Coco at Two
Photo: @ozzyandfriends.sg
There is a particular kind of confidence that doesn’t announce itself. It simply occupies the room — steady, unhurried, certain of its place.
Coco has always been this way. From the beginning, she moved through the world as though she had been here before. The word puppy has never quite suited her.
She turned two this past March.
Photo: @ozzyandfriends.sg
On Knowing Her Own Mind
Coco is never late for breakfast. Not because she is trained to a schedule — but because she has decided this is how things are done.
She is calculated but never cold. Quiet but never absent. She makes her point when the occasion calls for it, protects what she loves without theatre, and receives everything offered to her — food, affection, a new hotel entrance mat — with complete and unhurried confidence.
The doormen at Raffles Hotel know her by name now. Upon her first visit, she stepped down from her stroller and, with the quiet efficiency of someone marking what is rightfully theirs, left her signature at the entrance. Not much — just enough. One suspects this was always the plan.
Her teachers adore her. So does everyone who meets her. Not because she performs for them. Because she doesn’t.
Photo: @ozzyandfriends.sg
The Year She Became Steady
In August 2025, Yuki arrived. Coco was one year and five months old.
She didn’t shrink. She didn’t assert. She simply — settled. As though Yuki’s arrival had given her something to be steady for, and steadiness was something she had always been capable of, waiting for the right moment to show it.
She became calmer that year. Quieter in a different way — not withdrawn, but grounded. The confidence that had always been there found its fullest expression not in solitude, but in being the one someone else could rely on.
I watched this and understood something I hadn’t before. We always think we know better. We think we are the ones doing the teaching. But Coco was showing me, quietly and without ceremony, what it looks like to receive change with grace.
Lady Oscar
Long before Paw Princess existed, birthdays were always celebrated thoughtfully. Coco's first was inspired by Mermaid and Pearls. Her second could only ever be one thing.
I have loved Riyoko Ikeda's The Rose of Versailles for as long as I can remember. Lady Oscar — commander, protector, feminine and strong not in spite of each other but because of each other — has always felt like a particular kind of ideal. Riyoko Ikeda created something rare: a character who carries both tenderness and steel, who never has to choose between them. Coco reminded me of her from the beginning. She still does.
Coco reminded me of her from the beginning. She still does.
Her school, Ozzy & Friends, celebrated her first — surrounded by teachers who have known her since she was small, who understand that every child deserves to be marked, to be seen, to be told: you matter, and we noticed.
The portrait was their own creation — a gift, unprompted and unrequested, from people who had simply paid attention. Coco turned two this past March. Paw Princess opened its doors on the fifteenth of May. The portrait existed before either date mattered. She was already who she was. We simply caught up.
The customized cake arrived from Floofy Barkery — tiered, rose-strewn, gold-leafed, with a miniature sword at its base and Coco 2 spelled out in sugar at the hem. A detail that needed no explanation.
Photos: @ozzyandfriends.sg
Photos: @ozzyandfriends.sg
Cake: @floofybarkery
Photos: @ozzyandfriends.sg
Photos: @ozzyandfriends.sg
Photos: @ozzyandfriends.sg
What They Teach Us
We think we are the ones taking care of them. We set the schedule, choose the food, make the decisions. We tell ourselves we know best.
And then, without announcement, without asking for anything in return, they begin to heal us. Quietly. In the background. In ways we don't notice until we stop and look.
Coco taught me that confidence does not require noise. That protection is a form of love. That letting someone new into your world — a small white fox of a dog who arrived one August and immediately made herself at home — is not a loss but an expansion.
We always thought we are the ones taking care of them. But sometimes, I wonder if it is the other way around entirely.
She is still teaching me. I suspect she always will be.
She turned two on the first of March. She has been here, in some essential sense, much longer than that.
Coco is a red miniature poodle and one of the two faces behind Paw Princess. She joined us in May 2024 at two and a half months old, and has been setting the standard ever since.