Oops

The Cockers behaviour isn't just annoying to your Golden it is not distressing her

Should read The Cockers behaviour isn't just annoying to your Golden it is now distressing her

Just putting my small contribution in here, you mention training classes and walks but I am wondering whether more exercise based training such as gundog or searching training might be helpful, cockers are usually very active and biddable but they do have surplus energy and it's very hard to get them sufficiently tired to switch off undesirable behaviour.  If you can I would suggest one on one training with a good deal of brain work and running, obviously mindful of their ages, perhaps you could get someone local or in the family to train one and you do the other, give them exercise and then I suggest having only one with the golden at a time and removing that one if it starts annoying the golden. As soon as it starts inappropriate behaviour don't say anything but remove from the room for a few minutes and repeat until they get the picture, tedious but it often works you just have to be persistant. Do let us know how you get on.

I wonder if this is more appeasement behaviour, than just regurgitation-stimulation behaviour.  Appeasey dogs will go overboard in trying to show that they are worms, that they are not worthy, that they are not a threat and it drives other dogs nuts!

The problem with them is twofold: one, the behaviour itself is irritating, which causes grumbles, which makes the behaviour stronger because they try harder to show how unworthy and unthreatening they are.  And two, most dogs will not tell off hard enough the first time or two to stop them doing it quickly enough - the more socially typical grumbles exacerbate it when a sound thump would do the job and stop them.  I have an appeasey dog here and it's taken a ton of work to sort her out with my older collie, because said collie never follows through on her threats so they would just wind each other up perpetually.  I had the same issue with my rott X while she was alive, in Willow's first year.

What I think has happened in your situation is that the golden has done this not-strong-enough telling off for so long that she has now completely snapped under the bombardment of these two pups (and one is annoying enough in these situations), so now she's going way over the top trying to tell them.  But 6 months of not doing that means that their behaviour to her is now extremely strong, so it's come far too late to actually work.

So, it's all on you now!  Separation when you are not there to not just supervise, but actively monitor and intervene.  You need to be present and watching and ready, any time they are together, because you will be aiming to intervene before the behaviour happens.  Before this, train a positive interrupter for the pups (link further down), get it really strong so that when you make that noise, they spin on their heels to come to you.

When you are present and can be active with them, one pup at a time.  Any time you see them move towards the golden, make the noise and when they come away, praise the absolute butts off them.  Several small, very tasty treats, one after the other, while showering them with happy noises.  Important: make the noise BEFORE they reach her.  You're aiming to teach them to turn away when they start to get antsy rather than following through and going down the appeasey route.  Keep this up until you see them start to stop themselves.  This may only be a flicker of hesitation to start with so be ready to make your interrupter noise still.  When they do start to stop themselves, switch your epic rewards for those instances only, and reward with one treat and a 'good pup' when you have to distract them.  So self restraint gets the best reward, and begins to feel better than practicing appeasement.

I cannot emphasise how closely you'll need to watch - you need to be looking for the very first signs of it happening, those first twitches towards her or licking of their own lips or any whines etc, so you can make your noise and intervene at the earliest opportunity.  Earlier the better as it will get the results faster.

Video for positive interrupter.  I find the kissy noise here works the best by far, with a quick whistle in second place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBvPaqMZyo8&t=13s

Some of this, regurgitating apart, can be submissive behaviour or even wanting the one on the receiving end, to play.

Yep - more exercise .... a tired dog tends to be easier to live with

On the same idea what about splitting them into two groups.

The young cocker bitch with the forceful no nonsense older cocker, and only allow the male cocker with the Golden, as he seems to heed her warnings better?

This would also help with the littermate issues, and with the two youngsters split up foster a more calm atmosphere and behaviour as they won't be able to feed off each others energy.

Great post from Nikita. In your position its where I would start. Hard work ahead but hopefully with it success and happy dogs . I am sure my fcr who does this albeit much less often and easier to redirect does it for appeasement.she is complicated dog anyway with various tricky aspects to her personality

> I wonder if this is more appeasement behaviour, than just regurgitation-stimulation behaviour.  Appeasey dogs will go overboard in trying to show that they are worms, that they are not worthy, that they are not a threat and it drives other dogs nuts!

So agree with this, and it also drives some humans like me nuts, such dogs make my skin crawl.  In my experience spaniels are often the type to do this, and one reason they are not a dog I could live with.

Nikita, I think you have really hit the nail on the head, thank you. Brainless, yes it drives me mad too. Gracie will scoot backwards and forwards past Tanya on her bottom, acting like she's injured. She grovels! She also comes grovelling to us, when she has been told off, but we completely ignore her when she grovels to us. Not sure if that is that right thing to do, but she has started doing it far less, if we don't look at her, and make no fuss of her. She seems to have realised that grovelling to us, gets no attention whatsoever. She does still do it, but not as often. Poor Tanya however is fed up with it, and we desperately need Gracie to stop winding Tanya up. Have bought a clicker, which is taking a bit of getting used to, but we will get there, and she has already started paying attention, bearing in mind it only arrived Saturday. I'm hoping that as she's already started responded in such a short while, that we may get somewhere with her. All this aside, she is an intelligent dog....sometimes! Stubborn, but intelligent. As far as gun dog training goes, is there such a thing as gundog training, that uses dummy birds? Silly I know, but I hate seeing things shot :( I'm a bit of a soppy bugger when it comes to any animal being hurt or killed. I would love to do gun dog training with her, if there were dummy birds, and I think she would love that. She's already very good off lead, and her recall is brilliant. Her retrieve is not wonderful however, so that may not work. She's also strange in as much as she won't play with toys with us, where-as, all our other dogs do. I've been told that there are other dogs that also do not play much with toys. Gracie would happily play tug of war with the other dogs, and other play with the dogs, but just won't play with us. X

I agree spaniels can be hard work. However, we do love them, even though these two in particular, are very hard work mentally. Now they are here, we are not ready to give up on them, and couldn't bear parting with them, so are willing to do whatever it takes to make this work, and have gratefully taken all your comments on board. We're also awaiting replies from behaviourists.

And I've just found a gun dog training school, which I believe uses dummies So have emailed them too. Thank you so so much for all your advice xxx

All goundog trainers use dummies for training. Can you imagine trying to train every day with real birds?

Clicker is fab, but make sure you time it right.  It is used to mark the behaviours that you like/want, not to distract the dog during an undesirable behaviour as many people end up doing!  So in what I describe above, you would initially click the second either cocker turns their head away from her.

When I started it was explained to me as a promise of a treat. Dog does what u want u click and rapidly a treat appears in whatever form your dog responds too.  Hope.that makes sense Nikita

My girl did regurgitate her food for her pups because she was an excellent mum. She has stopped now but still lets them suckle for a short time at 7 weeks. I do believe in keeping mum and pups together for as long as possible. It teaches puppies manners. Maybe these cockers were taken away from mum too soon.