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A person who is serious about owning a pet will do a lot of investigating before he or she makes a final breed selection. If you are considering owning a Cocker Spaniel, consider these facts ...

The Cocker Spaniel loves to be around people and loves attention and affection. This breed will follow you everywhere, and can sometimes get under your feet. They want to be your best friend. They are very demanding, they want to eat now - not in five minutes.

When you see the Cocker Spaniels competing at dog shows, their coats are perfect. With long feathers and perfectly cut heads and backs. Don't be fooled, they are not just born looking that way. It takes a lot of work to keep their coats in show condition. Obviously, if you are not planning to show your Cocker Spaniel, you probably will not have the perfect show cut. However, they do require a considerable amount of maintenance. The younger Cockers tend to have fur that grows faster than the older ones. For instance, my Cocker is three years old and needs a good bath and cut every two weeks. This can get quite costly if you use a upper scale groomer. I have found that the small grooming business owner does an even better job at bathing and grooming that the upscale groomers, ie. Petsmart, etc. When you choose your groomer, you must make sure that their clippers are cleaned between each and every pet they groom. Cocker Spaniels have very sensitive skin and can develope "hot spots" (patches of extermely dry infected skin) if the clippers are not cleaned properly. Trust me, a little spot will turn into a big spot - Cockers love to lick their paws and any patch of skin they can.

In addition to frequent bathing and grooming, it is very important that you keep their long floppy ears clean. A little OtiCleanse every couple of days does the trick for me. Cockers can develop horrible ear infections that you can smell from the next room if regular cleaning is not done. Most young Cockers hate to have you sticking a piece of cotten in their ear to clean it, I usually have to struggle with this twenty pound little girl, and then reward her with a treat.

Speaking of treats, Cocker Spaniels have very sensitive digestive systems and should absolutely not be feed any human food. I recommend Canidae dry dog food and Iams small biscuts. Every once in a while, a small amount of vanilla ice cream is a nice treat for these dogs especially in the summer time when it is very hot. Any type of human food containing grease, ie. hamburger,

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