Dog day afternoon: introducting Cocoa

She's a chocolate-colored tiny toy poodle so we named her Cocoa Bean. Like our other pets, she has a number of nicknames, including Cokie, Cokes, Cokie-Girl, Smooch Pooch and Pups-a-Daisy (among others).

When we first brought her home, she could fit in the palm of my hand -- and I have relatively small hands. Now full grown, she weighs in at a whopping 5 pounds, and she's smaller than the cats. (In fact, we were a little worried that the cats, since they came to us as kittens, were growing up thinking all dogs are smaller than cats.)

Cocoa is very smart, despite the fact that she still has no inkling that she's supposed to go potty outside, and she's spoiled rotten. When we take her out, if she potties, she gets a treat. The problem is she doesn't let us know when she needs to go out, so we still have to put down pee-pads (which Tabby uses, alas). She knows a lot of words, like: out, treat, leash, park, walk and nap. We were spelling some of them, but she learned to spell too, and so when we spell T-R-E-A-T, she runs to the pantry.

She has a stuffed lion that she gets a little intimate with (the vet said it's her way of being all "alpha dog" even though she's a female), but she also sometimes treats it like it's her puppy. When we give her a treat, she takes it to the lion, drops it and waits a couple of seconds, then eats it. It's like she's sharing it or at least willing to let the lion have first dibs.

She's adorable when she cocks her head to one side, like she's thinking, "You're brilliant! I agree with everything you say!" (Very different from the looks the cats give us -- which is more on the lines of "I can't believe I have to share the same universe with you.")

Cocoa is supposed to be my dog, but she follows Tony around like he's the answer to all her prayers. He lets her climb up on his shoulder when he's in his recliner, and she takes naps with him on Sunday afternoon.


I did not put this dress on her. Amanda and Steven did.