Mother always says that I’m part cocker spaniel, so she’ll never trust me 100%. She says you should never trust any dog 100% because that’s life, and as sad as it is there are definitely some breed less trustworthy than others. Mother loves large breed dogs. Growing up, her various grandparents had German shepherds and border collies, she had an uncle with a Staffordshire bull terrier, and one grandparent set had a giant schnauzer. So larger breeds were all she really knew.
She’d never had anyone she knew with a spaniel, except one childhood friend. Another childhood friend had a Staffie too, her step-mum had a friend with two parsons terriers, and the rest of her friends, and more importantly her parents and herself, were dog-less.
So she didn’t really experience other breeds until she started studying to be a vet, and then actually became one. So for over ten years, Mothers underlying love for large breeds (most especially huskies for some unknown reason) has remained, but now melded with knowledge of breed traits. All the breeds she loved so much had a predisposition for being a bit prickly. Collies for example are often neurotic, leading to anxiety, because their super smart brains work at hundred miles an hour, so when they live as pets in a boring two up, two down house, with a small garden, having two 30minute walks a day, their brain goes a bit skew-whiff. Mother says its the people that brought the dog and don’t give it the mental stimulation they need that are the problem, not the dog. But the result is an anxious dog, more prone to snapping and biting.
Rottweilers. Mother loves a rottweiler. She thinks their big heads are beautiful. I think my smaller head is far superior. Rottweilers are generally very protective of their people, so don’t take well to strangers, unless well socialised, especially if they’re maybe a bit naturally anxious also. They have a trait where they ‘grumble’. It is a rottie specific trait, the communicate with grumbles, but it can make people jumpy near them because they don’t understand. Unfortunately though, sometimes they won’t tell you if they’re anxious. Rotties sometimes will feel uncomfortable and go from zero to snapping with no warning.
Mother was bitten by a dog just before Christmas. It had an ongoing skin condition for years that had flared back up. The dog had no history of aggression and had never needed to be muzzled. As Mother tells me, she went to look at the dogs skin around its face and neck, and the dog grumbled at her. But the dog was a rottie. He showed no other concerns, no baring teeth, no curling lip/muzzle, no ears back, no staring eyes. Just a rottie grumble. Neither Mother or the owner were worried. And the next moment Mother was leaving the room bleeding and the owner apologising profusely. Mother says it’s not the dogs fault. He was painful, and didn’t want her to touch him. It’s just that in this case for some reason the dog hadn’t given any tells that it was uncomfortable before then, except the grumble which may or may not have been important. Mother says this means that the dog had probably given other tells in the past, that people had ignored, so the dog had learnt not to bother with the tells at all. I get that, what’s the point of saying leave me alone gently, if no one listens? Next time I’ll just go straight to shouting it cause then it’ll be effective.
Mother’s okay now. She had two weeks off work when her finger swelled like a balloon and pus poured out of the wound, but she had a minor surgery done under local to flush it out and debride all the tissue and now it’s healing. Mother says it’s still slightly swollen, and the scar tissue is still very sensitive to touch, especially in the cold weather we’re having at the moment. She still can’t bend her finger 100% of the way around, and it aches after a day at work, like a muscle after a gym session (Mother says a bit like I ache after a good run around with one of my friends). Thankfully, it missed vital tendons and nerves so won’t affect her ability to do surgery, which was her main concern. She was very lucky and she repeatedly says it really wasn’t that bad. She doesn’t want it blown out of proportion. BUT it did give her pause about being a bit more cautious with dogs in the future.
When Mother went back to work, she had an unfortunate spate of aggressive animals. A cat managed to scratch her face (it wriggled out of Mothers hold where her injured fingers couldn’t quite grasp it fully), another aggressive rottie tried to have a go (not the same one as before, she has yet to see that one back), and then an aggressive XL Bully that bit the owner in the consult room (which doesn’t really help the bad reputation that breed have at the moment in the UK). Mother said they were all bad luck but the world was conspiring to give her all the aggressive animals. Thankfully, Mothers dog bite incident hadn’t made her worried or stressed about dogs in general, otherwise that really would have made work difficult.
Mother says she’d rather deal with a large breed than a small breed any day, and that’s still true despite the rottie situation. Mother says frenchies are the worst at the moment, and she really doesn’t like the majority of them. She says they probably are lovely family pets at home, but their nature is one that likes their people and doesn’t much like anyone else. The smaller breeds, especially ones with short muzzles, are generally harder to restrain, and muzzle, so it makes them more liable to land a bite.
The only other dog bite Mother has ever had was at university, on her last rotation in emergency and critical care. The vet asked Mother to put the dog on the table. Owner had brought dog, and two young children, probably about four or five years old. The small children had the dogs lead and were fussing it. Mother went to go pick it up and it launched and bit her thumb. The owner of the dog laughed and said something along the lines of ‘Oh yes she does that sometimes!’, and all Mother could think is if you’re dog does that sometimes why on earth are you trusting you’re children with it in a strange place like a vet clinic, and why didn’t you warn us?
So the other breed that Mother is naturally more cautious about, is the Cocker Spaniel, and with that the newer ‘breed’, the Cockapoo. Mother still argues that the Cockapoo is a mutt, a fancy mutt, but still a mutt, because they can still look very variable in appearance. But non the less, the cockapoo is popular and here to stay.
In the nineties, and noughties, there was much debate about something called ‘Cocker Rage’, an unknown behavioural disease that essential meant a family friendly cocker, with no seemingly evident disease or illness, would in a turn of a second, become the most aggressive rage monster you ever met. People would describe it as if a light switch flicked, and something in their eyes just changed, and they suddenly didn’t recognise their owner, and they would just maul first ask questions later. The dog would inevitable return to ‘normal’ some time later and seem very confused as to why people were looking at it differently. No one really knows the cause, seizure, stroke, pain. But it was mostly agreed it was likely genetic. It was most commonly seen in red cocker spaniels, or block colours, i.e. full black or full brown. These days it is mostly believed that poor understanding of behaviour led to a lot of these behaviours, i.e. things like resource guarding, or poor pain management. But in amongst these cases were likely some genuine neurological events, with a genetic basis. In a lot of these cases, it led the dog having to be euthanised. The owners could no longer trust the dog with their family, one that usually consisted of small children, and rehoming a dog with a bite or aggression history is difficult to do, physically and morally.
Mother says that while ‘Cocker Rage’ is likely a broad term including a genuine neurological disease and probably quite a few behavioural issues, it does become hard to treat and manage in most owners case. Since the popularity of cocker spaniel cross breeds has risen with cockapoos and sprockers becoming a common thing, she does think she has seen similar cases in these types of dogs too. Some owners put in a lot of effort, and Mother has one sprocker that a year ago she couldn’t even touch to examine, but with pain relief and a behaviouralist, she can now do a full exam on. If people have the time, money, energy, and a safe place to do the work it can make such a difference. But Mother says not every owner has that option, they may have young families, busy households, cost constraints, maybe other animals to consider. So euthanasia is never the wrong decision in those cases if the dog poses a risk and the owners can’t give them a good quality of life.
I am part cocker spaniel. Mother thinks I’m probably a sprocker- part cocker, part springer- but sometimes she thinks maybe I’ve got collie in me, or even flat coated retriever (I think she just hopes I’m not all spaniel because she would never have chosen a spaniel). I can’t remember my parents so I can’t tell her.
So, because I’m part Cocker, Mother will never trust me 100%.
But when we’re wrestling on the sofa, and my mouth goes around her arm, or I jump up close to lick her face, or she’s brushing my fur and tugs on a knot and I turn quickly to her because ‘Oww!’, I can sleep peacefully because I know she trusts me 99.99%.
And that 0.01% that she doesn’t trust me is because Mother is smart. And while I love children, and my kitty cat sisters, and all other dogs in the world, and wouldn’t ever want to hurt them, one day I may do so without meaning to. Which is why Mother keeps an eye on me always when I’m around small children, it’s why she asks if I can say hello to new dogs before she lets me approach, it’s why I can’t go upstairs so the cats have a space away from me. One day, if I ever experience a seizure or unknown behavioural event, I may not be able to control my self. And if that day ever happens, I know that Mother wont let me hurt any one, because in the back of her mind she never trusted me 100% anyway. So hopefully, I’ll never be in a situation where I’ll get in trouble. I don’t want Mother to have to make a final sad decision for me because I did something to some one that I didn't mean to do.
My mother doesn’t trust me 100%. She loves me 100% and that’s much better.