Harry, the English Cocker Spaniel, sleeps a bit odd.
“He’ll sleep on his back with all of his limbs hanging out and spread, up in the air,” his owner, Cailin Heilig, shared.
Her husband, James Vinson, added, “We’ll just look and be like, ‘How is that even remotely comfortable?”
The pair are first-time dog owners. Together since 2004 and married since 2013, Cailin and James were ready for their first dog in 2017. “Neither of us had dogs growing up,” Cailin explained. “We looked at different breeds. … Just based on what we knew about the breed, we thought it would be a good fit for us in the city, and as first-time dog owners in training.”
They discovered that English Cocker Spaniels tend to be friendly, but reserved. “They like to be around people,” James shared. “And they like to be around groups of people, so they very much feel like they’re people instead of dogs. They’re easily trainable. They get along with every other kind of dog. As a breed, they take a little bit more of a laid-back approach to other dogs. They’re also really good with kids. Both of those things are important to us. We have a lot of dogs in our extended family and a lot of nieces and nephews. And English Cocker Spaniels like to work. They’re working dogs. We thought it would be interesting to see if we could train a dog and I think we’ve been able to, with the help of Philly Unleashed.”
They found a reputable breeder, and let her know that they didn’t care about gender or color. “We’ll be happy with anything,” Cailin remembered telling the breeder. “That’s how we found Harry.”
An English Cocker Spaniel needed a proper British-sounding name, they decided. Inspired by Harry Kalas, Harry Potter, and, of course, Prince Harry, their puppy had a name. “I don’t even remember what the other finalists were,” James said. “Then we met him and we were like he’s a Harry.”
They brought him home at ten weeks old and started training immediately, buying training books and reaching out to Philly Unleashed with their dog walker’s recommendation. “We worked with Kelsey Rich for a long time, in one on one lessons before going to classes,” Cailin said. “That was completely eye opening. She’s the best.”
“Being first-time dog owners, we had no idea what we were doing,” James added. “She was very helpful. … We were warned it’s a lot of work. There was adjusting schedules and taking the dog out at weird hours. It’s just different. It’s a change to routine.”
With the changes and the puppy potty training accidents, they discovered that having a puppy grew their relationship. “It also made us more of a team,” Cailin said. “To have it work the way we wanted it to work, both people pitch in when the other person needs help. It was a lot of us communicating with each other. What are the rules we wanted for Harry and what were the priorities and what behavior that we didn’t really mind and what was behavior that we didn’t really expect? It brought us together.”
James added, “I agree. It’s also just fun.”
They saw their hard work pay off whenever Harry learned something new. “It was like, ‘Oh, I taught him how to do that,’” James said. It’s really cool.”
In addition to the private lessons, Harry went through Puppy Kindergarten and Level 1 and then spent time at the farm. “He’s been at Farmcamp a lot,” James said. “We both travel a lot and it’s nice he gets to interact with other dogs and it’s active training as well. He loves to work. He gets really excited when we go and drop him off.”
Cailin added, “The drop off is emotional, because I’m sad to see him go, but he’s so excited to be there. It’s so cute.”
Harry turned two years old on August 1 and recently passed his Canine Good Citizen exam while spending time at the farm over Labor Day weekend. “We had training goals,” Cailin explained. “I think it was Cassi who said, ‘I’m just going to do Canine Good Citizen. He seems like he’s ready.’ We were like, ‘Ok, that’s awesome.’”
But there’s always more work to do. “At home, he definitely counter surfs,” Cailin said. “He loves cheese. Peanut butter. We definitely have more work to do. It’s neverending. Training is life long.”
And Harry loves socks. “I think it’s an English Cocker Spaniel thing,” James said. “He knows he’s not supposed to have them. He thinks it’s a game.”
Even with his quirks, Harry brings the charm, living up to the snuggability of the breed, even resorting to a snuggle if he’s not up for a walk. “If he doesn’t want to go, he’ll find whoever isn’t taking him on a walk and sit in their lap to get reinforcement to try to avoid it.” Cailin said. “We still make him go.”
But when he does hit the streets, he’s happy to utilize a command he loves: jump. “He’ll jump on command,” Cailin shared. “He’ll jump over puddles and sticks on the sidewalk. He’s very proud of himself after he jumps. He’ll turn around and look at you like, ‘Look what I can do.’”
But there are also some things they still don’t quite understand, like how Harry will be shy one day, but super friendly the next. “I don’t think we’ve totally figured it out,” James said. “He likes to please people but he’ll also be very shy even around people he knows and has met many times. … It is weird. He’ll sometimes just be really shy and not want to say hi and other times he’ll be super friendly. It’s odd.”
Whether he’s ready to say hello or not, everyone else in their South Philly neighborhood is always greeting Harry. “All the neighbors know Harry, and they all like him,” Cailin said. “People know his name. We’ve been in the same house for 11 years. They know his name. We’ll be walking down the street, and they’ll say, ‘Harry!’ Like the TV show, Cheers.”
James added, “We’ll be like, ‘Ok, he’s more popular than us.’”
Harry is currently working on “go to place,” after spending three months last summer working on a solid recall. “We live in the city, but we spent time in the country last summer,” James said. “Instead of going to the shore, we rented a little cottage. One of the things we worked on with Kelsey, three months leading up to that, was recall. We wanted him to be off-leash. We spent a lot of time with Kelsey working on recall. It was a lot of work, but really cool. He was able to be off-leash and run around the property.”
But commands like “go to place” or recall can take time, and Cailin advises other dog owners to have patience. “I expected everything to come quickly and it does take some time each day, even 15 minutes,” she said. “Then four weeks will go by and you’ll realize how much progress has been made. It’s planting seeds initially so there is growth in the future. We’ll probably never not have a dog again in our life. It’s brought us so much joy and perspective that I can’t see living without a dog.”
“Me, she can live without,” James joked.
They’ve found him to be a good fit for their family. “We say we’re biased,” James shared. “We just feel like we just kind of lucked into it. He’s super responsive to things. He’s great around people, other dogs, kids. They sometimes poke or prod, and he just sits there. Part of just finding a good breeder. We definitely put in the work too, but there’s some element of luck as well. He’s just a lot of fun.”
Training has helped, and they’ve enjoyed working with the trainers at Philly Unleashed, like Nicole, Kelsey, Karen, Darren, and Cassi. “We’re happy to have the group to help us,” James said. “It was our first time, we never had a dog, we didn’t know what we were doing. Everyone has helped us out a ton.”
