‘You don’t have long. That dog won’t be a puppy for ever. Don’t waste this precious time.’ Those were the wise words of my friend Vince when I brought Cydney home.
‘Get out there with her,’ he explained. ‘Walk her in all the big parks. Maximise your pulling opportunities.’
Vince claims he never had so much luck with women as when he paraded his pug puppy around Hyde Park and, notwithstanding my disaster-prone nature, he was sure that even I could manage to attract a mate whilst walking a cocker spaniel as cute as Cydney.
The little black hound does indeed have powerful magnetic qualities. I cannot get down the street without a dozen people stopping to tell me how adorable she is, and, yes, some of them are men.
The law of averages would suggest that sooner or later one of the men who stops to pet my puppy will be single and attracted to me. We will get talking about the relative benefits of slip leads versus harnesses and the best disposal bags on the market for pooper-scooping and then we will walk off into the sunset together.
My mother, who once read that a TV star she likes met her husband whilst walking her dog on Hampstead Heath, has been telling me for years that dog walking is the premier method for a busy thirty-something woman to meet the man of her dreams.
And sure enough, the other day, I met him. He was playing with his golden cocker in the middle of Tooting Common.
He was tall, dark and handsome, bearded but in a rugged, rock-starish way. He was sporting the sort of trendy, patterned woollens that said he was sure enough of his manliness to wear a bobble hat.
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