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Dogs and self-preservation.
Back when we got our first Spaniel, it used to amaze me that she could run across a rocky beach at the same speed as our Labrador.
Thing was, Millie was watching where she was going, taking each step carefully while Connie just hurtled along and, as a result, often ended up skidding along on her face and falling into holes etc.
Course, she was a puppy and she learned from her mistakes at an age where it'd be unlikely that she'd really hurt herself (because, as a puppy, the rocks she was able to gallop across were only tiny ones) and so she learned the lesson, grew up and knows what she's doing now.
So, now we've inherited Ollie, a 4 year old Springer, and I've got no idea what sort of life he really led before we got him (allegedly on a farm) but he doesn't seem to have learned any sense of self-preservation and, in a 4 year old dog, that means he's physically capable of getting himself into all sorts of situations which could be seriously dangerous.
A few days ago I watched him gallop down a hill, lose his footing and slide into a fallen tree, scraping himself pretty badly on some of the branches and leaving him with a nasty cut, literally, about 5mm from his eye.
Today he decided to dive, headlong, into a huge patch of brambles, there was a stream of yelping and, when he got out again I found that he'd got a thorny bramble wrapped around his face, his face is covered in scrapes and he's got half a dozen small cuts all around his eyelids.
Seems, to me, that Ollie's never found out much about the countryside (despite, as I said, allegedly being a farm dog) and now he's in the rather worrying situation of being a full-grown dog with no sense of self-preservation.
Or is that just normal behaviour for a Springer?
Can you buy safety-goggles for dogs?
Thing was, Millie was watching where she was going, taking each step carefully while Connie just hurtled along and, as a result, often ended up skidding along on her face and falling into holes etc.
Course, she was a puppy and she learned from her mistakes at an age where it'd be unlikely that she'd really hurt herself (because, as a puppy, the rocks she was able to gallop across were only tiny ones) and so she learned the lesson, grew up and knows what she's doing now.
So, now we've inherited Ollie, a 4 year old Springer, and I've got no idea what sort of life he really led before we got him (allegedly on a farm) but he doesn't seem to have learned any sense of self-preservation and, in a 4 year old dog, that means he's physically capable of getting himself into all sorts of situations which could be seriously dangerous.
A few days ago I watched him gallop down a hill, lose his footing and slide into a fallen tree, scraping himself pretty badly on some of the branches and leaving him with a nasty cut, literally, about 5mm from his eye.
Today he decided to dive, headlong, into a huge patch of brambles, there was a stream of yelping and, when he got out again I found that he'd got a thorny bramble wrapped around his face, his face is covered in scrapes and he's got half a dozen small cuts all around his eyelids.
Seems, to me, that Ollie's never found out much about the countryside (despite, as I said, allegedly being a farm dog) and now he's in the rather worrying situation of being a full-grown dog with no sense of self-preservation.
Or is that just normal behaviour for a Springer?
Can you buy safety-goggles for dogs?
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IA neighbour's had a couple of Springer Spaniels, and both have been rather excitable. One had a habit of being so please to see you that he'd run toward you full tilt and take no account whatsoever of the need to stop. So it would be a case of "hello, lad... OOOF!".
And the OOOF came from me, not him, as his head arrived somewhere in the neighbourhood of the "lower abdomen".
Lovely dogs, but not too bright! At least they're lighter than Red Setters.
See you on Dragon's Den.
You can also get various shapes and sizes of visor for dogs too.
I guess they're just like kids and people, some are naturally careful others not. One of my girls runs along looking at anything but where she's going so is accident prone. She's so happy go lucky and loving life which is fantastic to see as she was a cruelty case and was almost starved and kept in awful conditions. It took a long time for her to come round but it's lovely to see how happy she is now even if she is clumsy.
Now we have her and trained most of the bad habits out of her, we are always amused (sometimes concerned) that she has no sense of spatial awareness at all. She often walks in to things, spins around and cracks her nose on door-ways, runs straight in to our legs or furniture but never seems to notice or make a fuss about it, even when the noise of the impact is huge!
We put it down to her just being a very happy dog to have the freedom run run around like loon!
I think that's just the lab in her... My old lab used to be able to clear the coffee table with one swish of his tail. They are the most wonderful breed of dog, but really are the clowns of the canine world - no sense, no feeling
Yesterday, after he hurt himself, I saw him try to push his way into a bramble patch and then, when he failed, he just took half a dozen steps back and then took a running jump into it instead.
I recall, back when Connie was a reckless, long-haired puppy, I started taking a pair of folding-scissors with me when I took the dogs for walks so I could cut away all the thorny twigs that got tangled in her fur.
Now, with Ollie, I think I need to find myself a decent multi-tool which has a pair of scissors on it and a decent pair of side-cutters or a saw for chopping at brambles.
I'm convinced that, sooner or later, he's going to get so tangled up that he gets stuck somewhere.
Sorry that made me laugh my stubborn dog is like this. He likes to carry rocks, but grinds his teeth on them, so I got a brick off him and chucked it in a bramble bush and he goes and belly flops straight in the bush.
Indeed.
I keep meaning to take a picture of it when it's happening.
Usually it's a case of Ollie doing something batshit-crazy while Millie and Connie are stood on the path, staring at me with a "WTF???" expression on their faces.
You dog sounds as if he has a death wish!!!
S'funny, when we only had the Lab' I didn't give winter a 2nd thought. It was just an opportunity for her to investigate snow.
Now, with spaniels, I dread it.
My Sprocker is rather "low-slung" and she collects snow.
At first she can just shake it off but then her body heat starts to thaw it out, then some of it re-freezes and she ends up with big clumps of snow and ice stuck to her.
Last year, in the deep snow, she ended up with such a lump of frozen snow underneath her that her legs, literally, couldn't reach the floor any more and I ended up having to carry her home.
Least Ollie is likely to be moving so fast that snow and ice will fall off him before they can get stuck to him.
Her breeder told us this dog's mother once got run over by a Mini. The Mini had a dent in it. The dog? Not a scratch. I don't think bullies are really great at self preservation but as they're built like tanks, it sort of doesn't matter.
Same dog would also dive headlong to a huge rose bush - year in year out, so never learned from experience. Would come out covered in cuts and scratches. Absolutely oblivious.
But she never worried and never learnt - was continually hurtling from one problem to another! I always thought of her as a "special needs" dog - an utter darling - but totally thick.
We've had smaller hairy dogs before and it's horrible when it gets stuck up in their feet too, must hurt because our little one would stop and look at me to pull it out.
Yep.
Whenever there's snow I resolve to buy some sort of coat for Connie but I've always struggled to find one that'll fit or find one that's actually useful.
I hunt around Amazon and eBay, find something that looks right and then I notice that it's a coat and doesn't have any protection underneath or I find something that looks like it'll do the job but then I notice that one or other of the measurements are completely wrong for her.
Trouble is, you never know what you're going to end up with when you have a Sprocker.
Some of them end up as miniature Springers, some of them end up as Cockers with long legs and some of them end up as anything in between.
Connie has ended up as sort of slightly smaller than a Springer, with the same build as a Cocker and dumpy legs like a Cocker.
As a result, the coats that are, overall, the right size for her would be too tight and a coat that would fit her is usually way too long, front to back.
Last year we ended up blagging a t-shirt off a 7 year-old niece and putting that on Connie in the snow.
Have you come across these? looking at the pics made me laugh! Love the hooded ones!
They're all made to measure so should fit ok.
http://www.k9cleancoats.co.uk/gallery.php
Ollie has finally managed to hurt himself quite badly.
He was charging around in a local park yesterday when I suddenly heard him yelping and howling.
Found him in a patch of brambles, lying on his side with blood all over the place.
It seems that somebody had dropped a coke-can in the park, somebody else had showed up to mow the grass and turned the can into a giant lump of razor-wire and then it got chucked into the bramble patch where Ollie stood on it and cut two of his feet to ribbons.
My vet' tells me that it's not really possible to suture a dog's feet so it looks like I'm in for a few weeks of changing bandages every day and putting plastic bags and woolly socks on his feet so he can hobble around outside for long enough to do his business.
Gotta love litter, eh?