On Saturday Jouni was booked by a nearby dog-club to hold a full day training class on handling. And as mr. Heinämäki still haven’t fixed the driver’s license for himself, he needed a ride to his course-location.
As it wasn’t that close to our home, I didn’t feel like driving back and forth, so I decided to come up with something to do while I was waiting for mr. Handler: a perfect opportunity to train the puppies a bit!
So we loaded the Bedarramobile with all 6 puppies and their mom Carmen, and hit the road.

 

We heard surprisingly little amount of objections from the puppies, they didn’t seem to mind the car-ride much. Only one of them had a small discussion about the subject right in the beginning, but even that one went silent after a minute or so. I am sure it was either the girl or Smirnoff. They tend to share their feelings with everyone else..

 

After dropping Jouni off at the clubhouse of the dog-club, I found a place where I could let the gang free without problems, and I went for a little walk with the kids and their mom Carmen. As they seemed not to fear for anything, I soon understood that it would be difficult to control this group on my own. We were far away from the road, which was a good thing, as their reaction when seeing a car was to run towards it, as it was FUN..?
Then I called to Maria, who lives close by, to see if she’d be interesting in some puppy mania! And naturally she was. Who can say no to these little cuties?

 

*The black boys exploring the nature*

 

 

 

But first we went shopping. If only I’d get a penny every time I said that sentence… Well, this time it was the boring type of shopping; groceries. We needed to fix the food for Sunday’s Kennel-Day (see below for more info from that even), and as shopping groceries really isn’t that exciting, we decided to go and check out a new pet-shop that had opened nearby.
Maria was looking at clickers and said that it would be good to by some of those as we’d be training with clickers on Sunday at the Kennel-day, and there was always someone who forgot to take their own clicker with them, or didn’t own one. I said that it was not necessary, as I had 3 clickers at home….

And take a wild guess now; who was the one who forgot their clicker home? Yes, the one who had a whole collection of them; yours truly. What an airhead!

 

When shopping was done, we drove to another location where we were able to let the pups loose, so they could run freely and play, while seeing some new things. And it was a pretty good location we found. During our trip they got to see cars, motorcycles, bicycles, people, dogs, a horse and a train. Pretty nice collection!

 

 

  
*José enjoying the fieldtrip* 

  
*B. All Hail The Hailstorm, Boy nr4, searching for treats*

 

 

They got to search for treats in the field and I had some toys with me, so that they could play. As it turned out, the toys I had were boring, and the funniest ‘toy’ the pups could find was the paperbag which had Marias breakfast bred in it. After the pups attacked Maria and tried their best to take part in the bred-eating, they were finally superhappy after they got their little paws on the bag; they were running around with it and competed on who got to carry it.

 

 

  
*Flint and the girl having fun with a paperbag instead of the toys..*

  
*The girl thought that Carmen's tail was a funnier toy than the one's I had with me..*

 
*....and José preferred to play with Carmen's leash instead of some boring toys..* 

 

 

Finally the kids got bored of the fields, as they started to explore the area further and further away from us, so we decided that it was time to collect them before they got too inventive.. So we loaded the car up and headed towards Jouni’s course location.

 

 

  
*Boy nr4 getting a bit tired after all the fun. Finally*   

On the way we stopped for a cup of coffee and finally we picked up the trainer, who was almost as tired as the puppies were.

The kids slept tightly the whole way home, but by the time they got out of the car, they were already ready for new adventures!

 

 

  
*Even Smirnoff needs rest from time to time...*

The happening of the year is now held and I bet there are some siberians AND their owners around the country, who are still tired after the action-filled day!

Here’s one, at least! And I’m now talking about myself, NOT about Thelma. Though I must admit, to my great surprise, that EVEN Thelma was tired after the day. She slept the entire night tightly in the bed, her head on the pillow. I suppose it’s because it takes a lot of energy to be so smart (And I’m here referring to the clicker training that she pretty much mastered. No personal opinions added to this comment).
 I suppose that too is something Thelma and I have in common.

Anyhow, the day started early for us. At 5 o’clock we were shoving bread into the oven, so that our precious puppy-buyers wouldn’t have to chew on yesterday’s bread during the lunch, and frying chicken for the salad buffet we were about to serve as lunch. I may not be the best possible breeder in the world, might not have all the answers, don’t always remember all the birthdays of our pups, I’m not always the most jolly and approachable gal in the world, I don’t always express myself in a polite manner and I sometimes forget to compliment all for the wonderful work they do with our pups. But damn it, I fry chicken for you people at 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning. That should count for something.    

After Jouni had packed the new Bedarramobile with all the stuff we needed for the day, it was time to head towards Trollhättan. Once again we had rented Aktiv Hund’s dog rehabilitation –centre and training –hall for our activity day. And once again Maria was there before us.

Now one could use a few gigabytes here in cyberspace just to describe how superb person Maria is with all the knowledge she has and how she always steps to the plate and helps and participates, but I wouldn’t want to embarrass her completely. But let’s just say that the day wouldn’t have been possible without her. She is a vital part of team Bedarra and stands behind most of the brain activity that goes around in many of our ideas  

Another vital part for success of such a happening would IN MY MIND be participants. But ok, let’s just say that we aimed for quality, not quantity in that category       However, considering the amount of time and money such day takes to pull off, it’s clear that if we’ll ever have something like this, it will have to be done in a different format.

Most of our honorary guests were there early, so there was time for some coffee and breakfast, before it was time to start the activities of the day. While others were attacking the coffee, we sent Jouni off to the wilderness to attach the questions for our first activity: dog-related quiz-walk! I had prepared 10 questions which the participants had to try to find a correct answer to, from the 3 options that I gave for them. That’s how nice I am. Of course, first they had to find the questions, and considering the time it took for mr. Heinämäki to set these up, we were sure he had spiced it up by hiding the questions. Which he apparently partly had also done.

Afterwards they were to return their papers back to me, so I could calculate the scores, as this was only one of the activities in our plan of the day. All the activities then gave a score and at the end of the day we’d calculate the total points to see who would be the KENNEL-CHAMPION 2010!

     
Tina & Freke and Niklas with Carl-Philip and Nikita, returning from the morning -walk.

Next activity on our list was the Clicker -training. Naturally this is one of the areas of expertise which Maria possesses, so she was able to give everyone an excellent theory lesson in the beginning, so that everyone knew the basics of this wonderful training -method. It’s so suitable for Siberians, as you work with positive reinforcement.

And talk about vivid explanations; I now have an idea on how to train dolphins to jump, for example. Good to know, in case one finds oneself in some Flipper -related emergency situation.   

Anyhow, as Maria has been training even elephants with clickers, and obviously she'd tackle a flock of dolphins if need be as well, so I decided that she should qualify as a trainer for Thelma as well  

  
From left: Our training -guru Maria, Louice and Metallica and Tina & Freke

After the theory, it was time for action! First we needed to teach the dogs what the clicking sound means; as the idea is that if we for example would try to teach the dog to sit, we’d click as soon as he sat, and then gave him a treat. If you then click and treat every time he sits, he pretty soon understands how to get the treats, and will offer to sit more often. And then you finally add a commando to the action. But first they need to understand that the click means a treat.

When that part was fixed, we were handed some plastic cones, with a hole on the top (and clickers, to those of us who only day before had bragged about owning 3 clickers, but then left them all at home…) and the task was to make the dog touch the cone with their nose.

I was training Thelma and she was a sort of a fast learner. I am not sure if it was an evidence of her brain capacity, or her love for food. I vote for the last option. I’m sure she’d jump through hoops, like Flipper, just to get a piece of candy.

When everyone had had time to practice, then it was time to demonstrate the new skills, and everyone had learned this very nicely!

After all the brain activity, it was time to let the heads rest and use the bodies instead, so we divided the group into 2; half went to train with Kickbike with assistance of Niklas, and half went to the pool to try swimming. After the lunch we then switched the groups so everyone got to try both sports. And got their points to their Bedarra Olympic Games scoretable!

   
Agneta & Pussy in action!  

During the kickbike –part, Rebecca had made sure that this was a true spectator sport, as she had decided to do some real offroad training.. I guess some people just want to live dangerously.

Rebecca & Clark. Photo by team-Rebecca

Next year I guess it’s safe to set Rebecca as a part of the program, as it has now turned into a tradition. Last year she fainted, this year she stepped it up a notch.    I will keep her away from the pool next year, that’s for sure, who knows what she comes up with next..!   

  
Mean-Dean, aka the vampire-dog, testing the pool and showing of his fangs!

  
So, Jouni and Jenny are laughing at my Thelma?! Well, as the saying goes, he who laughs last..

  
...laughs longest: take a look at Qocos ears! He turned into Lassie the moment he hit the pool   

The lunch was a little salad buffet with a bit of everything; at that point most probably felt that they needed some energy to be able to continue.. The dogs got to rest while the people were eating, which was also well deserved.

Then it was time to hand the goodie-bags to all the participants! And they were no small bags! Espoon Akvaariotukku had sponsored our little event so everyone got a harness, collar and a leash, which had these light cables on so they blinked; excellent to have after the summer, when it becomes darker again. This set was worth over 1000,- per dog, so we are very grateful for these gifts!

  
Carl-Philip showing off his new, fancy harness

Royal Canin had also participated in sponsoring our puppy-buyers, and they gave a very useful gift as well; first aid kits for everyone! Thank you Royal Canin for your support!

Next item on the schedule was to remember those who did well in the shows last year: during 2009 we got 2 new INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONS (C.I.B); Ch. Bedarra Nero Wolfe, ‘Carl-Philip’, and Ch. Bedarra Pussy Galore, ‘Pussy’, and we have had as a tradition to hand out a special rosette for all new int.champions. Carl-Philip already got his during the fall, so now it was time to hand out the custom made BEDARRA rosette to Pussy! Here’s the pretty girl with her fancy price:

  
C.I.B Bedarra Pussy Galore

 

After lunch we switched the groups and continued with Kickbike/swimming.

  
Niklas, who was assisting everyone with this sport, here with his 2 Bedarra's: C.I.B & N Ch. Bedarra Nero Wolfe, 'Carl-Philip', and Bedarra Hottie Bom Botty, 'Nikita'

Duque, Zenko de Ciukci, after kickbike-exercise

After the physical part, it was time for some brain –exercise again in the form of clicker training.
This time we were to teach the dogs to set a paw on the cone, instead of setting their nose on it. As if that didn’t seem difficult enough, our teacher decided that it would be fun to change some dogs between the owners. She had some explanation about how it would be beneficial for us, but I’m sure she was just being mean. Though I think I won in the exchange, as I got Qocos instead of Thelma. Jenny and even André got to enjoy her while I was training the half asleep Qocos.. It wasn’t too surprising that the kids started to get tired at this point, but they managed really well despite of their young age!

As during the morning, everyone got to show what they had learned with their borrowed dogs, and then the dogs were switched back to their real owners. But now we were to get them to set their noses to the cone, instead of the paw, which they had just learned! Tricky, thought many, but this was no challenge to my child-genius, aka Thelma.
It turned out that everyone managed even that trick, so it felt like people had actually learned something during the day!

As we now saw so many mastering this new method, there will come out some challenges in this blog in the future, where we give out the CHALLENGE OF THE MONTH, a trick or similar which you need to train to your dogs, and when you master it, take a photo and send them to us. We’ll then publish the photos here! Naturally this is open for all our puppy-buyers, not only those who were at the kennelträff. So watch out, the next challenge will be published soon!

After clicker training we started to close on the finale of the day. But we still had some events left, which were needed in order to find out the KENNEL-CHAMPION 2010!
The next step was to get through a short agility track, which was built so that the dogs could be helped through it and time was naturally of importance.

  

Louice and Metallica on the agility -track  
           

Marco, who had a lot of hidden talents in agility!

From the agility track the dogs went to test the treadmill, so finally we had a real triathlon; Bicycling, running and swimming!

After calculating all the scores from the day’s activities, we found out that we had a tough tie-situation in our hands; 2 participants had scored equally high. And it couldn’t have been better opponents than this: Kristin vs Agneta; the daughter against her mother!

Here are the finalists: Agneta is concentrated on the track, while Kristin is clearly using psychological pressure, and is staring her opponent like a hawk

 

The devilish sport that was to settle the score for good was WATERSLALOM! That’s right; the participants had to tie their dogs’ leashes around their waist and with a cup of water in their hand go through the slalom sticks. And whoever had more water left was the winner.

Maria giving instructions to Agneta and Pussy for the Water-slalom

Agneta did a great job too, though there weren’t much in the cup afterwards, but Kristin beat her together with Vappu. And our extreme-action gal Rebecca took the honorable 3^rd placement in this exciting event!
All the winners got backbags to their dogs, among other stuff, and the winner got the magnificent winner-shirt, which we expect to see on her at every possible event from now on..

Big congratulations to Kristin & Vappu!

And a huge thanks to all who came and shared the fun with us.

Massive thanks to Maria for fixing everything. And thanks to Niklas for helping out with the kickbike and sharing your knowledge.

Thanks also to our sponsors, Royal Canin and Espoon Akvaariotukku!

More photos of the event can be found: HERE

Now that I am starting to recover from the massive stress-reaction caused by Patty's insemination -madness, it was time for some other action.

No rest for the wicked, as they say   

So I travelled first to Finland to pick up the hopefully very pregnant Patty, my sister Sinikka and my niece Ilona. And a whole bunch of stuff which mr. Heinämäki had once again ordered. I seem to be deliver more products than that freaking FedEx does. As unlike me, they are closed during the weekends.

You can't see that I'm still bitter towards that company after their hassle with Patty's insemination, can you?    

After a fun week with visit to the zoo, shopping and games, it was time for Easter..

And even though it's fun to get some relatives over for a visit, we typically tend to leave them home alone with our dogs and take a trip somewhere    Well, it's not like I'm known for my skills as a hostess..

This time we had planned to take a weekend in Stockholm as there was 2 nice events to be held: the international allbreed show on Sunday and the Champion of Champions -gala on Saturday!

We got the invitation to the gala again and decided to go as they were about to hold it for the last time this year..

The show is a fancy event where only the most winning dogs from Sweden are invited to.

In the invitation it also said that if we were a party of 10, we could get our own table at the gala. And that the dresscode was formal..

And our puppy-buyers are no strangers to some bling, so they weren't too difficult to talk over as the fanciest and the loudest cheerleading squad ever!

A bit before the show we got the fancy tickets in the mail and at that point it was time to freak out regarding what to wear and where to find it etc..

 
Here's the fancy ticket

So the real torture was to find something to wear, especially listening to the plans of the others regarding some fancy dresses etc. Luckily, my sister took this as her little project when she arrived and started to hunt for the proper accessories for me. Whatever those now might be...In other words, you could say that I had a personal stylist for this event.

Sounds fancy, but in reality it meant that I arrived to this lovely event wearing faked nails, pantyhose and some feathers in my hair, among other things..

Before I continue, I'd like to point out that those were NOT the only things I had on me, even though it sounds like something Gaultier could have designed.

We headed to Stockholm early on Saturday and arrived to the hotel around 15.. The hotel was recommended by our little travel-guide Rebecca, who had actually been there before and now decided to return.. To my great surprise, I might add   
Well, I survived the night there, but let's just say that it was no Hilton. And for some reason Jouni and I, 2 huskies and a newfie the size of a house got a tiny, tiny room, and miss Rebecca stayed with her 2 huskies alone in a room with 2 double beds, 2 bed sofas, 2 other beds, 3 toilets, 2 showers and a small kitchen..
I bet she has some Shabby-Hotel-Customer-Points -card that gives her extra 'benefits' during her visits   

After I had recovered from the shock reg. the hotel, it was time to get prepared for the gala. I lost 3 of the fake nails while battling the freaking pantyhose on.

Talk about torture!

We got the ride to the Grand Hotel, where the fancy gala was to be held, from the nice ladies at Royal Canin, so we didn't have to search for any taxis.

As we arrived, we got Espen's nr by the door and then we took him and his cage to the upstairs, where there was room for the dogs. We also got the catalogue, where we could see the judging order on the first round.

The system was such that they had had a lottery of which dogs should be competing against each other in the pairs. Then there were to be 3 judges who'd vote the other one to the next round and the other one would drop out.

Then it was time to enter the actual party hall and it was really nice looking place with lots of people wearing their fanciest outfits. At the door we were handed a glass of champagne each and could then continue to our table.

At the beginning we were shown a presentation about the winners throughout the years and then it was time for the dinner and some wine.

When we were having the dessert, they asked for the Veterans to go and get prepared and when the Veteran of Veterans would start, it was time for the Champions to go into pre-judging.

After the Veteran of Veterans was chosen, it was finally time for the Champions. Espen started by meeting a sheltie in the first pair and the 3 judges; Kari Järvinen, Göran Bodegård and Carl-Johan Adlercreutz voted the round for Espen with 2 votes out of 3.

On the stage there were 2 large squares; one yellow and one red. The dogs were then stacked on them and the judges had signs that had yellow on the other side, red on the other. Then they lifted up the color they preferred and that way everyone got to know which one got to go to the next round.

Then Espen met with American cocker, then with Australian Terrier and finally a Papillon and he won each round with full 3 votes.

And all of a sudden it was time for the final and we realized that Espen was one of the 2 finalists!

  

Espen and the old english sheepdog on the final round

Jouni had also first realized on the stage that he was in fact in the final now.. The judges went the dogs through a bit more in detail this time and then the speaker announced that 'as soon as the judges have made up their minds, mr. Adlercreutz will have the honor to hand over the rosette to the winner'... And then the 2 other judges voted for the old english sheepdog, while I was about to hyperventilate by our table.

The problem was just that the man with the rosette didn't remember to check what his colleagues had voted for and he just handed the rosette over to Jouni. Luckily Jouni looked up and saw the votes and could then lead the judge to the right winner... :)

He just said that he wanted Espen to win :) Can't blame him for that!

Anyhow, it was pretty darn amazing that he got that far, we had absolutely no expectations from this show, as there were no 'bad' dogs, as it was only the top dogs that got the invitation. So it was really fun evening.

A big thanks goes to our wonderful and oh-so-fancy puppy-buyers for doing some excellent cheering during the evening.

And thanks especially to Tina for these 2 photos from the gala!

  

Espen in the final round. He was just LOVING to be on the stage and just got wilder and wilder the more the crowd cheered for him.. He was born for the spotlihgts and catwalks :)

It seemed that Espen had gotten many fans during the evening as there were so many who came and said that they had cheered for him. That's always nice to hear.

We were back at the hotel around midnight. The fake nails went off with the speed of light and Espen collected the chewing bones equally fast from Ville and Kiara, who were waiting for us back at the hotel, placed them on one of the beds and started to relax after his night at the gala..

On Sunday it was time for the int. show. After the nearly non-existing breakfast, courtesy of the wonderful hotel we stayed at, we headed to the show-grounds.

As the judging was going on very slowly, our morning was a bit extra exciting as it looked like that the huskies and Ville would be judged pretty much at the same time. But thanks to some great ring-secretary in the NEWFIE-ring, we were able to make it to both rings on time.

And we got some nice results: Espen was BOB, Kiara BOS. Marco was best male-2 after his father, followed by his brother-from-another-mother Clark as best male-3, and Elvis as best male-4. Vappu went best bitch-2 and Nikita best bitch-3. Freke was BOB-puppy and we had the BOB-breedergroup with Nikita, Elvis, Kiara and Vappu.

And Ville went BOB!

Though the only final placement came for Espen, who ended up as BIG-2...

During the day there were a couple of people coming to talk to Jouni about the gala the night before, even one of the organizers, who were all saying how nicely Jouni handled the awkward situation with the announcing of the winner and the handing of the rosette -situation.. Jouni told this to me afterwards and was wondering how that could have been surprising, as he couldn't think of any other way to behave in such a situation.

What? Can't come up with alternative endings? I could come up with a dozen in a split of a second! He could have just grapped the rosette without looking at the other judges, jumped up and down on the stage, screaming YES!!! as loud as he could, done a little victory dance and finally stage-dived to the crowd together with Espen. So yes, I guess he handled it pretty much smoothly   

Anyway, it was a nice show with very nice people and the gala on Saturday evening was surely the highlight of this trip! 

  

Being a breeder of dogs gets one into situations which one would totally miss if one had kept on going with the fascinating hobby of collecting stamps, for example, instead of choosing this road.

  

Now how many girls can for example say that half of the topics of the emails in her inbox are called ‘Semen shipping’?   
Mine does! This because our Patty, INT CH Ultima of Baker Lake, started her season recently.

  

This was to become Patty’s last litter, as she has already had 3 before and she is already turning 7 years. We think that 4 litters is quite enough on a bitch that has left excellent puppies, which we believe she qualifies for.

Ans as it was to be her last litter, we wanted to do something special for her, and find some amazing male for her. After a loooong investigation, looking through dozens and dozens of different websites of huskybreeders around the world, we finally found our candidate; a male who looks like the type of husky we really love and who had the bloodlines we wanted to get into our breeding!

The boy in question is ‘Gunner’, BIS/BISS Am & Can Ch. Playmor’s Full Throttle. Sound familiar? That’s because our Fuller has the same name, it’s just a different prefix; he’s called Ch. Kristari’s Full Throttle.

We contacted Gunner’s owner/breeder in the US to see if we got get a permission to use him and she was fine with that. Now it was just to wait months and months for the right timing and the season we wanted Patty to get mated from.

In the meantime I was in contact with a vet hospital near us to see if they could take care of the insemination. Just to be prepared. Right. I also did the application for the import –permit (one of the many, wonderful Swedish rules which need to be followed in order to get something like this fixed)

We had decided to do the AI on fresh (chilled) semen, as it gives better results; more probable pregnancy and bigger litter sizes.

  

Patty delayed her season with a couple of months and when it finally started, it came as a surprise. Isn’t that typical? We had been checking her from time to time as our other girls went into season, but there was nothing going on yet. When we finally discovered that she was in season, it was Espen who gave us the hint, and even then it was very difficult to see anything, she wasn’t bleeding much at all. Anyhow, I contacted US immediately to inform them about this, as the Swedish rules also required some bloodtests to be taken on the male. Which is sort of amazing. I mean, if there comes a package of a small tube of semen, which a vet shoves into my bitch, how is that then a huge health hazard to the animals of this nation? But then I could in theory shove her to the backseat of my car, drive to which ever country and let her be mated with basically anything without any extra paperwork needed..? Isn’t that a greater risk? Well, I guess the rules are there for some reason, I haven’t just figured out that yet.

  

We had calculated that the correct timing would be sometime during the end of the month, and was worried that it didn’t get pushed to the last weekend of March, as then I was planning on going to Finland. We got the message from US that they were about to take a little trip as well to a speciality show which Gunner’s owner was about to judge in Texas, but that she’d take Gunner with her, just in case. She had also checked out a good reproduction-vet in that area, in case we’d need to move faster. This was the weekend before my planned trip to Finland. But we thought that it would be a bit too early, so we should be fine.

 

We decided anyway to take the first progesterone –test on Patty before they’d take the roadtrip in the US, so that no-one needed to worry about this. I was about to get the results on the same day they were about to leave, so that sounded like a perfect plan.

I also found out that the progesterone –levels are being measured differently in Sweden and in US, so that of course brought some extra excitement to our communications. I found out how to convert the results to the US scale and called to US as soon as I got the results. We had expected a very low result, but the one I got was indicating that Patty would be ovulating around Thursday evening-Friday morning! We had obviously missed a couple of days from the start, and considering how hard it was to see that she was in season, we weren’t that surprised of that.

 We were also told that due to some local rules the private persons couldn’t send this type of packages, but it would have to be the vet who would be the official shipper. However, each vet would need to have a special contract with the airlines to be able to use them to transport this type of material, and neither of the options we had, had this contract. So the only option to ship the semen with was FedEx.

The instructions we had gotten from the US was that many vets want to do this procedure too early, so we should look out for that. They thought that Patty’s right moment would be around Sunday or Monday, so in that case they would have to collect  the semen from Gunner pretty much right away, as the flight from US to Sweden would take so long.

 

Ok, I had already contacted FedEx in Sweden directly after we noticed that Patty had started, before we took the progesterone –tests on her. I wanted to know how this would work out in practice; like how I could get the import permit and the needed paperwork to the customs or FedEx so that the package wouldn’t get stuck in the customs. And how did it work with the official Boarder Vet and that check up. To find this out, I had to call to Swedish Board of Agriculture twice, the customs twice, the airport once and finally to FedEx. This was an experience in a league of it’s own.   

 

The FedEx person nr 1 had no idea how this would work. The FedEx person nr 2 thought I should contact the Customs, which I already had done, thank you very much. The FedEx person nr3 all of a sudden was a true pro in this matter! I explained everything in detail, that the package would arrive to Gothenburg airport and then we’d head directly to the vet’s office and that it was very important to get it out as soon as possible, as the fresh semen only lives a certain nr of days, then it’s not usable anymore. The FedEx –boy explained to me that this was not the first time they deliver something like this, so he recommended that I would pick up the package from their office in GBG, instead of having it delivered to the vet. This way we would win some time. And, when the semen was shipped from the US, I would just need to call in and they’d open some customs file for me, where I could upload the paperwork, so everything would go smoothly at the customs. I could also leave then my credit card nr for the taxes, which needed to be paid too. Perfect, I thought, this is actually going to work out!

 

Now that we heard from US that the semen was to be shipped pretty much as soon as possible, Gunner’s owner wanted me to check if FedEx was really open during the weekend in Sweden. Just to be sure. I promised to check that, and I also gave a call to the vet at the clinic I had planned to use for this. I had also talked with them earlier during the week before the progesterone-test result, just to let them know that the season had started etc. I called them again to tell them about the test result.

 

This time I got another vet, who I had not spoken with, and she said that this would need to be done some time during Monday or Tuesday. But after I had explained the whole story, she dropped the bomb on me and said: ‘well, I do have to say that it feels a bit uncomfortable for me to do this as I don’t do this directly into the matrix, and as this is such a valuable bitch and her last litter and you have invested a lot of money into this, I’d like to recommend you to go to either to Oslo, where they are really good at this, or to Uppsala, where they also specialize on this. I’ll do it, if you want me to, but if I were you, I’d go to Oslo instead.’   

 

Oh-key, a little twist in the plans. Well, alright, we can do that. If we get the semen in to GBG on Saturday or Sunday and then I’ll just drive to pick it up, and then drive back and go to Oslo to get it put in. So after some work with Google, I found the contact info to Oslo Veterinary University and called to Norway.
Reached a very nice vet and told our story to her, along with Patty’s test results. I also explained that the other vet had suggested Monday-Tuesday for the insemination. No, that would be too late, Tuesday was definitely out of the question. Monday could work, but she’d suggest that we’d get it in on Sunday, as the semen would then still live inside the bitch so that could maximize our possibilities. She also gave me her cell phone nr, so that we could just call her and she’d come and meet us up in the office and fix this on Sunday.

 

Ok, so I would have to get the semen out early on Sunday morning to make this work. Called to FedEx. Started with a simple question, asking about their opening hours. ‘Monday to Friday, 8-16’.

  
Oh crap. Explained the whole story again and asked if there was any kind of possibility to get the package out on a Sunday. No, they were totally closed on Sunday.
Well, ok, the Oslo vet said that Monday could work too, and they are well known for their skills in this area, so if I get the package out early on Monday instead, I could drive to Oslo from GBG and get this done on Monday afternoon. No problems!

 

So, I thought I’d ask about the customs file and the taxes that should be paid etc, to get them sort of prepared for this and to make sure that I know exactly what I need to do and when, so that nothing would go wrong. The FedEx person nr 1 spoke with had no idea. So she put me on hold, and went to ask. She just never came back. I called them again, got the same talent. I said that ‘I guess you have some memory –issues, as you seemed to forget about me?’. At this point my nearly non-existing patience was starting to disappear.. She just told me that she’d transfer me to someone else. Which didn’t really help, as she was equally talented as her co-worker. So, I got transferred to Einstein nr 3. Need I say more. The 4^th person all of a sudden turned out to know what she was talking about; how refreshing! I explained the whole story for the 4000^th time, and she said: ‘well, as we don’t ship this type of packages at all to Gothenburg, the package will arrive to Stockholm (ie about 500km from us).’ And as it’s coming from outside the EU, it will be cleared last, so it will be earliest Monday afternoon that you could get it out, in case you drive up here and pick it up yourself, but if you want it delivered to you, it will be earliest Tuesday, maybe even Wednesday’.   

This can’t be happening, I thought! Crap, crap, crap! There was no way that I could drive first to Stockholm to pick this up and then to Oslo to get everything done during Monday. Not going to happen, not even with my driving style.

Then I remembered the GBG vet mentioning the specialist in Uppsala! Now we’re talking, Uppsala isn’t that far from the Sthlm airport; I could definitely get that fixed during the same day!

 

So, after some quality time with my best pal Google, I found the contact info to this guru in Uppsala and called her up. She is also a very well known specialist on this field, so I was a bit nervous about my possibilities to actually get a hold of her. But she answered with the first try! Well, someone’s luck is about to turn, I thought. Shouldn’t have done that…

As it appeared that after I had given the story for the 4010^th time, the same trend continued. She explained that they’ve done these procedures for years so she knows the rules and the regulations very well, and if the package arrives to Sthlm airport on Monday, there was absolutely no way that we could get it out through the customs and the Boarder Vet before Tuesday. And judging by Patty’s test result, Tuesday would be too late, so she didn’t think she could be of help to us..

At the end of the call she said that ‘the only tip I could give you is that take the semen and the bitch to Finland, if you have any connections there, as they don’t have this type of regulations so you could get the semen out on time latest on Monday’.

 

If we have any connections to Finland?! I believe that the answer to that question is YES!

 

Anyhow, it sounded like a bit farfetched idea, that with this timeline we should find a way to get Patty to Finland, find someone to keep her and take her to the vet when it’s time, find a right vet to do this AND to get the semen shipped there on time.

 

At this point I got a call from US. They were currently at the vet, collecting the semen, and they wanted to get the address it was supposed to be sent to. Address? I don’t even know which COUNTRY it should be sent to yet?! I gave a quick summary about the situation and promised to get back to them asap. No pressure or anything…   

 

I guess this was the point where I started to lose my hope. I thought that we’ll just give whatever address to them, like to my sister, and I’ll just tell her that she’ll get a package sometime during next week, which she should just throw away without opening. And then we’ll let Flash take care of this problem..  But then again, this was the last chance for Patty, and let’s just say that the package we were expecting wasn’t exactly for free, so to toss that away was simply not an option.

 

So we took a deep breath and it didn’t take too long until my brain woke up again. Our new guest-star, Ville, was about to arrive to Sweden to a show on Saturday, with his FINNISH owners Anne & Risto, who were about to return back to FINLAND on the evening ferry on Saturday, which would reach Finland early on Sunday morning… One Patty maybe would fit into their car..? Jouni contacted them and they were ready to help us. Perfect! I was already planning to go to Finland during the last weekend of March, to deliver a dog and to pick up my sister and her kid to Sweden, as they are to stay with us for some weeks, and could then take Pats with me home at the same time.

I checked quickly on the web that it was in fact so that there were no import requirements and according to Finnish Kennelclub’s site, this was the case!

Then Jouni contacted another friend in Finland, Virpi, who is a newfie-breeder, and explained all the fun we’ve had with this project. She was just about to visit the other one of the 2 vets in Finland who do the insemination directly into the matrix, she was on her way there and could ask the vet if she could do this on Sunday. What are the odds of her going there at the same time?

 

It didn’t take too long before she called back and she had bad news; the vet was not available before Monday. But, she had another idea. Another newfie-person was a customer of this vet, and she could help us get contact with the other vet. So, Jouni calls the 3^rd Newfie-lady, Kati, who also promised to help immediately! She could take Patty from the Newfie-lady nr1, Anne, and keep her at her place, take her to the vet etc. No problems. Now we just needed to get the vet  to agree to do this on Sunday! She promised to contact her, and within 5 minutes she had gotten a positive answer from the vet!

 

Woohoo, we had a plan!   

 

So, I called to US and announced that we have been able to clear everything out and I was now ready to give our friends address to the shipment. I talked with the receptionist at the Vet Clinic in Texas and gave her all the info she needed and after that I called to Gunner’s owner to let her know of the situation. She was still at the vet and as we were speaking, the receptionist had called to my nr 1 favorite company of all: FedEx, and gotten some bad news… The earliest arrival day to this address in Finland would be Tuesday. Not Sunday or Monday. But they said that it could arrive to country before, and it had happened that when they had shipped semen to Italy they had said that it took 5 days, but eventually it was there in 2 days. Well, we had no choice to ship with anything else than FedEx, the semen was already collected, so I guess it was just to take the risk and let the package go.

 

The same evening I got to call to the Texas vet again to get the FedEx tracking nr, so I could follow the progress and the location of the package on FedEx homepage. Which was the first thing I did after I woke up the day after. And when I logged into their system, I could see that the estimated delivery time was not only Tuesday, but it was Tuesday at 18:00 in the evening… Great.

 

So, some calls were to be made. We needed to get the vet changed to Monday instead and I needed to call to… that’s right. FedEx! This time, the Finnish version. As a patriot I thought that I must get good service at the FINNISH FedEx, no problems. But no I quickly found out that the poor service seems to be part of their company brand. I dialed the nr and waited. And waited. No IVR message, no music, nothing. Finally the call is picked up and I hear ‘hello’. Hello? Where the heck did the call come, I asked. (Yes, I’m every customer service –persons dream-customer, I know).

 

FedEx, said the girl. Well, it could be an idea to kind of spread the word when picking up the phone, so your customers don’t have to wonder? After the little lesson in the proper phone-behavior I explained the matter and said that the package was supposed to be delivered during the weekend, that it was shipped as some express package. ‘But FedEx isn’t open during the weekends’.   

 
I mean, honestly, what the hell is that? What kind of shipping company does not operate during the weekends?

Ok, would it then be possible to get the package out on Monday, if it would be picked up from your office? Yes, that would be fine. I was then transferred to some other woman, who instructed me on the practical things; told me where to email my credit card info for the customs and the note that we’d pick it up ourselves. They’d book the time at the vet, who would check the paperwork.

Finally she asked for my tracking nr to see what the status was, as I asked what time we could come and get the package. ‘Well, I can’t see that this shipment is on the plane that will be here late on Sunday, so it could be that it arrives later on the week instead’. No, no, no. Ain’t gonna happen. Your own website says that it’s on the schedule and that by Tuesday it would have been at our friends place. So surely it must arrive at the Helsinki airport by Monday. ‘I guess we need to assume so’, said the lady! As if I at this point wanted to really assume anything. At this point I kind of preferred knowing.! Then she also mentioned that as this was coming from outside the EU, it would be unpacked last, so it could be late in the afternoon before we could get it out. Great..

 

At this point I called to my sister and informed her of the special mission I had planned for her. ‘What do you want me to do now’? she asked. Well, you need to pick up a very special delivery, some semen from the airport, early in the morning, and then deliver it to our friend who has Patty.
Guess how happy she was about her new assignment!?!   

 

While I was getting a courier for the semen, my sister, Jouni had been talking with a Newfie-lady nr 4 in Finland, Jonna, who had already heard about the AI project of the husky which currently seemed to involve half of the Finnish Newfoundland –breeders/owners    She had experience in importing this stuff in the past and when she heard what kind of timeline FedEx had given us, she got upset, asked for the tracking nr and told that she would have a little chat with them… After a while she called back and said that the package was to be ready at 10 o´clock on Monday morning   

Things started to seem surprisingly clear. A bit too clear… So I thought it would be good to double check on the Finnish Board of Agriculture’s website so that there really were no weird rules regarding the import of dog semen to Finland. And no, there was nothing like that. The only thing that was required was a special form that had to be filled; an announcement of the arrival of such a package called CVED, and this was to be done LATEST 1 working day prior to the arrival. Which would be… like now, I realized. Ok, no panic, I quickly found out that this could be easily done over the internet in their special system. Yes, sounds like something for me. After looking for the link to this system for over half an hour, I realized that I needed to call to the support, and soon I was back in business.

 

I filled the form, which sent a mail to my inbox with a link which I was supposed to click to confirm the registration. Which I did. The mail also said that now the special committee would go through the registration and as soon as that was done, I’d get another mail about it, and THEN could make the actual announcement of the arrival of the package..

 
After about 5hrs had passed and I still hadn’t gotten any mails, I called to the support-person again. Well, I can’t really look for it now as we seem to have our internet connection down today…   

Why OF COURSE you would have your connection down just TODAY, how else?! He promised to look into this and call me back. Which he did after an hour. He explained that it was now ready, so I should have a mail in my inbox and could now log in to fill the form. Excellent! I thanked the guy and logged into the system. Only to find out that there was about 2 km long list of different forms, and I should now know which ONE I should pick.. At first I thought that it would be too embarrassing for me to call to the support guy again, so I thought that I must be able to find the answer on my own. I saw a form which was made for ‘live animals’. Well, it doesn’t really fall into that category, but I opened it just to see the subcategories. Which were ‘live animals’, ‘Fish and reptiles’ etc. Didn’t really fit to this purpose. I also found a form for ‘animal products’. Ok, it’s a product of an animal, but when I opened the form I saw a long list of subcategories, like ‘honey’, ‘fish eggs’ etc.

I wasn’t about to give up yet, so I discovered a manual for this purpose. Opened it. Saw that it had 376 pages. Closed it and called the support guy.   

 

He guided me to the ‘animal product’ form, where I had missed a tiny, tiny + which opened another sub-category. And under that another one. And under that we found ‘semen’.
Yippee! I even said to him that ‘hey, thanks a bunch, at this point I MUST be able to go on without any help’, and ended the call. Clicked on ‘semen’ and saw a subcategory. In latin. There were 4 options, none of them said ‘canis’, which I would have understood. One started with Equi.. something, which I guessed had to do with horses, so I concentrated on the 3 other one’s.

Opened the good old google, and found out that the first one referred to pigs and the second to goats. I couldn’t find anything on the 3^rd option, so I chose that. Afterwards I’m pretty sure I applied for a permission to import semen for chicken or something, but hey, my goal was to get the form filled, rest of the things could be explained at the customs. I hoped.

Then I filled all the parts of the form and when I thought I was ready, I pressed ‘SEND’.

  
A 30cm long list of red error messages appeared of the lost fields I hadn’t filled.. After an hour, I managed to get the form sent! And by that we had done everything we could have done at that point, to get this whole project fixed.

 

On Saturday we travelled to Malmö for the show (see my yesterday’s blog –story for details) and had Patty with us. She then left with Anne and Risto towards Sthlm and arrived to Finland on Sunday morning. And Anne took Patty then to Kati, who had promised to look after Patty during her stay in Finland. She is being treated like royalty; as soon as she heard that Patty had her birthday on Sunday, she was served some birthday cake   

 
On Sunday morning I checked the status on FedEx homepage to see if the shipment was still on schedule, which it was. Phew.

 

On Sunday evening my sister and I had a little briefing about the next morning. She was stressed as she had imagined that the semen would be delivered in a glass –bottle, which she would then try to carry carefully, until she’d stumble and she could see the bottle flying in the air in slow motion while she would be yelling ‘NOOOOOOO’ and then the bottle would crash. I said that I don’t have that kind of worries, I’m mostly worried about the paperwork and the customs and all the bureaucracy related to that…

 

And who was right. On Monday morning my sister calls me from the FedEx office by the airport, where she was at the time they had promised the package to be ready for pick up. Now who’s surprised if I say that the package wasn’t at all ready?! No-one.   

 

They had claimed that CVED –form was not filled and that the Vet wasn’t booked. Oh, would that now be the vet that they had on Friday said that THEY would book? I think so!

I gave the reference nr of the CVED-form to my sister and explained what was promised to me by FedEx personnel on Friday.
After a while she calls back and says that it might be afternoon before they are ready to release it, it would depend on the vet…

Ok, a quick call to Jonna, who contacted the vet, who was very surprised about FedEx as she would have been at the airport all morning and could have done the check up well before 10! Now she was already at another location, so she couldn’t do it before 12. Then Jonna gave some instructions to FedEx...

Informed my sister about it, who had already had some heated discussions with the FedEx receptionist; they had now also spoken with the vet and especially with Jonna, and informed my sister that she could pick up the package at 12:10 at FedEx office.

  

At 12:10 my sister returned to the FedEx office, but there was no package there. After waiting for 20 minutes she called me, and she was furious. She had already told the FedEx people that she could have during all this time she’d spent on waiting, already picked up the package herself from the US etc..  They had tried to reach the guy who left to meet the vet with the package, but couldn’t reach him. We called to Jonna again, who tried to reach the vet, but couldn’t. So she called to FedEx instead and gave them some feedback of their so called service. The girl’s answer had been that she can’t do any miracles..?! No shit, Sherlock?! We’re not asking for miracles, we’re asking for you to do what you have promised to do!   

 

After a while they had reached the dude who was at the vet, and he had just said that there was about 10 packages in the queue before our package…

 

Finally, around 13:15, my sister called me and said that the package was in the car and they were heading towards Patty’s location!!!

 

Few hours later they were able to deliver the semen to Kati, who immediately headed to the vet with Pats.

 

The vet checked the quality of semen and it was excellent quality!!! And they did another progesterone-test on her, just for the fun of it, even though the result weren’t about to be available until the day after.

But the vet had said that Patty had felt good, that if it’s too late, some places get a bit dry or something, but there was nothing like that in this case! So as far as the operation itself goes, it was a success!   

 

Today we then got to hear the results of the bloodtest, which indicates that we did the insemination on the right day!

 

So, after all this hassle, stress and pure torture, we finally got some good news. Now it’s just to stress and wait a few more weeks to see if our, and so many others, efforts will give any results..

 

We are so thankful for all our friends, it’s so great and even a bit amazing, that there are people like the super-newfie-ladies-of-Finland; that you can just give someone a call and they agree to help pretty much immediately, barely hearing what it’s about! I guess we know how to name these puppies, if we get any. There will be Bedarra Kati, Bedarra Anne, Bedarra Jonna and Bedarra Virpi. Fancy, right?   

And ok, my sister, the new Semen Specialist, did also a pretty nice job as the driver of this valuable package. She just said that it was no problem; it’s been so quiet at the dating scene lately, that this little semen -project almost equals to a successful date! That’s the spirit!

***

Hur var det nu, Maria; vem hade den längsta inlägg? Och utan bilder..    

This weekend someone has had the pleasure of driving back and forth to Malmö...TWICE! Woohoo; 860km per day in a car, that's how I spell a weekend of pure pleasure and relaxation! Obviously.      

On Saturday it was time for the yearly Malmö int. show and as we were about to get our honorary guest, Ville the newfie, delivered there, we had agreed to go.

The goal was therefore to show Ville and mostly concentrate on the newfies this time. At first we were planning not to enter any of the huskies at all, but as the last entry day arrived, we thought that it will feel rather silly to drive all the way to Malmö with an empty car... So we entered Kiara, just because of that. To fill the car       

The alarm woke me at 02:30 and after a refreshing shower (right, at that time NOTHING feels refreshing. And have I mentioned that I've once fallen asleep in the shower, leaning to the wall. Showers do not refresh me     ) we were ready to leave around 03:40.

In Gothenburg we made a quick stop and picked up Tina and Freke (B. Megatron) who were to accompany us to the show.

When we entered the city of Malmö and got relatively close to the show-hall, we were faced with a huge traffic jam, though we got off easily, as we only queued for about 15 min.

After we had settled in and unpacked everything, I got a call from semi-freaked-out-Fridha, who was coming to the show with Rebecca and Marco. They were only about 15 min after us, but got stuck to a queue for a loooong time, so they were worried if they'd make it to the ring on time. I promised to look into if they could wait, but before I reached the ring, there came an announcement that due to the long car queues they were about to start the judging slowly, but if any of the dogs were missing in some class, they'd wait until everyone was there.

After a while the dynamic duo arrived with Marco, well on time.

The results were very nice, especially considering that we had absolutely no expectations from this show!

Freke won the puppies. Marco went best male, and got a cacib as well, Elvis was the other male who got the EXC, so he went bm-2.

And Kiara went best female, gained her first cacib and finally went BOB!

Newfies were delayed a bit but that didn't bother us after Ville had won BOB! The judge liked him a lot and gave him a superb critics, which ended with 'best mover of the day'.. Not bad!

So now there was some time to kill until the finals would start.. And what could be a nicer way to do that than by sitting in the rain. Indoors. That's right, the ceiling was leaking, badly, just close to where we were sitting.. And quite soon, after we had placed all the cages and our stuff, I found out that it was also raining on our stuff.. Nice. So half of the time one had to worry if the ceiling was about to drop to one's head or not.       

Some slight shopping was done, I scared the girls with some horror stories about the glamorous life of a dog-breeder (I'll write more about that topic tomorrow..) and finally, after the I-am-Jouni-I-need-to-speak-with-everyone-I-see -individual was ready from his other activities, we were able to get some lunch as well.
We also got the news from home that everything was ok; Maria was looking after our zoo at home so that they wouldn't need to be home alone. She apparently was stuck in the puppy-pen. But I don't blame her. There as a couple of cuties there...

All the waiting was finally worth it when the finals started:

Freke started by going BEST IN SHOW -2 PUPPY among close to 60 puppies at his first official show!!!!

     
Didn't really get a great angle on this photo, but in my defense, I was almost as tired as Freke was at this point of the day..      

Then it was Ville's turn, and he went nicely BIG-3 in the big group2! He looked really nice in the ring, it's amazing how a dog of that size can move so lightly! Wish some others had moved equally lightly instead of blocking the way and then getting mental about it if someone tries to be polite and run by from the outside, instead of doing the typical drive-right-up-in-one's-behind -trick, which I consider as something much, much worse.. And why does someone place themselves in the beginning if their dog doesn't move fast to begin with?      Ok, I'll change the subject before I'll blow a vain in my head     

Finally it was Kiara's turn, and she goes and hits the jackpot: BEST IN GROUP-1!

     
Kiara going BIG-1 under the judge C. Lang, N
Photo by Rebecca

It's funny how Jouni and I think so different.. We discovered afterwards that when Kiara was announced as the winner, Jouni's first thought was 'oh crap, we need to drive all the way to Malmö tomorrow too', and mine was 'gee, I guess she's getting some points for the Dog Of The Year -competition now?!?!'...     

And he tells this to everyone now, as if it was a bad thing? Men. I am just determined, that's all.

After recovering from Kiara's little surprise, it was time to pack up and leave. We found out pretty quickly that the car would be pretty full, thank's to our new mascot, Ville, but somehow we managed to shove everyone in... Note to myself: buy a new, bigger car, in order to transport Ville to all the shows he is planned to be entered    

The trip back home was rather exotic, as Ville had decided that Kiara had a season, which was not true, and that she needed to be mated. NOW.

And he tried. About 10 000 times. Even if Kiara was sitting on Jouni's lap. But if 75kg King Kong decides to do something, it's very few who can argue with him. Luckily Jouni won that discussion...

Sunday, the day when I WAS SUPPOSED to relax, came and around 11 we were preparing to leave to Malmö again...

Rebecca arrived to the show a bit after us; she had promised to turn up as a cheerleader for Kiara, and she also brought with her the big bag of dog food Kiara won the day before, which didn't really fit to our car on Saturday..

The BIS-finals went nicely and there were a lot of tough dogs in the ring, so I was already looking at the prices the Sydskånska Kennelklubben had also for the 5 that didn't get placed in BIS: all got 15kg of food, trophies and rosettes! Nice thinking; it would have felt slightly better after all that driving, if it hadn't gone as nicely as it did!

   
Kiara, checking out the BIS-ring

   
I guess someone's in a need of some handler-training... This is not how you should do it..?
I guess some people will do just about anything to literally stand out from the crowd   

    
Jouni and Kiara taking it easy in the BIS-ring, while others are being individually judged.

  

Finally the results were ready, and our little Kiara went BIS-4!!!!

She broke yet another one of her father's records.. So far she has more BIS-puppy -wins, she gained her first title faster than he did and now she got her first group-win and BIS placement faster: She is only 16.5 months now, and Espen got his first group win and BIS-placement at the age of 25 months..! Ok, that was the Finnish Winner -show where he happened to beat 8500 dogs, so I guess it was a bit bigger thing, but hey, Kiara has still plenty of months to catch up on him   

 

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
-R. Benchley

  

What a weekend!!!

Yesterday I got news from Finland that Go, Ch. Bedarra Auric Goldfinger, had participated to an official working test, in the leaddog -class, and gotten 1st price! ... Yet another of our puppies who does well in the working tests, our puppy-buyers in Finland have really made us proud with their commitment to show that their dogs can do a lot of things. Though I guess they should run Iditarod before they are generally appreciated, as they are after all bright colored and have thick coats, God forbid...   

Well, we are anyhow VERY proud of our kids and their owners!

Today it was another of the kids from BOND-litter who had gained a nice result: FIJW-07, FIW-07 Bedarra Kissy Suzuki, Reina, took part to an official obedience -test and got 1st price! She is a real multi-purpose dog; has passed the official working test, does well in obedience and is a multiple BOB-winner from shows!

Then it's been the BAD-litter's time to hit the showrings!

On Saturday, Maya, Bedarra Good Girl Gone Bad, was shown at an unofficial show by her proud owner Mini, and Maya did well: BOB-puppy and finally BIS-3 puppy!

Today we mobilized ourselves and headed south to Varberg, to an unoffical Puppy, Junior and Veteran show. We had with us the Double-Trouble; Thelma and Thomas, and on the way we picked up also Maria with Anna-Lena.

At the showgrounds we met with Rebecca and Dean, B. Bad Evil Wicked N Mean, and Tina with Freke, B. Megatron, who was there with Marie, Nikita's & Carl-Philip's 'mom'.

And the kids did well, as expected   

Dean won the males, followed by Thomas and Freke. Thelma won the girls and finally went BOB-puppy as well. Anna-Lena was BOB-junior.

At the group-finals, Anna-Lena was placed as 2nd and Thelma won her group, so it was just to wait for the BIS-finals with this little lady!

And the time was spent by taking photos of our beautiful babies! Ok, and by doing some light shopping as well.. Kids needed toys, of course!!!

  
Here's mr. BOS-puppy, Dean, age 4 months

  
This handsome guy is Freke, son of Edina and Duque.. It was great to see him, he is growing up very nicely!

While we were taking photos, Anna-Lena came up with her own entertainment. And that was to hug and kiss EVERYONE she met. That little girl has inherited her father Fuller's happy-go-lucky attitude and is more like a cocker spaniel than a husky.. I bet her tail is moving even when she is asleep!   I told Maria that she should be wearing some vest that said BEDARRA at all times when she is in the public, as there can't be a better add than she is! She loves everyone, and I think it's mutual! And now I'm talking about Anna-Lena, not Maria. Though we are naturally pretty proud of her as well   

  

Sweet, sweet Anna-Lena   

Finally our wait was over and it was time for little Thelma to show what she was made of! And she did us proud and showed that her name suits her better than well by going BEST IN SHOW! She is so determined little lady that I'm sure she would have walked over the others, if needed.. Though this time it was enough to just be pretty   

  
Here's our BAD-girl Thelma going BEST IN SHOW with Jouni!

Our small guinea-pigs are turning 2 weeks old today!

All have opened their eyes, though so far it's still a bit early to say if any of them has gotten any blue eyes... It's possible, as in the last litter we had Flame who was bi-eyed and Nikita, who has the other eye half brown, half blue..

They are very big and strong and VERY, VERY cute!

I can see some familiar faces in the litterbox, we have one that is very much like Flame, then there's a tad of daddy on few of them etc...

Many times you hear these horror-stories that it's very hard to get the same quality as on the first litter, if you do the same combination twice, but I'm not totally convinced that those stories are true..

Or ok, maybe it's true, as it might just be that these turned out even better...? 

Still too early to say, but so far so good!

Or what do you think about these little cuties:

  
The BLACK boys of the COLD-litter, age 2 weeks

  
The GIRL of the COLD-litter, age 2 weeks

  
The SILVER boys of the COLD -litter, age 2 weeks

...

   WE JUST L O V E THEM!!!   

On Sunday Jouni and I headed to Nordens Ark -zoo for the day 2 of the Västra Kennelclub's Breeder's Conference.

The topic of the day was Genetics. The first thought when hearing the word was a little flashback to the school-classes, where one was fighting to stay awake, while the teacher was preaching about rabbits of different colors and their offspring.

Therefore my expectations weren't too high prior to this session. However, genetics is an important part of breeding, and knowing even few basic concepts is useful for any owner of purebred dogs.

The lecturer of the day was mr. Kurt Nilsson, an international allround dog-show judge, breeder of newfoundlands for several years and a teacher by profession.

And let me tell you, I didn't fall asleep! Not even close! Mr. Nilsson was absolutely great at this topic and he had a way of explaining everything in a way that you wanted to hear more. And somehow he went through even the trickiest parts so that even the scientifically challenged got it! And it wasn't boring at all, not even the parts that I already had studied about, it was just a good refreshment with some extra information. This field of science is also developing all the time, so more and more things are discovered, so it's probably good to take a session like this every now and then.

He went through concepts such as dominant and recessive genes, inheritance, sex chromosomes and the basic concepts of color inheritance, etc etc.

He talked a lot about breeding goals and addressed the common myths regarding breeding and genetics, using a lot of examples.

He talked about the common mistakes that beginners do, like using a succesful father on a mediocre or poor-quality bitch, and then hoping that the puppies would somehow only get genes from the father, etc.

Which is of course wrong. Each breeding should be done by looking at both sire's and dam's background and how it works together, which faults could possibly come through, but both parents need to be able to stand alone when it comes to the virtues they can potentially offer.

We have a saying in Finland which translates into something like 'the more knowledge, the more pain', and I kind of felt it when listening on how there were half a million different possibilities on what kind of sperm cell the male produces each time and the same amount of possibilities with the female's egg cells.. (No worries, this isn't an opening to any kind of story regarding the birds and the bees, it's not THAT kind of a blogg)   

But when you start to think about all the things that could be, you easily freak out.

Anyhow, I kind of calmed down afterwards and just took the information as one more tool to make more educated decisions regarding our breeding.

As there is no ready-made recipe for breeding dogs, I think I'll still continue relying my own eyes and common sense, when making plans reg. our breeding.

Well, ok, I will possibly also rely on Jouni's eyes. If he just agrees with me   
Though I guess I'd have to admit that the process don't exactly go that easily.....