On the 1st February, our delightful, intense, ridiculous dog Duke Silver turned 6 years old. Before Duke, neither Dan or I worked with dogs and it had never occurred to us that we might ever do so. To say Duke has changed our lives might be a bit of an understatement! He’s certainly not been an easy dog to live with over the years. We’ve dealt with more than our fair share of medical and behavioural issues with Duke, but we’ve learnt a hell of a lot along the way. So I thought I’d share 6 things I’ve learned in 6 years with Duke Silver.

You can’t out train pain

One thing I really wish I’d known sooner was the relationship between pain and behaviour in dogs. If you don’t know, Duke has a spinal defect that he was most likely born with. However, we didn’t know about this until he had x-rays at about 2 years old. Duke started showing aggressive behaviour towards us when he was around 6 months old. I remember the first time he lunged and growled at me as clear as day. It was really quite scary as I had never seen any of my dogs do that towards me before. Long story short, it took changing to a new vets, working with our incredible behaviourist Laura Green, getting Duke on anti anxiety medication and changing how we exercised him to manage his aggression.

I’ve since studied the relationship between pain and aggression and now know how common it is for dogs with underlying medical issues to show aggressive behaviour. Life with Duke has taught me just how important investigating a dog’s physical health is when dealing with behaviour issues. You can do all the training in the world, but if a dog is in pain, you are not going to change the behaviour you’re worried about. Training can actually make it worse sometimes!

You also can’t out train genetics

The second major thing that life with Duke has taught me is that you can’t change a dog’s genetics. We collected Duke at 9 weeks old from a farm, where both his parents had been working gundogs. They were out in the fields all day with their owners doing what they were literally bred to do, which is run, retrieve and work closely with their humans. It simply is not reasonable to expect that a 20 minute walk on lead, around the block twice a day is going to be enough for a dog with those genetics. It also means that he may well show typical traits of working lines spaniels. Highly energetic, intelligent, affectionate, prone to separation anxiety and resource guarding. Duke is all these things, dialled up to 100. Whilst we fully expected the first three, we definitely were not prepared for the latter issues. Doing a bit more research would have saved us a lot of stress!

The importance of advocating for your dog 

Throughout the struggles we’ve had living with Duke, I’ve learnt that I have to advocate for him. All the time, but especially in situations in which he struggles. For him, that’s most obvious at the vets. Going to the vets is absolutely Duke’s worst nightmare and his experiences. Due to his spinal issues, these have often been painful and traumatising. For him, but us at times too! I’ve learnt to plan ahead for these visits, to get resourceful and to speak up when I know something is not going to work for him.

Our last vet trip was for his 6 month medication review and our fantastic vet agreed to check Duke over in the car park, instead of inside the clinic. This meant that we could walk Duke around the grounds and do some scatter feeds with him beforehand, rather than sitting in the waiting room anticipating pain and trying to escape. So much safer and less stressful for everyone involved. It’s meant that I can now help my clients learn to advocate for their dogs when they need to too. 

Even for a Spaniel, there is such a thing as ‘too much’. 

I fell into the trap of thinking that Duke needed an endless amount of walks, training and general stimulation as a young dog. He was never settled unless he actually passed out from exhaustion. I figured that’s what it meant to have a working lines dog. I wish I could go back and shake myself! It was absolutely exhausting and I was still recovering from a long term illness Duke was beyond overstimulated. I recently found the below on my personal Instagram from when Duke was 6 months old. I cannot believe I was walking him 3 hours a day when he was only 6 months old- his poor joints. And no wonder he was so wild!

Relationship is everything

That point takes us nicely onto the fact that your relationship with your dog is far more important than how ‘well trained’ or ‘well behaved’ they are. Having a happy, confident dog who trusts you is far, far more important than any level of obedience. I wish I had learnt to read Duke’s body language and understand when he was uncomfortable so I could stop asking him to do the things he hated sooner. I could have saved us both a lot of stress!

Enjoy your dog for who they are

As dog owners, it’s easy to forget the good things about our dog when we are struggling with training and behaviour issues. Yes, Duke hates grooming and handling, can’t be left alone for more than a few mins at a time and steals our toddlers toys. However, he’s also a very loving, affectionate dog, who I can have off lead anywhere I’m allowed to do so because his engagement and recall skills are so good. He’s great with people and kids, unphased by other dogs on the whole and he absolutely adores our little boy. Remembering Duke’s best qualities helps me put the more tricky stuff in perspective. And I always remind myself that we don’t have these puppers for long in the grand scheme of things, so don’t sweat the small stuff. 

What next?

• Looking for help with your dog? Contact us to arrange in person or online training.
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