What does easy mean though?

A dog who will fit in easily, learn difficult skills quickly and without much practice, and naturally chilled maybe is a start.

• Sprockers are absolutely fabulous, busy, intelligent dogs, but their natural behavioural patterns means they aren’t always right for everyone.
• Sprockers are bred to hunt birds. This means they find following scent highly rewarding making recall and loose lead walking sometimes challenging.
• Sprockers are usually naturally impulsive which means they are fast to act and usually without much thought: perfect for flushing birds, less perfect for being a calm, polite member of the family without a lot of consistent input.
• Sprockers find holding things in their mouth naturally rewarding. They also like to keep hold of things unless otherwise encouraged in a non confrontational way. If handled incorrectly, this naturally predisposition can easily lead to ‘resource guarding’. This is not ideal around young children- invariably Sprockers will pick your children’s toys up if left around.
• Sprockers are extremely intelligent, busy, and in need of jobs. Even the show varieties. Clear, reward based training alongside off lead walks and brain games are good starts. Without this they WILL likely go ‘self employed’, probably doing things you’d rather they didn’t. This list in never ending: Stealing socks, relentlessly chasing birds and running off after scents, digging in the garden, and then more of a welfare concern, chasing shadows, pacing etc etc.
• Don’t expect your sprocker to walk nicely on a lead without a lot of input. Why on earth would a sprocker ever walk anywhere when they can RUN FAST! Lead walking is a self control skill, which takes a sprocker a lot of learning to master!
• A lot of sprockers are easily frustrated too – this can mean they don’t necessarily love being ‘forced’ to be cuddled or restrained, they may not cope well with ‘forced’ confinement or barriers, and they struggle when denied access to things they want. Difficult sometimes therefore to manage around small children.

Training any dog from a puppy all the way through to adulthood takes TIME, CONSISTENCY, EFFORT, PATIENCE, PLANNING, AND PERSEVERANCE. With a rescue this is tenfold.  With a sprocker it also useful to have a sense of humour!

Lots of sprockers excel at a range of activities- gundog work/training, agility, scentwork, flyball, hoopers, trick training etc. Great ‘extra curricular’ activities which challenge the body and brain! Consider if these activities are for you as your sprocker may ‘need’ that something extra.

Sadly there is a growing number of spaniels including sprockers ending up in rescue simply because they are spaniels.

• Because they pick things up and learn to protect them,
• Because they love to chase things and no-one teaches them not to,
• Because they are busy and no-one expected it and now the dog is bored, frustrated, and going self employed.

Sprocker Assist and Rescue has more dogs waiting for foster homes than fosterers. If you can offer a temporary home for one of these dogs, please do contact us 

Please do your research thoroughly on the breed(s). Don’t just choose one because they look beautiful, cuddly, ‘teddy bear’ like. You have a working dog with specific needs and traits that need to be fulfilled- and THAT is what makes them WONDERFUL.