Dear friends
Sorry for my bad english language. We live in Brazil and speak portuguese and ask for help or suggestion for our problem with a cocker spaniel. I will try to explain the most clearly possible
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My daughter (30 years)lives in a small flat and  had a cocker spaniel since the age of 6 or 7 weeks. After many problems with biting, she decided to send the dog to a place - dog house - with vets. near Rio de Janeiro(-where we do live-) to try to find a solution. Really I think she was trying to forget the dog( she loves it).
As a curiosity, please see a note that I sent to a "dogs forum" when he had 5 or 6 months ( about 18 months ago) as follows:
My daughter has a 5/6 months cocker in Brazil. He is being trained by a specialist and is loved by my gaughter and my  wife who give him lots of attention, love and protection. The problem: specially in relation to my wife, the dog, unnexpectedly, with no apparent reason, suddenly starts to
growl . For four or five times, allways with no reason, unnexpecdedly, suddenly and as a surprise, without any reason or previous indication he bited strongly her arms hurting them. This happened specially in moments of farewell.
Any solution or explanation?? Thank you very much.
The answers were short and asking questios that we try to inform below
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Some months later my wife- who loves him too very much- took him to our apartment which is
bigger than the flat of our daughter. The dog is now almost 2 years old.
This is the first time we have a dog. But he has a strange behaviour- normally very pleasant and wonderfull-;  he suddenly changes his posture and growl alone without any reason and bites my wife ( who takes care of  him with lots of love) in the same way: with no reason and no previous advice. For a very short period he behaves as a beast. Then, again, he becomes clearly very regretful and agreeable. Now, since one month time, it  has been almost impossible to took him ( to go with him) to the street or any place because he do not permit anybody to put any collar. He bites anybody who tries to do it ( we imagine he thinks that we will go with him to a pet-house and prefer stay home. Before, he loved to  go to the streets. Really we do not know what to do. Love definitely is not sufficient.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE COCKER:

-he is very nice/beautiful
-he is golden colour
-normally he is very nervous and active and alert / energetic
-he is very dominant and seems always to be trying to avoid to receive orders.
-he protects strongly his "place (- burrow, house?)"-and reacts when anybody approaches or give any impression of interference.
-on the same line he reacts about his things or food.
-he had as first teacher a man who defended the line of act  hard (with force) to reduce wrong reactions of the dog. After short time this learning system and the veterinary were changed to other system (a light way of teaching), that we understand is the normal one..
--.he hates to be alone and barks( incredibly high sound) until somebody opens the door. He always imagine false ennemies and bark against them.
- curiosity: in the last time he bited my wife, I reacted threating him with a wood stick; he was absolutely furious and, as a beast, wanted to react against me but, finally, preferred to bite furiously a cushion during a short period, avoiding a bad solution for both of us.  

Thank you very much for any suggestion; is there any remedy to help? By indication of a veterinary we used remedies for humans to help him be more calm and to sleep . Do you know any
remedy to use in such a case? Other solutions or suggestions?
Thanks and best regards
Breno Cauduro -- brenocauduro@uol.com.br  and
brenocauduro@petrobras.com.br 

I would suggest you have a look at this site & contact Linda who owns the site via the Helpline. She may be able to give you some advice (indeed one of the site's case studies involves a Cocker in Brazil with similar problems which has had a happy ending)

Jane

I have a principle NEVER to advise on aggression cases online, as there can be so many reasons for a dogs agression.  BUT I am sorry to see that somebody has attempted to use force to try to teach this dog not to use normal canine body language - I strongly suspect this has meant the dog has learnt not to show normal canine 'warnings' and now goes into a fully fledged defence situation :(

I agree it would be very difficult to advise,  the case seems complex and so would need a very indepth investigation. It does sound on the face of it that the dog may have been treated too hard for what is basically normal behaviour and has retained the memory of that.  I have no idea if the book is available in your country, but i would try to get hold of a book called "Why does my dog?" by John Fisher as that gives a good basis for understanding the canine mind from the everyday owner's perspective.

Good luck, i do hope the situation can be resolved.

Lindsay
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