Rita - Our 'Personality Rich' Cocker Spaniel

by Eric
(Denmark)

Dear Pauline,

I am just writing to say thank you for the work you put into this website. Our continued quest for ideas to help us get the upper hand with our personality-rich cocker spaniel led us to your site.

The comments and advice have, at a minimum, helped us understand we're not alone, but have also helped us make some progress. Thanks again and we'll certainly be putting your ideas to the test with our dog.

We have a 6-year-old female Cocker Spaniel named Rita that has been (and still is) an enigma for us. She is a year younger than our female Wheaten Terrier which is a much less challenging dog.

Our efforts to renew the fight against attention-seeking behaviour (primarily whining) has given some immediate results. We go through cycles of focus and laxness and Rita has a way of adopting new and undesirable behaviours when we lose our vigilance.

Fortunately, she is very mild-mannered and we've had no issues with temperament or possessiveness outside of lots of non-threatening noise-making when she doesn't like something.

A very interesting animal...

Thanks again and I was unable to find a better picture of Rita along since most of the pictures include both dogs.

Eric