You can’t beat a day in the field

If you truly love your child or spaniel, or indeed both, it is your duty to take them beating, at the very least, twice a season. For it is only in the beating line that both kids and cockers can really do what they want to do.

In the case of children, stick waving, shouting, chocolate eating, tree climbing and scrub scrambling are not only allowed, but positively encouraged. Spaniels get to partake in full-blooded, nose to ground, tail-feather snatching and hunting — and hunting is to spaniels what half-time pies are to football fans.

I love my son and my cocker, Mabel, so I did my duty by them last Saturday.