Cooper’s Weekend with Mommy

Jeff headed to Las Vegas for Columbus Day weekend to celebrate his 30th birthday with his brothers, so Cooper and I had the house to ourselves. Woo hoo, party time!

Saturday evening we went to our neighborhood block party. The kids there loved playing with Cooper and he was very well-behaved even with so much food around! Here’s a photo of a girl giving lovin’ him up at the party.


For part of Jeff’s birthday present, I bought him Star Wars cookie cutters and pancake molds. So on Sunday afternoon, I decided I’d make a batch or two of the cookies in anticipation of Jeff's return home on Monday. They were more work than I was anticipating (not to mention that they required a two-hour dough refrigeration time), so to keep Cooper busy while I was in the kitchen I gave him a new Kong toy. You put dog food inside and he has to topple it over just right to get the food out of the keyhole. This toy definitely kept Cooper busy for at least a half hour while I was baking!


And here’s a photo of the cookies Cooper and I made -- a plate full of Yodas, storm troopers, Darth Vaders, and Boba Fetts. There were a lot of cookies, so Jeff took them to work and his coworkers ate most of them.

Puppy Class, Playdates and a Grooming

The past two weeks have been very exciting for Cooper -- he's been going to puppy class, had a couple playdates and got a haircut!

Cooper has been to two puppy classes and he's very well-behaved in class. We missed the first class while we were in New York, but it wasn't a big deal since they just learned "sit" and Cooper already knew how to sit. During the second week of class, everyone learned "down" and "come" -- another two commands we had already taught Cooper. But Cooper's still more than willing to sit or lie down over and over again just to get a treat! Here's one photo of Cooper performing in class.

Last week the class learned to retrieve a toy, which Cooper also knew already, but he didn't perform it as well in class as he does at home...probably because of all the distractions in class with other dogs, toys and treats! This week we've been teaching him stay at home and he's unbelievably good at it without much practice!

In addition to puppy class, we've also been taking Cooper to play with other dogs. Cooper spent one afternoon playing with his friends Otto and Kaya. I didn't get any good shots of them all playing together but here's a photo of the two big dogs.

And when I say the dogs played together, it was more like Cooper would find a toy to play with and then one of the other dogs would take it away from him. Cooper definitely ranked at the bottom of the totem pole at their house!

The day after his playdate with the big dogs, Cooper got a haircut. The owner of Cooper's dad Cabot and his brother Brinkley lives nearby and she gave Cooper his first grooming since we've had him. I was surprised by how much hair she cut off! He was looking extra cute after his trim, but unfortunately I forgot to take before/after photos to see the difference.

This weekend, we went to a local agility trial so that Cooper could play with his brother Brinkley and sister Abby (her name was Apricot at birth). Abby -- the only liver and white puppy in the litter -- lives in Alabama now with four other Springers and came to Georgia so that one of them could compete in the agility trial. It was exciting to see all three pups play together -- they're all so cute! In this photo, Brinkley is on the left, Cooper in the middle and Abby on the right. (It was too hard to get a good shot of all three of them!)

Jeff and I took Brinkley and Cooper for a walk around the park while we were there. Brinkley is definitely much better walking in a group than Cooper is. Cooper always wants to be in the front of the pack and run as fast as he can to get "somewhere". After our walk, we sat and watched some of the standard and jumpers agility trials. It was a lot of fun! Maybe one day Cooper will be in the ring!