Busy

It's been a while since I've written anything here. I've been sort of busy lately. We are renovating our kitchen and I'm trying to figure how to loose a dog in 30 days or keep it. The reason or more correctly the two reasons why we have too many dogs are the fulfillment of lifetime dreams. But as said by George Graham Vest: "He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." And right now I feel unworthy.

9 months

It's been 6 days since I last wrote something in this blog. I've been quite active in my Swedish blog in the last few so it's about time I turn my attention here. Anyways yesterday Mirelle turned 9 months old and she's too young to have a cake but she sort of solved that problem herself. Apparently one of the dogs had decided to take a dump inside when we where gone because we changed the dog food this week and some dogs have sensitive stomachs. I cleaned it up but I had missed some that was under the stairs. Guess who found it? Our 9 month old daughter and by the look on her face she thought it was yummy. We didn't think it was yummy.

After a quick clean up and change of clothes I googled on the subject and basically every kid out there have at some point eaten shit. Cat shit, dog shit, their own shit or all of them. I didn't find any testimony that any child ever had become sick or ill due to consumed shit. But I did find some advice that if her stomach becomes upset, probably in the form of a light diarrhea it would be a good idea the avoid wholegrain gruel and stick to corn gruel as long as her stomach is upset. So no visit to the emergency room this time.

Good Morning

It's my first morning shift out of four, on a Sunday morning. I like working Sundays, for a different number of reasons so I actually like being here. Although going home is even greater =).

Yesterday was spent in Reisjärvi, or actually going to and from Reisjärvi. And in Reisjärvi we did some dog mating. If all goes well, it's a puppy summer. You wonder where Reisjärvi is. Well according to the GPS you drive north along the E8 to Jakobstad and then turn right and drive eastwards about a 100 miles into to middle of nowhere and the middle of nowhere starts emidietly after you leave E8 .

Fortunately we didn't follow the GPS or looked on the map and drew a straight line when we went home. We headed to the nearest "big" road, which meant going north 30 miles, then going westwards until we got back on E8 north of Kokkola. Now on the map this is a bad choice but roads east of Kokkola and north of Reisjärvi are so good that we actually saved time going the longer route. The GPS choice might work in the summer but it's still winter and the roads you could legally drive 80 km/h on you where sometimes forced to to drive 50-60 km/h on do to the snow/ice condition on the road.

Children's room

Since we are finished with redecorating the house, well the stairs are still undone but it’s no hurry with them, we moved all the stuff where it’s supposed to be. The baby is coming in early October so we made a children’s room.

Unfortunately the children’s rooms is popular among the dogs especially the cradle from 1848. We have caught two of the dogs sleeping in it and a yellow stain on the covering, yes a dog has peed in the cradle.

We are buying another pet gate on Monday. We have a pet gate to the entry hall, another to our new bedroom (future extra bedroom) and two baby gates not yet installed at the top and bottom of the stairs. Anyone interested in a dog or two?

Summer

It's finally summer. The sun is shining and the temperature is just above 20 C. According to the weather report this weather will continue for the next few weeks =).

Warm and sunny weather means that I can paint the dog fence. It rained most of July up until this week and painting wet wood is not a good idea. We borrowed an air compressor from my father-in-law which means that I can spray paint the fence in a couple of days which would have taken weeks with a brush. Anyway I ran out of paint yesterday with about 3/4 of the fence painted so today we bought another can of paint. When it's painted I'll do a second coating as long as the new can of paint lasts.

The reason I'm not out their painting right now is that I'm doing my second evening shift. Two more to go before I get one day off...

Vet day

Today it was time for our puppies to be vetted. The got a clear bill of health and we put micro chips in two of them. There are four puppies and the two that are going to be exclusively family dogs are not getting chipped. The micro chips are a mean of identification. Put a dog under a "dog scanner" and a number comes up in the display and that number from the micro chip is registered to the owner. The two that got chipped needs to be identified because if you are going to a dog show or an agility contest your dog must be identifiable and if it gets lost among thousands of other dogs they who finds it will know who's owner it is.

One if the chipped dogs are probably going to compete in agility contests and the other on is "given away" for breeding terms, thus it need to go to a few dog shows and get some results to be eligible for breeding.

Other than that I'm doing my third evening shift out of four...

First night

I'm doing my first night shift out of 4. There was a dog show in Vaasa this weekend and we visited it both days. Saturday we received a price for one our dogs that was in the "dog friend" program. Friendly dogs in the program are taken to elderly homes, schools, kindergartens and other similar places. Kids are introduced to dogs and elderly people like dogs, love on four legs that adore people.

Today, Sunday, we brought two "show dogs", they did well but didn't win. It was ok but we could have done better.

Yesterday I received my first mosquito bites this spring. Suburbia is surrounded by forest and there are a lot of swamps and small lakes in the forest. It's going to be a lot of mosquitoes this summer.

Last morning shift

Today is my last morning shift. There's a dog show in Vaasa this weekend so our program is full. My night shifts starts Sunday night.

Dog house

So we bought a dog house. It’s very well made and the reason they sold it was simple, the dog they built it for never lived there. So it’s been standing on there yard for three years while the dog has at most smelled the corners and stuck his head inside to take a look and smell around.

It was quite big, there wasn’t much rum left on the car trailer we borrowed. Then again it was a very small trailer. When we got home we realized that it was tot wide to get trough the gate in the wooden dog fence. The next idea we got was to lift it over the fence. But since it is very heavy that would have required 6-8 guys. So there was only one solution left, cut up a wide enough hole in the fence ant nail it together again.

So after doing that I got some help from a neighbour and the 2 of us where barley able to move it to the right place. He was holding it up while I placed a few bricks under it. The only thing wrong with is that it’s painted yellow and white while our house is painted red and white. But later in the spring when I’m going to paint the dog fence red, the dog houses yellow parts will become red.

Speaking of the spring, there is a raging blizzard outside. The winter is truly late this year…

Hidden in the snow

We have a part of our yard fenced in for our 4 dogs to run around in, a dog yard. Well the winter is over and the snow has melted. That means that there is whole winter’s supply of dog shit out there in the dog yard that has been hidden in the snow up until now.

We cleaned up half the dog yard and filled a 40 litre plastic bin with dog shit. That means that when the dog yard is fully cleaned up we’ll have another 40 litre of dog shit. The spring is here in dog world…

2 out of 4

I'm doing my second evening shift out of four. On Monday we got four puppies. They are gaining weight so everything seems alright so far =).

Forest Lake

Today is a very beautiful day. The sun is shining from a clear sky, a few centimetres of snow fell last night and the temperature is around 0 °C. Although I have arrived at work and I’m doing my first evening shift out of four we had time for a dog walk before I left for work. There are a few small lakes in the forest around where we live. So we went into the forest and once we where out of the populated area we let the dogs run free, except the hound mix Ella. She runs too far and can be quite jumpy when we meet other people.

The lake we went to is called “Byträsket” literally “The Village Swamp”. It’s far more beautiful than its name suggests. Although it’s been a mild winter there were snowmobile tracks on the lakes surface, suggesting that the ice was thick enough to walk on. And it was, we also met another guy walking his dog on the lake. We should have brought the camera with us because it was beautiful out there today…

Dog show

We're going to a dog show tomorrow in Åbo (Turku in Finnish). We're bringing three dogs so let's hope somebody wins.

Dog friendly?

I wonder if our neighbours like our dogs. When be bought our house we wanted a big yard. So we found a house on 1500 m2 lot. There was already a fence around it so we built a fence in the same style on the yard. We enclosed about a 500 m2 area for the dogs. So all we have to do now is open the door and let the dogs out whenever they want to go out. They like, we like but I’m not so sure that the neighbours do.

Two of our dogs are very territorial. They bark at neighbours, people and/or dogs going by (it’s a heavy trafficked road), strange sounds and dogs barking in the distance. Generally anything they can see or hear. This is their territory. We usually try to call them in when they start barking, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

I wonder what the neighbours think of this. The male Cavalier King Charles Spaniel doesn’t bark loudly but the Hound/Labrador mix do. She can really bark. Well so far no complaints…

2 out of 4

I’m doing my 2^nd evening shift out of 4. It’s a cold misty fall day. All grey and wet. But I like it somehow. It’s a sign of changing seasons, moving from fall to winter. The world feel silent ant that holds a beauty of its own.

We where to a dog show in Seinäjoki before I went to work. We brought three dogs and although we didn’t bring home ant prize bowls all three dogs did well. One ended second in her class so it was a good show day. At first when we started going to dog shows I didn’t think that they where that exciting. But I have begun to like them more and more. Well that might have something to do with the fact that our dogs have started getting better results. It’s more exiting when there is actually a bit of competition.

But it’s also a social event. You get up early in the morning and you drive halfway across the country (well Seinäjoki is only 80 kilometres away) and meet all these people (and dogs) with the same interest. And our dogs get to meet a lot of other dogs so it’s exciting for them too…

2 out of 4

I'm doing my 2^nd night shift out of 4. It's a rainy night; I suppose it will be a calm night. Tomorrow if it's not raining we will build the last part of the dog fence, well the wooden part. All I got to do after is install the wire fence underneath the wooden part towards the road. After that we can let the dogs run on the yard.

I should also visit my mom this week; I didn't have time last week. I worked the morning shift Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday to Friday we where on a course from work. Yesterday we where to a dog show in Oulunsalo and one of our dogs won her class =). Today was busy day to with picking up one of our dogs from my girlfriend's parents. One of the dogs that we brought to the dog show is placed on breeding terms and "her family" picked her up. We also did some unpacking at the house.

I'm also going to help my aunt's husband with some electrical work, he finally got electrical power to his summer cottage and we are going to hang up the cable on poles.

After my night shifts ends I got 10 days off =).

Building a dog fence

I got my first evening shift now but before we got around to building a dog fence. It’s in the same style as the one that goes around the lot. We’ll continue tomorrow…

Stomach problems (disgust warning)

One of our dogs had a bad stomach last night and I’m not sure which. And the puddle I wiped off the floor around 1 am, I’m really not sure if it was crap or puke. It was almost all fluid so it looked like and had the consistency of puke but by the colour and smell of it I would say it was crap. Yes this was disgusting but it’s a reminder that dogs are not just cute. Getting yourself a dog means a lot more than walks in the park and cuddling with furry love on four paws =). It’s also a “feel a little bit sorry for me”-post ;-).

My vacation

My vacation has started. Although it actually began yesterday I had done the night shift the night before so I slept away a large part of yesterday. So this is my first day without any work related side effects whatsoever.

There is however on problem, I’m bored. I got nothing to do. It’s raining outside and we don’t have to clean up the apartment before Saturday. N:s apartment are going for sale so it will be shown on Monday.

But we will walk the dogs as soon as it stops raining, at least a little bit…

The smell of death

Recently I have felt a new smell in my car. At first I thought that one of the dogs had made a mess on the blanket in their cage in the back. It really smelled like dog shit at first. But I found nothing. Then I thought that maybe the earlier owner had had a dog that made a mess on one of the seats and they had failed to remove the smell.

But as the weather got warmer the smell got stronger and finally I realized: it was the smell of death. It smelled like something had died in my car. My first car was a Volvo 240 and I once had the same problem there. I had hit a bird and it was caught in the grill in front of the air intake.

So I opened the hood in order to find something that had died in the engine compartment, a bird, a rodent or whatever. I found nothing.

Today Nina and I went for a drive. She had also felt the smell but believed it to be from the dogs. Well I explained my new conclusions and she asked: “Have you changed the trash bag?”

The thing is that I keep a plastic on the floor in front of the back seat where I put candy paper, parking receipts, banana peels or any other kind of trash you would produce in a car.

I answered “Eeh, no”

Problem solved…