First of all, cocker puppies are mad, absolutely bonkers as if they come with an infinite supply of Energizer butteries. Secondly, I am falling in love with mine like there’s no tomorrow. Cooper is simply the sweetest.

True, it’s hard work at the moment (which makes me appreciate and remember how amazing-amazing-amazing and so effortless Oscar was!), with all the training and cleaning, no sleep and utter impossibility to complete a single task in 10 minutes because he needs me and I don’t want to leave him. Whenever it becomes a touch too overwhelming, I simply tell myself that Oscar was amazing not just for his genes and mind, but the efforts and time I put into making him that way. And then I hug Cooper and he kisses me back, and it feels good again. We run, go nuts, play, clean, and then collapse – me – on a sofa, Coops – next to me.

On a great scale of things everything is going well and I think we are stating to establish a routine. Our day begins at 4:00 when Cooper wakes up and asks me to take him outside for a wee. Then we spend an hour playing. At 5:00 he calms down and goes for a nap, this time we have a cuddle on a sofa together. I know, some may not approve, but he will end up sharing a bed with us once in a while when he is older, so a little cuddle now and then won’t hurt. Besides, he actually loves his Curver.

I put him against the back of the sofa, so he ends up being in a sort of “nest” and can’t jump off. First time we did it, I couldn’t sleep and spent an hour staring at his sweet little face. Right now, the constant need to close my eyes is so strong, I give in and use the next hour to catch on my zzzz’s, too.

Coops sleeps like a baby, on his back, stretched alongside me waking up once in a while to give me a little kiss.

At around 6:00 we wake up, get to the garden for the toilet and a little run, then “visit daddy” upstairs where the pup stays for a little while, so I can quickly jump in a shower and change.

At 7:00 he has breakfast, then a quiet’ish play time, toilet and more play time until he eventually falls asleep.

His lunch is served at 13:00 and dinner – at 19:00. Every time he wakes up, it’s toilet first, then play time for 15-20 minutes, then second wee and an hour later –  one more toilet break. He loves to run and explore the garden and feels a lot more confident around the ground floor sort of making it his playground-slash-domain.

Around 20:00 we have one more hour of running around and playing, then he slows down with a blankie and a chew and eventually goes to his bed. I started using a cue for it from the very first he slept in it, so by now he almost always reacts to the word (unless he is very busy with something, which is normal).

At midnight he wakes me up asking for a toilet, so we go to the garden again, then sleep until 4:00, get up and start everything all over again.

I tried putting a collar on him yesterday, but neither of us was happy with it. I thought it was a bit fiddly to undo (it has a clip, not a buckle, and I am most definitely a buckle kind of person) and a touch too small for him. So I ordered the simplest one from Pets at Home today, plus a leather “follow-up” option for when he is 3-4 months old. Todays choice was exactly the same I trained Ozzy with, it’s not something for a pup to wear when going for walks, but is very light and easy to put on when getting them used to a collar. Hope Coops likes this one.