Despite my intentions of keeping a daily dairy of Coopers life, I failed. I had a feeling I would – and my brain and gut agreed. Sadly.

The time is flying by. One day Coop is a shy little pup scared to get out of his plastic bed – and before you know it, the boy is stomping up the stairs (yes, I know!), barking like a pro, running around parks and gardens and losing his teeth.

As of today, our routine is pretty straight forward. Get up at 5 for a toilet break, sleep until 6:00, then get out for a walk, come back for a shower and blow-dry, have breakfast followed by a quiet play time (doggies do need their 30-60 minutes of post meal calm as nature intended, after all), nap, play, lunch, play, nap, training, play, nap, dinner, walk and proper run, shower, little play and bed time.

I must admit, the walks are such a blessing. Cockers are naturally mad, sweetly mad, but mad… Multiply it by 100 and that’s a kind of energy bust a cocker pup is dealing with on a daily basis. Being house-bound meant a constant and intense search for ways to burn that energy up. It was exhausting… I didn’t think I’d last much longer. Luckily, the quarantine was over and we ventured out. For us it was a much-needed relief. For him, a happy way to tire himself out, release that energy and explore the world.

Coop adores being out very much (still doesn’t really do his business outside and waits to get back to the garden, but hey, he doesn’t do it much indoor either, brilliant pup!). He also loves his shower after each walk and is now happy to be blow-dried. The latter took me a few baby steps to make sure that he is happy and comfortable, but we got to the point where the boy finds it rather relaxing and almost falls asleep by the end of each “session”.

He also lost his first two teeth and is going through the chewing stage, so some furniture had to be sprayed with bitrex and Cooper got a fresh supply of toys to destroy: his favourites are definitely the rope (the hemp one failed, but cotton is brilliant), his Giraffe and Owl (I had to re-order these two), Kong Bear and chews with a plastic bottle inside. I also ordered him Wild Duck – fingers crossed he will enjoy the textures. Admittedly, Coopers interest in toys changes every day, if not every hour, so I have to be constantly inventing new games and rotating everything he’s already got.

And this is pretty much it for now. Oh, yes, and he does sleep next to me at night – shoot me, I know it’s wrong, but I love seeing his little face (and sometimes his bum) just before I close my eyes and as soon as I wake up in the morning.