This article is taken from the April 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Last Monday something extraordinary happened. I walked into my bedroom at about quarter to eleven (I had been drinking vermouth in the bath again) and found my girlfriend reading a book.

She has made vague attempts before in the five years I’ve known her and she insists that when she was doing history at Oxford she read “loads of books”. But to see her, judging by where the bookmark was, a solid two thirds of the way through something is quite an event.

The litter I went to see was not quite what anybody involved had been after

Leaning across the bed and noting that the book was The Cocker Spaniel, Care and Training for Home and Sport, I was reminded about the recent purchase I’d made. “It says you’ve got to read it all the way through before the dog arrives,” Constance barked as I tried to turn off the side light, “and I know nothing about dogs. We weren’t allowed one.”

Poor Constance and her sisters weren’t allowed much as children — I don’t know if there’s a term for the condition, but I’m sure that missing out on drinking Irn-Bru as a child and watching Eastenders causes lasting harm.

It had all happened like these things tend do. You mention to a gundog nut in a far-flung village somewhere that you’d quite like a pup, “something that can hunt cover and retrieve a few birds at the end of a drive” and they busily put out an extraordinary web of feelers in order to find you something suitable.

Inevitably, the initial mention was only an “oh, you must come for lunch soon” sort of pleasantry but by the time they have come up with the goods, you can hardly go cold on them.

The litter I went to see was not quite what anybody involved had been after. The father, a chunky working cocker is a curious black and tan animal with a white crest.

It was hoped that the mother, a springer spaniel crossed with a cocker, would produce pups that were very similar to him. But, perhaps serving us shallow humans right, the little dogs were almost all brown, except for a boy pup with white splodges that has been promised to a local tractor driver.

There’s been a great deal written about choosing the perfect puppy, most of it completely contradictory. Top gundog trainers have suggested that you should go for the biggest pup, as the little fatty has always pushed his way to the front for a first squirt of the mother’s milk, and is therefore bold and confident.

Other equally great gundog trainers have suggested that the chunkiest little monkey will turn out to be untrainable and headstrong. Currently, lots of people suggest rolling the dog over onto its back — if it stays there, with its paws in the air, you know that it’s biddable and therefore will do what you ask it later in life. I took a simpler approach.

There was one that had a funny face, very much like a little bear cub, and I told them I would come back to collect it in three weeks (£850 in case you’re wondering — a very fair price in today’s canine climate).

The plan is to do everything by the book. She won’t be allowed up on furniture, she won’t be allowed to run free with other dogs in the park, and with a fair wind she will be hunting cover and retrieving pigeons by two years old. As with all plans, I imagine that by the time you read this, Jessie (as she is to be called) will already be lying on the sofa. She’ll be up there, under a blanket, watching Eastenders and eating ham.

Just like with children, it’s sort of luck of the draw

I have no doubt that keen gundog trainers will tell you that such sloppy practice will only ever end in mediocrity and unfulfilled potential. Yet, I sort of think that when it comes to dogs, just like children (admittedly I’ve only known about three), it’s sort of luck of the draw.

An old boy I met the other day said to me that he reckons that when you’ve got two good working parents, they’ll throw a couple of decent working pups, there’ll be one or two that could go either way, and there’ll be a dud in there as well.

I have three siblings, and I texted my father yesterday just to confirm that I was pick of the litter. I think he must be away on business again.