I have a beautiful year old chocolate roan cocker spaniel bitch. I have been swithering whether to have her speyed but have held back because I have heard it can make their coats woolly. I have a friend who also has a cocker spaniel, a boy, and she is thinking of getting him castrated. Could anyone tell me if his coat will change and go woolly also?

Hi Funky

You are right when Cocker is either spayed or castrated their coats will change. They might not change straight away but within about six months they will become very wooly indeed and will require clipping instead of handstripping as the coat will be too dense to hand strip :D

HTH

Dessie :)

I agree with Dessie but would add that clipped nicely a cocker can still look jolly nice, not suitable for showing, but with an owner willing to groom regularly most of the feathers can remain just the body clipped off smooth. This is what I now do with my cocker since she was speyed at 8 years she still looks better coated than a lot of pet cockers I see on the street. I would never say a bitch should or should not be spayed as I think each case should be decided on individual factors but I do think coat changes should come way down in importance on anybodies list of factors.

....until the poor dog has to go through unmatting or untangling if the coat gets too long! Or the poor thing has grown a thick coat in the middle of the summer!

I think if I had a cocker spaniel its welfare and comfort would be my priority, and if it meant not neutering, I would organise my life accordingly so I could manage and the dog was comfortable.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats (not cockers!!!!) (but still get woolly coats if neutered)

My cocker now grows a thick coat winter and summer how does clippering it off compromise her welfare or comfort? There is never any problem with matting on her feathers as I comb her regularly if I could not be bothered (as I know many people aren't) I would just cut them off, again at no loss to her welfare. There is no doubt in my mind that Amber is comfortable with the new grooming arrangements :) and I can assure you her wellbeing was and is my prime concern, what tipped the balance for me was the difficulty of giving her the exercise she badly craved even on a lead because others with entire males do not always see that preventing an unwanted mating was also their responsibility. All coats can be dealt with in some way or other, far better to base a decision on spaying on matters of health or the degree of difficulty that an unwanted pregnancy can be avoided in my opinion.

Ollie (neutered) also has a thick wooly coat which we have clipped every couple of months or so. Apart from the fact that he looks a lot neater, we have twice daily walks in the countryside and I can guarantee (sp) he will find at least one bog to wallow in so it is easier to clean him on a daily basis.

nicky

I agree clipping if done properly can leave a nice, smart Cocker who still looks like a Cocker but many owners of neutered Cockers are unprepared for the coat changes caused by neutering & it has to be said that many owners (not all) of pet Cockers do not go in for a lot of regular grooming which means frequently that their neutered Cocker ends up with a horrendously woolly, matted coat - not comfortable for the poor dog. It also has to be said that some coats will become worse than others - I think your Cocker is orange, Isobel? I find a neutered orange roan is generally more easily managable coat-wise than a neutered solid black. I think Funky's Cocker is a liver roan - liver roans often have slightly fluffy coats even prior to neutering so after neutering, such a coat could become very woolly. However, if Funky knows that she will have to pay much more attention to coat care after neutering, then fine, it's just something to consider along with all the other pros & cons of spaying

Jane

Yes an orange roan, still got impossible to hand strip once she was speyed though I had hand stripped her for 8 years and really tried to keep going but eventually it got so bad it was getting into a welfare issue as far as she was concerned :) it just does not want to come away does it. As you say she would never have been as heavy coated as a black but I wonder how many of them are handstripped in pet homes even without being neutered :)

I've known a lot of families who had Cockers over the decades --- all were "just" pets. They were either clipped by the owners or taken to a groomers to be clipped.
Sorry to say, I have never met anyone who stripped their dog-- intact or altered. And I don't even know enough to be sad or relieved for the dog on that matter :rolleyes:
toodles

Ah now would that be 'Yankie' cockers, Toodles?
ps thats quite difficult to say :D

Yep --- plus Kraut Cockers here in Deutschland ;) :D

OOps not offended you I hope Toodles :o meant affectionately :)

Aah, nope, didn't offend and caught the funny, that's the reason for the "krauter' cockers ;) :D :D

Personally, I think that most American dog owners have no idea about the concept of "stripping" a dog. It's never mentioned in books and sometimes trying to get the equipment is a nightmare. Perhaps things are changing there, it has been over 4 years, plus I WAS kind of in the middle of nowhere :rolleyes:

I'm thinking of trying it on Chienne, for summertime, but still not quite sure how to go about it. If her hair gets yanked out, it comes in white. I realize stripping is after the dead hairs, but she has such an odd coat --- similiar to a Black Lab type -- grows to about inch to two inches long.
Then it falls out ---in droves in the spring + when she's nervous. If she was a porcupine, she'd be nekked when upset. Have to run around afterwards picking them back up :D :D

Well I am sure Gwen will correct me if I am wrong but I think American Cockers are clipped on the neck and back for the show ring anyway certainly when I asked about the ones in Discover Dogs at Crufts this years that is what they had had done but I suppose they may have been retired.

Yes you're probably right Isobel, though some pets are stripped - I have a number of solids on my books who are purely pets & are kept handstripped because that's how the owners like them. Often it depends on where the dog came from, if from a show breeder, then the new owner tends to have been given basic grooming advice & knows the difference between clipping & stripping but if the dog came from a "pet" breeder or dealer, then the owners will probably have received no grooming information at all & so are more likely to go to the sort of groomer who clips Cockers automatically. Since only a minority of pups come from experienced show breeders, that's an awful lot of puppies being sold to people without any grooming guidance at all :-(

Hi everyone, I'm not Gwen, but I have American Cockers in the showring too, One owned in partnership with Gwen, in fact. I certainly don't profess to be an expert groomer but may I just say that American Cockers prepared for the show ring are clippered on the throat and sides of the neck as well as the upper third of the ear, the back is hand stripped.Those kept as pets, of which I have two, are clippered off about twice a year to maintain comfort and hygiene.Faces are tidied up every couple of months.They can be carefully done to preserve the breed characteristics. But clippered Yankees in the ring look less than their best.

my cocker (working lines - so has less feathering) was neutered at about 9 months of age, his coat changed completely about four-five months later. He is Liver roan, and all of the liver patches grew long and fluffy and all of the white stayed the same!!! He didn't go woolly, just really really soft fluffy long liver bits! I never clip him, I hand strip him although he rarely needs it, his coat is basically still very silky. but he looks a lot fatter than he really is because his coat sticks out, he looks like everyday is a bad hair day! even though he is groomed daily!