word for it). I put my fingers in his mouth anyway to take it away, and I succeeded. But later when he tried to get to it again and I didn't let him come near it, he started barking at me like never before and jumping around, almost attacking my foot. He's still a puppy and he likes to chew things. He has his chew toys (balls, bone shaped squeeky toys etc). He also likes to chew furniture (ok, he liked that, he stopped now)
So my question is, why is my Cocker so obsessed with that chicken bone that he almost attacked me? Should I be worried? He's always happy when I come home, he starts jumping on me from joy and after I'm done petting him on the head he lies down on his back for me to rub his belly. He never acted that way before, and I'm sure he wasn't hungry because he still had food in his bowl and water in his other one.

Hi All,
I'm Maria and new to cockers. We had britney spaniels growing up so I'm familiar with spaniels. We adopted Hannah, a 3-4yo cocker about a month ago. She is a lovely little buff gal, fully housetrained, knows sit, down, is improving with leash walking with the use of a head collar, etc. I actually came here to learn more about training specifics as she is a door darter.

She's also obsessed with our cat and three parrots.

Welcome Igor! Cockers tend to be food hogs, but your puppy is old enough to start learning some manners. Start by spending time on the floor, offering treats by hand, so he knows you are in control of the food. Then, start training the "leave it" command. Have your dog on a leash and make it sit. Then, put a treat on the floor in front of the dog. Tell the dog "leave it", and tug the leash if he attempts to take the treat. Don't ever give the dog that treat that is on the ground! He needs to learn that if it's on the ground or if you tell him to leave it, it is off limits. But as soon as he responds to the leave it or the tug on the leash, pick up that treat, and give him a treat from your other hand. Continue to practice "leave it", increasing the time that he has to leave it before you pick it up and reward him with a different treat.

Thank you very much Darra, I will start with the training as soon as possible. I'll let you know how it turned out.
Kind regards, Igor.

Hello Rose Varga! I live in southern Wisconsin as well (Racine actually). Welcome!

And welcome to the forum to all the all newest members and pups; love the photos and seeing where everyone comes from in the world.

You'll find lots of good advice and great "community" support here.

Been in and out of here for years, we are on our third Cocker our first male. Have had one for over thirty five years. So we been around the good times and bad times but have learn a ton about our favorite breed. We go to the yearly Halloween dog show at Pleasanton to meet old friends.

Love the Zim's ear treatment but have learned that some problems could be diet, but lucky we have big ear canals in our Oliver. A hair cut about every two weeks, his back, face and pads, his skirt about a once a month with a trim. Shave his bottom side as I call it leg pits as we walk three miles a day. On any clean or dirty dog the fur starts to mat after three to four days it's time for a shower. Cream rinse seems to pick up the dust or dirt but loves his boar hair brush try it!

In the shower we use a bar soap of Dove and finish with J&J baby no tears, rinse with bio silk. Talking about real dirt car brake dust as we walk a car road either up or down hill where there is a lot of that stuff and he turns black at his paws.
(As a side note Dawn dish soap is used on swamp dogs)

As a puppy he got use to us pulling on his legs paws like a full body massage, so the nail trimming is pretty easy on this guy. He is not happy about it but doesn't fight it. He get a treat!

A raw bone every two weeks and he will let me use a tooth scrapper on him. What a guy! He's not happy with me as I guess it's the male thing. Still loves me and loves to be in a pack.

Take care everyone
Joe

Good to see more new faces here! These people have been very good to me in the short time I've been around.

Hello my name is Jayjay, I'm 24, married and live in Japan. My parents live in the UK and they have bought a cocker spaniel recently. I have come to the UK especially to befriend our new dog.
His name is Herbie and he is 15 weeks.

Herbie and I like to relax and enjoy afternoon naps, morning naps, naptime naps and lunches by the river.

....Your parents cocker is a cutie

Hello, my name is Becka.

I have an amazing husband, 3 great kids (ages: 1.75 years, 3.5 years and 5 years).
We live on a farm and we own:
4 dogs (a Basset Hound, an American Cocker Spaniel, a German Shepherd/Husky and a Pomeranian/Dachshund)
3 Goats
1 Ewe
and
11 Chickens

I am here to find some ACS Camaraderie and anwers/ideas to questions I may have in regards to my ACS.

Thank you all for having me!
:)

Welcome, Becka. You will find an abundance of great information and help here. If you don't find what you need assistance with, just ask.

Thank you, Terry! :

Hi all new people. I haven't been here that long but I learn something new every time I come here. I got Simon at 6 mos and now at 2 years he is finally getting a little tiny bit socialized. You will like it here !

This is good to hear!

Hi, I'm Chelsea. I don't have any dogs yet, but in a few years I'm planning on getting a cocker spaniel. It'll probably be another two years before I get one, so I'm planning on becoming very familiar with the breed in the mean time.

Hi Chelsea!
Honestly, when you are ready for one, I suggest you rescue a Cocker.
We didn't rescue ours, but we should have instead of getting a puppy. We happened to choose a poor breeder for ours and the ramifications are really sad. I have been eying our local Cocker Rescue.... but we have 4 dogs and 3 kids :) So, it will be a while before we add another pup to our family.

My hope was to try breeding a couple of times, so I don't know if I could. Is it possible to rescue AKC registered dogs?

Hello we are new to this forum and we would like to introduce ourselves. We are the Blitsch family and we live in Las Vegas. Our names are tommy and pasha we have three kids Eddie (who's off to college) Ryne (13 years) old and Mia (12 years old). We have a wonderful Cocker named Wrigley. Wrigley is a buff colored male with some white color in his coat. He will be 7 years old next month. Wrigley is our first Cocker and we wouldn't trade him for the world. He thinks he's human. His favorite toys are stuffed Monkeys. Other than Wrigley having cherry eye when he was a pup and a couple ear infections he has never had any medical issues. We are in the process of adding a new member to our family (Cocker). We are glad we found this site as it has so much information on it. We will post a picture of Wrigley soon.

Rescues usually spay or neuter and for good reason. There is a lot more to breeding than putting 2 dogs together. You can read up on the zim family site and the breeding area on the forum.