Do not shave your Cocker Spaniel's back. Did I hear you ask why? Well, in a nutshell, once you shave the long hard back hair on your Cocker Spaniel, it tends to grow back looking like a bottlebrush, and it is close to impossible to EVER get it back to its original smooth, flat, glistening texture again.

If a back has never been shaved, it's not extremely difficult to keep it under control. All you need to get is a stripping knife and use it to "comb" the back. Just taking short strokes all over the back pulls out tons of undercoat. When the undercoat is out, the guard hair lies flat. You might want to use thinning shears to remove some of the bulk around the shoulders and flank - but, basically, the back takes care of itself.

Using a stripping knife on a previously shaved back is only marginally useful. All the new hair growth is undercoat. About the only thing you can do at this point is to clip the back with a #4F blade. This is highly undesirable - but at least the bottlebrush effect is minimized and there is still some hair left.

Besides the aesthetic factor, a MODERATE cocker coat has a purpose - to protect the dog's skin while working in the field. Hair on the back deflects water, is a sun shield, and keeps thorns away from the body. When it's cut to 1/8 of an inch with a #10 blade, the dog has lost a lot of protection.

Members of some local specialty clubs face an even bigger dilemma. Using electric clippers on the back is discouraged by the Cocker Standard. These Clubs' Codes of Ethics dictate that members exhibit only dogs who conform to the Standard. Theoretically showing a dog in obedience or in field trials with a clipped back would violate the Code of Ethics. Maybe not of concern to most people - but considering the finality of shaving the back and the uncertainty of whether one would ever become more involved in the "dog game", it seems prudent to never shave their Cocker Spaniel's back.