The DOOM Spaniels

The Continuing Evolution of Guinevere's wocker coat:

She's developing a shark fin?

Guinevere is getting downright feathery.

Golly, she's pretty!

For anybody following along with Guinevere's wocker coat, it's been changing again this spring. She has new fluffy undercoat growing long around her shoulder to her elbow, across her ribcage, and along her thigh--all about where a show cocker's skirt would start.

The feathers on her belly started like this, first long soft downy fluff, but then eventually grew in stronger long guard hairs. Her foreleg feathers, pants, and tail feathers are mostly strong guard hairs.

Her ears and the top of her head are still soft underfluff. The hair on her ears melts away to nothing if it gets slightly damp, like cotton candy.

Chest curls, we have definite chest curls!

Thank you! They're delightful, and I am so glad to share their silly faces with everyone.

Tristan is a 3-yr-old American cocker spaniel, bred for the conformation ring. Guinevere is a 1-yr-old English cocker spaniel, bred to hunt in the field all day. They're not just different breeds of cocker, they're as far apart as they can get and still both be "cocker spaniels." But it's so fun to watch them, because the brains inside those skulls still have essentially the same set of instincts.

Because they're both pets, and I teach mostly fun tricks, all their scent behaviors are pretty much instinct and their own practice. They catch the same scents, they move with the same bouncy trot, they follow trails with the same amount of assuredness, together or independently following the same paths.

They enjoy tricks, they like to carry toys and fetch, they want to play, they want to cuddle, they have the most unbelievable ability to get into things they should not be able to get into.

Here's a post I wrote briefly comparing all my cockers, though I don't know much (if anything) about the backgrounds of my three previous cockers.

And I wrote this comparison of Tristan and Gwyn after watching them together for two months.

I have loved the attentive, playful mischief brains of all our cockers. It's very enjoyable to see these two together, so different but so the same. I'm looking forward to Guinevere as an adult, with a little less undirected puppy fidgets and a little more attention span.

During Tristan's second autumn (~16mo), his coat was *so* soft I had to clip him all over, even the ears, because he was a burr magnet. Fortunately by the next burr season his coat was less soft and fine, less prone to matting within minutes of snagging burrs.

Gwyn's coat (at ~14mo) appears to be going through a similar stage. We get these tiny round grass(?) seeds that normally just shake right out of the coat. They are sticking to her EVERYWHERE except the top of her back. The long hairs on her belly feel thick and coarse, I expected those would repel burrs... they're having just as much stuck to them as everywhere else.

She finds them and pulls them out with her teeth (where she can reach); I get the rest daily. Her coat isn't so thick or long that the seeds create unmanageable mats. I just wasn't expecting these things to be a problem for Gwyn at all.

Gwyn laid down on her unicorn so sweetly and adorably, before she began full-contact wrestling. I think she might be learning to pose for the camera.

Gwyn wrestles with her big unicorn [no sound].

Get that unicorn, Gwyn, get it! So ferocious!

THERE'S A STRANGE THUMB-MONKEY OUT THERE MAKING STRANGE NOISES LET ME OUT TO YELL AT HIM

... Oh, it's just Tristan's Fetch and Tug Buddy with a chainsaw. He can stay.

If you look directly into their eyes, you are DOOMed.

I took this picture the morning after Merlin came home in 2015, looked at the impact of the double pair of Spaniel Eyes, and said, "Oh, we are so doomed."

The experience continues. Different Spaniels, same DOOM.

I was thinking about the mat training post and shaping vs luring, and how funny training can be.

When we moved here, we had a pretty good texture on the hard-surface floor so Yvaine and Merlin didn't slip, but I still set up some rubber-backed rugs where they often took turns at a run. When I asked them to practice sitting, they preferred to do it on the rug instead of the bare floor.

The kitchen has the best light, so when I started taking a lot of pictures of them sitting together, I started going there. The mat used to be facing the island, but it was easier to sit on than the floor, so it quickly became The Spot The Spaniels Sat.

When Baby Tristan learned to sit still, he sat on the kitchen mat because Yvaine did. It was automatic, enter the kitchen, go to the mat. If we practiced other tricks, we started from and returned to the mat.

And Gwyn... learned from Tristan.

I never specifically told them to sit there, but they seem to find it a comfortable, comforting routine.

Tiny Golden Princess, Delicate Flower, Sensitive Soul, Dainty Slayer of Pocket Gophers, The Reason My Bedding Is All In The Washer Right Now.