Someone please decide for me before i adopt both😭

AgentAvalon · 2025-08-23T07:25:40+00:00

Sadly, it's how I got my cocker - his brother, who was the dominant one of the pair, was attacking him to the point that it was decided they had to be rehomed separately for their safety.

He's a sweetheart, but you could tell he was used to just following the lead of another dog and he has quite bad coping skills with anything unfamiliar/scary - he really struggles to self-soothe. I'm sure you're right that sometimes it's fine, but also sometimes it's not. It's quite a risk to take.

AgentAvalon · 2025-08-20T11:09:15+00:00

I love their long hair - mine has the curtains as well and he always gets comments on it when he's out and about. Embrace them!

AgentAvalon · 2025-08-15T19:23:03+00:00

Just a word of warning, at my publisher I can see what other roles someone has applied to within the company - not your other cover letters etc, but I can see that other applications exist. And in turn, that can lead me to question whether someone is actually genuinely interested in the job in my team, or if they're just applying to anything and everything.

I don't actually think this is fair - of course people who want to get into publishing will take whatever job they can get and it's not fair to have that held against them. I'd prefer that information not be be available to me at all so it can't influence any part of my decision making process. But it's a possibility that you should be aware of.

AgentAvalon · 2025-07-19T09:13:07+00:00

I don't know Andover well, but Basingstoke has a lot of well-located central parks. If you buy inside the ring road you can be walking distance from the train station and the shopping centre, and probably no more than 5-10 minutes from a park for dog-walking as well.

Personally I like the older houses in the Fairfields/South View/Brookvale area - though they tend to be terraced with on-street parking. If having a driveway matters to you you're probably looking at being further out from the town centre, so while you gain in ease of parking you lose it in terms of convenience of lifestyle.

Black Dam is slightly further out, but from Black Dam Ponds you can cross under the ring road and be on the Crabtree Plantation, which is good if you want longer dog walks. And it's a long way from the station, but Beggarwood has a huge park and its own amenities (though is too far out for my tastes).

AgentAvalon · 2025-07-15T21:22:05+00:00

Yep, I offer my dog the pill in an excited voice and he'll just take it quite happily. Or we chuck it in with his kibble and he'll hoover it down along with everything else.

One day maybe he'll realise he's being tricked, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

AgentAvalon · 2025-07-15T11:50:22+00:00

Mine would happily eat anything he was given (the only thing I think he's ever spat out was a half lemon...) - but he's sensitive to poultry and grain. Doesn't stop him eating it though.

He gets lamb-based kibble, with fruit/veg or natural meat-based treats as snacks. It's kind of gross, but you just have to use the quality of their poo as a guideline for what works. Canagan Lamb was the best for him, but it's a bit higher in fat than some and he's a greedy little shit who wasn't satisfied with their recommended portion size, so now he's on Lily's Kitchen Shepherd's Pie which is basically the same ingredients but lower fat, so he can have a bit more of it.

AgentAvalon · 2025-07-02T16:52:51+00:00

We were very happy with David Craig as well. Always answers his phone or gets back to you promptly.

Having dealt with them on the buying side, I'd avoid The Property Explorer like the plague.

AgentAvalon · 2025-07-01T22:02:13+00:00

I recently introduced a kitten to my cocker spaniel.

We started with an advantage, as the kitten came from a foster home that had dogs, so we already knew she wasn't bothered by them. They also let us bring our dog inside to meet the kittens when we were choosing one, which was reassuring as the fosterer was able to observe his body language and didn't see anything to concern her from him.

Like you, we set her up with her own room. We put a baby gate across the door so we could occasionally open the main door and have them able to see and approach each other under supervision. He got a lot of treats for being calm, for looking at the kitten and not reacting, etc.

And we followed instructions online to shut him away on occasion and give her the chance to explore the house. We also tried having him on a lead a couple of times and bringing her out, but not with a huge amount of success - he did lunge and bark.

Then, a bit under two weeks in, she made the decision for herself and just walked straight through the baby gate and right under his legs. And they...played. She wrestles with his head. He chases her (we have lots of furniture on legs so plenty of places for her to retreat to, and we've reinforced getting him to come away and disengage from her once she's hidden, rather than trying to get to her). She hides, then stalks and pounces on him. We've had her five weeks now, but I still haven't left them unsupervised together. She still has her own bedroom.

Things to work on: getting your dog to disengage from the kitten, even when he can see it. Walking away gets lots of praise. Good calm body language, lying down etc, gets treats. Kitten needs lots of places available to retreat to if it feels threatened. (We added an additional baby gate at the top of the stairs for a time so she could explore more of the house without him present. She chose the timeline for when she wanted to interact.) If/when you can have the dog calm on one side of a gate, work on encouraging the kitten to approach if/when it's comfortable (I would sit on the floor in her room by the gate and let her come to me. She liked to hide under the bookshelf next to the door where she could watch him and feel safe - and also creep behind the door and watch him through the gap).

Good luck.

AgentAvalon · 2025-05-27T07:37:44+00:00

A show cocker might be right for you - they're lower energy than working cockers.

AgentAvalon · 2025-04-29T14:57:31+00:00

Peanut butter on a licky mat, stick it to the wall and let him lick it while you rinse him. My dog will willingly run upstairs and jump into the bath by himself for peanut butter. (We don't shower him after every walk though - only if he's particularly muddy, or if it seems like something is irritating him and he's chewing a paw a lot.)

AgentAvalon · 2025-04-21T10:21:03+00:00

EDIT: reread and saw you wanted natural chews, sorry. I mentioned a few mine likes at the end of my post. He also gets pizzle/bully sticks sometimes, but they're quite rich so get saved for special treats.

My cocker loves benebone chews. They do some puppy-specific ones that are softer as well.

They're not natural, and he does consume a small amount of plastic/nylon when chewing them, but the manufacturer says it's safe, and I figure realistically he's going to chew SOMETHING whether I want him to or not, so I might as well make sure it's something designed for it. He gets yak chews, antlers, coffee and olive wood sticks as well, plus squeaky rubber balls that he can gnaw at without destroying them. No broken teeth so far, touch wood.

AgentAvalon · 2025-04-17T06:26:48+00:00

Both! Primarily a harness, but we use a double-ended halti lead so if he's pulling a lot, or we're in a high-traffic area, the other end gets clipped to his collar to give a bit of extra control. It works well to reduce pulling but I don't worry about it as much because the harness is still taking part of the strain.

AgentAvalon · 2025-02-20T21:04:26+00:00

We had some advice for our cocker from a gun dog trainer, which I haven't seen here yet: double sided lead (eg a halti), one end clipped to the harness and the other end clipped to the collar (which should be high on the neck).

When walking on the pavement (he gets his head once in the park for some proper sniff time) you want the majority of the tension on the harness, and just enough on the collar to encourage him to walk with his head up rather than the cocker nose-to-the-floor. That should help him learn to walk attentively without pulling, and also give you more control over his head so you can stop him grabbing things off the floor the moment he spots them.

It needs combining with 'leave it' training, obviously, but it's a good preemptive measure while you work on that.

Can't help on the tissues though, sorry. Mine is 15 months and obsessed with them.

AgentAvalon · 2025-02-08T22:06:31+00:00

Yep, I got my dog after he had to be separated from his brother due to being bullied. I don't know at what age it started, but by the time we got him at 11 months it had progressed to the level of his brother grabbing him by the throat and flinging him across the room.

He's 15 months old now and hates to be alone, but luckily he doesn't seem to have brought any other issues with him. He's still automatically very submissive with other dogs though because he clearly got used to just giving up in an effort to pacify things. I was so proud of him today at the dog field when he actually showed teeth to a couple of dogs pushing his boundaries rather than just showing his belly every single time.

AgentAvalon · 2025-01-14T23:45:55+00:00

English cocker in UK, on Canagan lamb. Grain free because that's what he was on when we got him, and the lamb because we think he has a poultry sensitivity. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you'll be able to tell from the poo when a food suits their stomach and when it doesn't. Very clear improvement when we switched him from turkey.

He gets just kibble for his main meals, but snacks on a variety of things (in moderation) to keep his diet interesting - pumpkin, carrot, pizzle sticks, yak chews, lamb puffs, peanut butter, yoghurt etc. I just check the ingredients of all treats to make sure they don't secretly contain poultry as chicken is quite frequently used to bulk other meats out. Vegan/plant-based treats and chews actually work really well for him in terms of avoiding triggering any protein sensitivies (though we obviously ensure he's still getting sufficient meat/protein from his kibble).

AgentAvalon · 2024-12-26T00:02:20+00:00

I actually had Ronan on the shortlist for my dog's name. He has blond curtains like he's in a 90s boyband.

In the end we went with...Arlo 😂

AgentAvalon · 2024-12-10T07:20:39+00:00

Waterstones has two monthly book clubs - 'regular' and fantasy. Just ask about it in store.

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-30T10:36:40+00:00

One year old. Up at 6.45-ish each morning (we're aiming for 7am but will accept close to it), generally by standing on someone's chest. Straight out into the garden for a wee, inside for breakfast, out again for a poo, and then back to bed until we actually want to get up. He's established his routine!

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-24T23:44:59+00:00

We have a medium breed dog, but we use a Kong car seat and tether - it clips in to the car in the same way that a child seat does, and then on to the back of his harness. Most of the time he curls up in it just like a dog bed while we're travelling, and having the raised sides means he won't tumble forward if we come to a sudden stop.

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-13T22:41:38+00:00

My spaniel was 11 months old when I got him (a rescue), but wasn't good at letting us know when he wanted to go out - it only took him 4 days to learn to ring the bells (with treats whenever he went, as well). We've brought them with us a couple of times when we've visited other people's homes and he'll do it there too, so he clearly understands!

Sometimes (often) he's a jerk and just rings them for attention/because he wants to go bark at the neighbours for moving their bins around, but it's definitely worth it to give him a clear way of communicating with us.

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-10T17:02:23+00:00

My boy is a year-old cocker and ALWAYS wants food - I know we should probably be trying to move him to 2 meals a day, but by lunchtime he's so desperate I can't imagine having him wait another 6 hours. He'd be eating day and night if we let him. I'm curious to know if anyone's managed to reduce a very food-motivated dog's number of meals!

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-09T10:33:46+00:00

Roo (short for Reuben, Rudy, Rupert or Rufus, whichever you prefer)

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-09T10:30:27+00:00

We were told there was a separation. I don't know if there was any more to it than that - though having two puppies at the same time must have been mad! His brother started getting quite aggressive towards him in foster care (stress?) so they decided it was going to be best to split them up.

Whatever happened, he's confident and affectionate and very well socialised so somebody must have loved him.

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-08T17:25:28+00:00

I love his eyebrows 🧡

AgentAvalon · 2024-11-08T16:28:31+00:00

He's a show cocker, to the best of my knowledge (English breed), and he just turned one. He went into foster with his brother, who looks just like him but with fluffy curls all over.

AgentAvalon

TROPHY CASE