NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/440846
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2015 • NEBRASKAland 39 English Cockers Anyone who has the predisposed notion that cocker spaniels are just yippy couch dogs will learn otherwise soon after a hunt begins. "They'll go," Williams said. "They really have incredible stamina and a lot of that comes from the fact that they're awful strong, but also they're just not moving around the mass. A lot of people look at those little dogs and think, 'Ah, that dog's going to be walking at heel after 20 minutes. But it's not that way. "They seem to be eternal optimists. They'll keep hunting even when you've got nothing and you haven't shown them any scent." English cocker spaniels average 30 pounds and stand about 16 inches tall at the shoulder. They work through a field with endless energy, bounding or burrowing their way over or through the cover as necessary, their big floppy ears appearing to be wings at times. When a bird is down, they'll bring it to hand. Even a six-pound sage grouse. Only in a few circumstances, such as a swampy cattail marsh with a mud bottom, does a cocker's size put it at a disadvantage to a larger breed like a Labrador retriever. "But you put it in a patch of thick woods with brambles and overgrown with vines and that kind of stuff, it's going to thrive because it's going to get in and under a lot of the stuff that a bigger dog would have to try to crash through," Williams said. That's the type of cover woodcock live in, which is what these dogs were bred for. In the prairie, thicker cover might suit a bigger dog better, Williams said. But on the other hand, when the cover is so thick that any size dog will have to crash through it, a smaller dog has to crash through less. And put a cocker in that marsh when it's frozen over, and it can follow the tunnels beneath the cattails. "A smart dog will adapt itself to the cover it finds itself in," Williams said. The same goes for a hunter working a flushing dog in thick cover. "If you can't see the dog, that's a problem," Williams said. But the problem applies to dogs big and small. "When you get in that stuff up over your head, I might lose my dog at 8 yards and you might not lose yours until 12 yards, but we still both lost our dogs." If his hearing wasn't so bad, Williams would use a beeper collar or bell to keep track of Pearl. Instead he just avoids tall, thick CRP fields, especially on windy days when he not only can't see the dog, he can't hear it or tell where it is by watching the grass move. While the cocker spaniel's popularity as house pets resulted in the hunting ability being bred out of most dogs, the qualities that make the dog a good pet were not bred out of hunting lines. "There's a lot of time you spend with these dogs that you're not hunting or trialing or doing any of those things, you're just living with the dog, having it as a pet," Williams said. "And they just make wonderful pets. "I hate to admit it but Pearl sleeps on the bed. And she lives in the house. Yet you can still take the dog out and hunt it in Montana for a week if that's what suits you. There are not a whole lot of breeds you can treat that way. The more human contact they have the better they seem to do. "They're an upbeat kind of dog they kind of always seem to be happy about everything." Williams said cockers have the reputation of being a little mischievous and always up for a little trouble. That does make them a challenge to train compared to springer spaniels. "It's been said that springers are like the enlisted men of the spaniel world, Williams said. "You ask them to do something and they say 'Yes sir!' and go right about it. A cocker, you ask them to do something and they think they're officer material, so they might think they have a better idea than you." But Williams said dog breeds are like religion and politics. "People get their preferences and that's it: 'This is the best dog that ever was,'" he said. "I don't pretend to be that way with these cockers, but they amuse me. I'm kind of partial to spaniels and a springer might serve me better, but I find cockers more amusing. They make me laugh a little more." Field Trials Williams never entered his springers in a field trial. He says he wasn't smart enough back then. "Basically, field trialing takes a real talented dog with that little extra bit of polish on it," he said. But soon after he got Zeke, he discovered trials were a great way to extend the hunting season, and an even Pearl doesn't often slow down when in the field, but will stop for an occasional drink.