The Cookes take on Cookie!

Better late than never!

I had been waiting and waiting to write this post, so excited at the prospect of getting our puppy, and then lockdown hit, and here we are on 27 December, determined to get a blog update posted before 2020’s through!

April 14, our long awaited Golden Retriever puppy was delivered to us, very kindly by the breeder, otherwise it was all a bit in the air. Vets hadn’t been able to microchip her and we weren’t allowed to travel to Norfolk to collect her.

Our back garden should have been completely landscaped with new fencing and all the flower beds removed and new lawn laid so it was both child and puppy friendly. It hadn’t even been started, in fact the guy turned up the same day to start replacing the fence panels! It was a nightmare, comical almost (although I was far from laughing at the time), to be settling in a puppy and house training her when we didn’t even have a useable garden for several weeks. I’m not even going to post the before and after pictures, it looks so ridiculous.

Thankfully by end of May we did get the garden done and what a relief and difference that made. Along with sleep deprivation (they say having a puppy is like having a new born baby, it’s so true, up at silly hours during the night and fretting over everything, worried I was going to be a terrible pet owner/parent), home schooling, full time job, no garden, and energetic puppy with socialisation and training limitations, I just about made it to June with some sanity in tact. I refer to May as ‘Meltdown May’ due to the unprecedented number of meltdowns, mostly by me.

I thought it was the best time to have a puppy during lockdown as we were all at home to help settle her in, but the reality was it added to the chaos. Puppies are hard work, and training takes time (I didn’t have). That said, I wouldn’t change it, we’d planned to get her Easter time since Jan/Feb and we all love her to bits. She’s James’ canine sibling / pawsome sister, and she’s well and truly now part of the Cooke family.

Having a dog (or two) has always been on my bucket / to do list so it was only a matter of time, and James had been asking for the last year or two. James hasn’t been confident around dogs so I knew this would be good for him as well as having an extra friend at home. Pets are good company and therapy for all of us.

Puppy sharp teeth and claws phase was hard, with some tears at times, but it is just a phase which thankfully seemed to pass quite quickly. Nowadays, we’re usually shouting at James to be gentle with her, as they both play equally as boisterously with each other. And he’s completely confident now around other dogs too.

My other concern had been around the walking. All that glorious 2020 lockdown weather of course helped. Puppies start off on very short walks and build up around an extra 5 minutes/month which was perfect to just gently and gradually test out how far James could walk. I’m amazed and over the moon to say that we’re up to about 4km now with no aches, pains or limps afterwards. I can only hope this continues. The walks are painfully slow, but I think that has more to do with a 9 year old who’d rather be at home playing PS than it is to do with hip limitations! Cookie is now 10 months old, and I think I can now hope to get both of them on longer walks as we head towards the spring. (And who knows, perhaps quicker paced walks too as the mud dries out.)

When there’s nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, I love that we have at least one outdoor purpose each day, and that’s walking Cookie. It forces me out for a break during busy workdays, and forces outdoor family time at weekends and holidays. Cookie is our one undisputable happy 2020 thing that Covid can’t taint!

Thanks for reading! Next up, “Progress” of Perthes throughout 2020