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4 to 5 Months Old (Mid
January 2001 to Mid February 2001)
Teething was now a big problem. We had plenty of chew toys, but somehow sides of doors seemed more appealing. The pepper sprays initially worked, but wore off after a couple of days (Cass actually liked the taste of the lime sprays). We found the best thing was to give Cass an ice cube. This seemed to soothe her gums and calmed her down.
  Cass progressed well with training, and even started doing some tricks (roll over, shake paw, etc), but by now was starting to 'try her luck'. If told to do something, she would refuse and deliberately do something naughty. We found consistency, a strong voice and a hard stare worked best (she hated being stared at if told off, and immediately assumed the submissive pose).
5 to 6 Months Old (Mid
February 2001 to Mid March 2001)
  Cassie continued to do well. As you can see her coat started to get very long, and by 6 months we had started to strip out her puppy coat. We booked a session with a dog groomer who had been a cocker spaniel owner, who assured us that she hand stripped. We explained that Cass still had a lot of puppy coat, but on arrival at the groomers she wanted to use the clippers. We were reluctant to let her do this, knowing that it can cause the coat to go curly.
 Eventually we gave in, and left Cass there for 3 hours. On our return we were met by a tidy (if a little drastic ) clipped girl.
7 to 9 Months Old (Mid
March 2001 to Mid June 2001)
With her puppy coat now manageable we decided to try and continue the maintenance ourselves. Cass is groomed for about 20 minutes every night, with a full stripping and trimming session about once a week. The results are far from professional, but are presentable. Gradually Julie (and Cass) gain
confidence with using the thinning scissors.
 Late May we went on holiday to the New Forest, booking a cottage in the village of Brockenhurst. Although the Foot and Mouth outbreak still continued, many of the woodland walks were open. The only restriction being that all dogs be kept on the lead. We therefore had Cass on an extendable. She loved it.
Our only disappointment was that Cass didn't want to swim. She paddled, she splashed, but she wouldn't swim. Now who's ever heard of a cocker that
doesn't like to swim?
 Whilst on holiday we popped in to see Roger and Kath at Consmia Cockers. Cassie's mum (Judy) certainly seemed to recognise Cass as one of her pups, but Cass was a bit overawed by the occassion with her sister Noula and step sister Cinders jumping all over her. Noula was the dominant dog, and was determined to put Cassier in line. After a couple of hours Cass settled down and was able to play.
10 to 12 Months Old (Mid
June 2001 to Mid September 2001)
 On our return from the New Forst we found that Cass had picked up a couple of ticks. One was on the eyebrow and another on her tummy. They were small, pink, raison looking things. We took her to the vet and they showed us how to remove the tick properly, using a tick remover.
 Two weeks later we were back. This time Cass was suffering from bad diarrhoea. He took her temperature, which was high, and gave her some tablets. This did the trick, but as soon as the treatment stopped, the diarrhoea came back. We wondered if it might be her food. She was still on puppy formula, which says to move onto adult after 1 year. We tried moving Cass onto adult food with some puppy mixed in, and this did the trick.
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