tigajess

Thanks for all the replies! I really wasn't sure if keeping her confined while eatting was going to do more damage then good. I tried quite a few methods but I sort of panicked as she started to lose weight, she does have a nice layer covering her bones but she is quite curvy and defined now, but then again she just had a growth spurt and I remember my last dog a border collie went very curvy and thin when she was young too. She will eat well at night if she is hungry, usually if she hasn't eatten much in the morning if I took her meal away because she left it to go bounce off the walls ;) She actually doesn't bounce off the walls and couch usually... I assume this happens when she wants to get closer to us to get our attention when we're ignoring her when she should be eatting. Do I just continue to offer the morning meal and hope that eventually she will eat both meals without the fuss? She gets about 1 and a half cups of food 2 meals a day. If she gets extra food during the day (chicken wing/ treats/ scraps) then the next meal is less as I know she won't want as much to eat. She gets a mixure or dryfood/rice/veg/raw meat. In the mornings I sometimes change this for dryfood with sardines/ fruit / or yoghurt. Am I feeding her more then she needs? And what would be the correct method with feeding? as soon as she leaves the bowl do I just take it away and wait until the next meal? I'm unclear about trying to give her the right message. I must admit I'm not so good with giving the right signals generally with any dog I will try to keep her to one area and see how that goes. Also with feeding chicken wings... should I be cutting up the wing? and is it a case of keeping an eye on the dog until they learn how to eat the wing without any trouble? I recently fed Pippa a chicken wing and she did pretty well, my other dogs basically swallow them without even chewing, towards the end she got part of the wing stuck on her tooth, she started to cry so i went out and grabbed the last bit, even though she didn't want to share it for a few seconds she let me pry it loose from the tooth.

Pippa my 17 week Blue roan Cocker Spaniel Female is gentle girl who at times can be a bit of a live wire. She is doing fantastic with training and commands, responds well and generally pays attention. I am however having trouble with getting her to not jump all over everyone and bounce on the furniture in between running back to her bowl in the kitchen and eatting at meal times. I found the behaviour worse in the morning and now try to give her a decent amount of exercise to burn off the energy before a meal. But I still find that even though she sits for her meal and starts to eat well with in 1minute she will will trying to find out what everyone else is doing and bounces all over the couch to get attention. I was really hoping she would stop wondering away from her meal by now, or at least check on people and go back to her meal without bouncing off the ceiling and the couches We ignore her until she finishes her meal but now she's starting to do anything that needs our attention...my problem is I don't know how to correct the behavior. Today when she jumped on a couch and started getting into my mum's things I said "no" grabbed her put her at her bowl and told her to "eat", (this was after she was jumping all over the other couch with us ignoring her) she went back to eatting while watching me to see if I was doing anything more interesting, I ended up being where she could see me but not paying any attention to her. What else should I be trying? :rolleyes:

I have a 12 week Cocker Spaniel "Pippa" and I was reading some posts and thought someone might be able to correct my feeding technique. I'm worried because she likes to leave her bowl to see where people are. She'd rather eat when someone was watching her. Now I never wanted her to get into the habit of that and she is pretty good now BUT when she leaves her bowl should I just go and pick it up or leave it longer then the 15mins and just feed her at the next meal time? Will she get out of the habit of leaving her bowl and going back and forth when she feels like it. We do try to ignore her until the bowl is picked up. Also she sits before I put her bowl down but I can't put it down without her running at it, I find blocking her until she sits again and then releasing her with a command is working, but is this technique wrong? Any ideas would be great, Thanks =D

Thanks to all the replies! THings have improved a great deal with the eatting, the toilet training well...that's another story Toohey the diet sheet is fantastic! I have added to many things into the diet and it's working a treat. The toilet training is actually better the last couple of days after a week of peeing and pooping everywhere even after going outside :rolleyes: The waiting 20mins for her to go can be REALLY LONG...but I'm looking forward to the light at the end of the tunnel! I swear sometimes I know she needs to go but she just wants to find the right blade of grass! We scraped the pen that she slept in with no door and having to lift her out I decided in the long ran it was a bad idea and she now uses her soft crate... is there anything I should know about crate training? So far so good, she loves it. Bitting... I know puppies who are teething like to bite, we correct the behavior and she doesn't bite so much and mouths more often then actually bite now, we give her toys when she really wants to mouth or bite something BUT it really worries me that this behaviour will be a habit when she's older, is there any technique I should use with a cocker pup and biting? I am pretty stressed about it since she mouths everything, even when giving her a pat she tries to bite all the time, I can't afford and don't want a pup that grows up to be a snappy dog, as I plan to eventually have children and I'm sure it won't be long before I have nieces and nephews around the place. Any ideas? am I worried about normal puppy behaviour? and how do I tell the difference between habit or just teething that she will grow out of? Thanks everyone ;)

I had to have a bit of a giggle when I read this topic... We got a lovely and very affectionate Kelpie male "Sammy" from the pound with a history of abuse and neglect, I found when we went to dog training he'd pee on everything...including me, at home he'd pee in his bowl. Anyway long story short I was horrified and apart from the standard theory of marking his territory I had no idea why he was doing it, and he's not a dominate dog and I wouldn't class him as ever being leader of our dog pack. I eventually worked out that when he was anxious he would mark what was "his"... (plus the bowl) And generally now things go okay and he knows not to pee on me, that and I've learnt to get out of the way (especially when he's put in a new situation) His latest target was my new 12 week old pup "Pippa" ...I only just got her out of the way of being claimed by pee when we went to Sammy's dog training class last week. I'm glad I'm not alone with the peeing in the bowl behaviour... and I'm happy to say it has actually stopped happening. :rolleyes:

I have a 10 week old female English Cocker Pup which I think I have researched more the I should have , since the more I found the more I tried to sort out. Anyway I wouldn't call it a problem but I had trouble up until about 2 days ago getting Pippa (the pup) to eat a meal, I had it worked out with the breeder what to feed her but since she only ate about 1/3 or less each meal I didn't end up with a plan on what to feed her, now that she's eatting much better at night I am unsure how much to actually give her and since she eats hardly anything in the morning what I should do? I would decrease the evening meal but I don't think 3/4 cup of food is really that much anyway and don't want to decrease it to have her eat more in the morning...or am I thinking wrong? I have her on the diet the breeder had her on, optimum dry food with mince meat and rice, but I find she won't always eat the dry food...my worry is that the food suggested is the adult variety, should I change it to the puppy variety? I can't even tell if it has smaller pieces. Also my toilet training seems to have failed lately, she use to go to the newspaper when she was inside and if we were lucky we could take her outside when she sniffed around, but now she's very sneaky and just goes really quickly before we have time to take her out...and not on the paper, I've had dogs toilet trained before but not one that ever just went without sniffing or some sign first, what should I do? So basically... how much should she be eatting morning and night, should I try the puppy variety and what sort of toilet training should I try, also how does creat training work? We have her in a pen at night with a blanket and a bit of newspaper just in case, we eventually want her to have just a bed in the house with no pen, how should I go about this? Thanks for any help!