Hi 

We collect our first Working Cocker puppy at the end of August, my husband shoots and is hoping to train our bitch.

We have called her Merla and are rather excited!

What would everyone's top tip be for when we bring our 8 week old pup home?

Thanks 

Hi and welcome, I cant give any tips as I too have my firsct WC - all I would say is enjoy!

Thanks, it's an exciting time we already have a horse and a cat.

Hi and Welcome.

Congratulations on your soon to be addition.

Top tip would be, start guiding it in the right direction from the start, makes it easier in the long run.

Welcome, it's good to have another shooting member.

Thanks all, we are looking forward to our new addition, we've been talking about it for a couple of years but putting it off as we already have a cat, but decided life is too short to wait around!

We have a cat as well! Just watch as cats can do an awfull lot of damage to an inquisitive puppy   He ripped the inside of my IWS's ear which involved an operation to mend. Ours definately rules the house  and has been making life h**** for my 15 month old cocker. It chases him and then grabs him round the neck. However the cat hates it when my daughters ESS comes to stay and dissappears  I'm not a cat lover we "inherited" it! 

I dont have a cat, but have 2 horses who get along famously with the WC - he is a great source of entertainment  for them - strange though, you would think 1 cat would be less of a danger to a cocker than 2 horse, not so. Huge admiration for cats, ssh dont tell the OH please, he is a keeper.:P

I inherited a semi feral cat and she had 4 kittens, two of which I kept.

She has beaten my house cocker up numerous times and he is extremely hesitant around her, the kittens are ok though.

We also have 13 chickens and 9 ducks. At first he chased until he realised that it was a NO NO to chasing my egg suppliers!! He now runs around them and totally ignores them. He also visited my neighbour the other day (not by design)who has 50 free range ducks and chickens and a few sheep and he didn't take any notice of them either.

That is not to say that every cocker is that good, one of my others I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw her around the birds!!

Hi

     Have fun with the new addition, I don't know how you train but may I suggest you look at doing a good local puppy training course and go for the Kennel Club Good Citizens Awards. That and don't let the pup stray too far from you, one other thing do the retrieving and aim to get good retreives early on.

Puppy school is well worthwhile, and the KC awards can be fun, we started these with Ollie.  However the reason I gave up was that the training was becoming increasingly incompatible with my training him to be a working dog, especially on the retrieiving side of things.

I'd recommend Simon Tyers (Hawcroft Gundogs) dvd's as a basic guide, and finding a good local gundog trainer to help with those tricky problems that will arise. 

Hi Neill

Yes we have been watching the Hawcroft Gundogs DVD and found it really useful, we've watched the puppy one a few times as we miss what he is saying from all the 'ahhh' ing!

Yes we have had some advice from our vets on local puppy socialisation classes.

I'm currently going through the process of buying a dog crate, puppy pen, car crate etc etc.

Anybody have a particular online supplier that is good quality but not expensive.

I got the crate and puppy pen from the gundog club, though I don't think they were particularly cheap or expensive either.  Our car box is from TransK9 and is a super piece of engineering, you get what you pay for with car boxes and they are the subject of another thread on the forum.