A Day in the Life with my Working Cocker Spaniel Journey
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A Day in the Life with my Working Cocker Spaniel Journey
At Rosewood, we’re lucky to have built special relationships with some lovely pet influencers. This month, we sat down with one of our ambassador’s Jess, who shared everything her and her gorgeous doggo Our Spaniel Journey get up to in a typical day:
Our morning routine
I feel like we are in quite a good routine now Journey is 2 years old (I know, for everyone that's been following along with us since we brought her home.. where has the time gone?!)
As a whole, for any dog a good routine is vital, in my opinion. It sets us up for success especially when we are working through training issues. For those that don’t know I am a fully qualified dog walker. I studied animal management and started up dog walking as soon as I left college. I have a lovely client base and prefer to keep my walks 1-1. I am knowledgeable about reactivity and work with some challenging dogs which is very rewarding!
Monday - Friday mornings are the same routine.. It goes a little like..
7am wake up
7:50am chew in her cage whilst I go and walk some client dogs!
8:50am I come home for 10 minutes and give her frozen enrichment food whilst I walk the rest of my clients until lunchtime
When client dogs are suitable, Journey will come to work with me! On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday she has her walks with the sweetest little dog called Jess.
Our after lunchtime shenanigans
Each and every day is different, especially now my nephew is included in our adventures! He is 22 months and Journey grew up with him since he was newborn. They are a right cheeky duo! I always say “Double the trouble, but double the fun”
So between working, looking after a toddler and creating content for Instagram we juggle everything into place and seem to always make it work… whilst having fun!
The afternoons are generally when I will do training sessions with Journey and/or go for a walk if she hasn’t been out already. Sometimes she will get a second walk, it really depends on the day.
Training
To make things easier I always have some kind of training list in the back of my mind. I will set goals like:
This week I want to…
Go walk around a dog friendly shop
Sit in a car park calmly watching everything
Sit at a bench and do calmness training
But, it's not a set plan. Sometimes I will do it all and more, other times I will only do one. I set priorities for training so if we have a plan from our behaviourist we stick to that, which is a lot more intense than my little weekly goals. As of now, we haven’t got a new plan so we are a little more relaxed with training, but not for long. When we do have a plan it's doing multiple tasks almost daily.
We are working with a behaviourist due to over-arousal issues. Journey's very friendly with dogs and people, but she can’t manage to eat out in a food establishment without barking. So that's the main thing we are working on. Now, that's just speaking about behavioural training.
We love learning new tricks, obedience and channelling her natural abilities into gundog training. I generally do this in the evening with the other half of Journey’s food. When I know she is confident performing the trick/obedience skill at home, I then integrate it into our walks where there’s more distractions. (gundog work is in the garden until solid then on walks!)
Busy life.. When do I create content?
I tend to split the meaning of getting ‘content’. Some people say content is everything to do with a social media account. But realistically if I was to focus on getting content constantly it wouldn’t be as enjoyable.
For me, I started Instagram to share my adventures, photography (and more recently videography) and to create connections. I want it to be fun so I split it into…
Everyday adventure photos
Focused photography portraits
Collaborations
Each of these have different goals and all of them need to be fun!
Everyday adventure photos are wherever, whatever and whenever. Meaning, technicalities of photography isn’t the ultimate goal, it's more showing where we have been, what fun we have had and anything new! My only rule is…to have fun and avoid direct harsh sunlight whenever possible.
Focused photography portraits is where I really learn and dig deep into photography, learning new skills and experimenting. I look for new locations and will try to do this early in the morning on a weekend to get the most out of it. But also, it's such great fun exploring new locations!
Collaborations are where Journey’s training really shines. She needs to perform tricks, and listen to commands well in distracting areas (we practise these loads on our daily walks). Mainly due to my work schedule, it's not always possible during the week so I rely on weekend mornings especially for company work. If the weather is cloudy during the week I can take the opportunity once I have finished work too.
It sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But the reality behind it all is Journey really enjoys her training sessions. Every time the camera comes out it's ‘training time’ to her which involves loads of tasty snacks, running around in loads of new places and just generally living her best life. She is a working cocker and they love to work!
Anyway, that's a little glimpse into my chaotic life. Thank you for reading,
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