Improving gait
We went to our second puppy show yesterday with our 6 month old English Cocker Spaniel. Didn’t do as well as last time since he’s now in an awkward growth stage where his proportions are a bit off, and the judge in question is known to dislike dogs with shorter feet.
That we can’t do much about except hope he grows taller eventually, but we got some feedback on his gait and I’m wondering how we could improve this:
”Moves with a good stride length, though still high in the rear today. Quite a wide front step.”
We’ve gone to training classes but they mostly focused on stacking and getting used to examinations, and the basics of how to move in the ring. Yesterday he was also too high energy at first so his initial circle around the ring didn’t go so well as he was interested in pursuing the other dogs in the ring, but when we did the triangle after his examination he did much better already.
On his walks we mostly use a harness and a 2 meter leather lead, and I’m wondering if that is contributing to his gait in shows. One long-time breeder (not ours) did say that they would never use a harness on a Cocker, but I’m not sure how much it really affects his gait especially since he rarely pulls nowadays thanks to the training we’ve done. His harness is adjustable and we make sure it doesn’t go into the elbow pits to allow a full range of motion.
So, I’m curious if there are any ways we could train a specific gait for the ring, or do we just hope it gets better with time like his proportions?