It's like having another baby!

The new puppy is running us ragged. Already, after two weeks of her being in our home, she has wormed her way into our affections and become part of the family. It’s just like having a baby again.

She is settling into our routine well, and we only had the night time crying for two nights. For the first two weeks someone was almost always there during the day with her as well, and it is only this week that she has had to manage for one or two days on her own. The first day she cried pitifully when we went to work (so my daughter tells me, as she was trying to sleep upstairs after a heavy night). The second day she cried only a little, and this morning she didn’t at all.

She is getting used to it all, even the cats who she is desperate to play with. Needless to say, the enthusiasm is not for the moment being returned. However we haven’t actually had any rough weather as yet so the cats are able to live in the greenhouse and sneak in at night for food and water. All three have reacted with varying degrees of mistrust towards Coco, and one of them will now sleep in the lounge during the day as long as puppy leaves her alone. Another will come in quietly for a nibble of food and then leave, but the last one won’t come near unless she knows puppy is shut away. It will take some cold weather and lots of rain, when they want to be warm and dry inside, to force the issue but we’ll get there.

Toilet training is more problematic, as we aren’t there all the time. By and large the number twos are done on newspaper by the door, but she does have a tendency to stop and have a wee wherever she happens to be, which is a tad inconvenient especially when you step in it! There is going to be one very smelly dirty rug going to the tip when she is eventually trained, I suspect some time next spring when she is eight or nine months old.

Despite being a cutie, she is also a nipper and any unshod feet are treated as fair game. Boy, it hurts! We are trying to use the dog manual’s recommended solution of yelling loudly then turning our back,and she is starting to get the message that biting is not acceptable. But I think her teeth are hurting her, poor little soul (again, just like a baby) so we are doing our best to find teething toys to play with.

We have bought a very nice kennel which she will eventually live in outside (and no, it isn’t cruel – she is a working dog and already loves being outside) where she will have much more freedom when we are out at work, will be able to keep warm and dry  and where it won’t matter too much if she makes a mess. We have secured the garden with yards of wire fencing so she cannot escape. Like everything else it will take getting used to and some adjustment, but she is a fast little learner. She’ll be fine.

It is incredible and very touching how much she likes people, and when you are there with her she is never far from your side. I sit at the dining table and work, and she sleeps under my chair. I sit and watch the TV, and she is at my feet (usually trying to bite them – see above). I am cooking in the kitchen, and she is around me all the time. I am jobbing in the garden, and she is mooching round my feet. She’s always there, like a little shadow. Maybe that’s what we should have called her – shadow!

But Coco is a perfect name for her. Apart from it’s play on the word cocoa, which is exactly the colour she is, she is a very stylish little dog with a pale blue leather collar that is covered in diamante (yes, I have blinged her up) and is very pretty. Coco Chanel herself couldn’t have wished for a better pet, but seeing as she was French she would probably have gone for a stupid little handbag dog instead.  

But already we love her, and we wouldn’t be without her. And our lives have changed immeasurably for ever!