Flatties - Men in Black & Mini Me

I have been thinking about going to the Alps for 2 weeks during this winter.

My parents will come here to look after my house + cats but my father isn’t too keen on looking after the dogs.

When I was in Indonesia for one year (1998) my two flatcoats + one cat were living at my parents place. Then my father said he has done his part. Also after my divorce in 1995 the dogs were quite often in my parents place during the weekends.

So I have checked out couple of kennels where I could take the boys for 2 weeks. One quite close by would charge almost 400 Euros for two dogs (incl. 10% discount). The one where boys were during my visit to UK last summer would charge almost 260 Euros. That is a lot of money (at least to me).

Then I was thinking about the 2 meter high fence for the dogs outside (15m x 5m). I could buy a doghouse for the money saved from kennel charge. Then I could suggest my parents that during the day they would keep the dogs “outside” and take them inside to a separate room for the night. I think that this would be the best choice even for the dogs. They could stay home. And if they wanted to go inside during the day, they would have their own house.

This is of course still a plan at the moment.

Some time ago I even sent an email to Santa asking for a doghouse for my boys. I think that the email went accidentally to my father’s email box…. (he did a dog house for my first flatcoat Mira but I don’t have that anymore due to human house deal including the doghouse).

I haven’t finished painting & planning my rooms after my move last June. It has been actually on hold due to my laziness.

Maybe I’ll manage to do some painting during the Xmas holiday. Maybe even more decoration. Here is a good site to plan your room in 3D. Please have a look. I

Also it would be good to have “dog friendly” decoration site with “dog proof” materials. What’s the use of planning if a lovely retriever can redo everything in seconds. I have found leather sofa the best as there is no dog hair and also it is easy to clean. Laminate floor is not the best for old dogs but are ok when your dogs are young. I used to have a wooden floor in my previous place and it is nice and warm but after years it was full of different marks.
The mat I found some time ago in Ikea has been surprisingly good: it does not show the vomit marks and dog hair does not show either. And with my new and lovely Dyson you can clean it perfectly.

I was going to hire a interior designer after my move but she had to cancel just days before our meeting and after the summer I did not feel like having one anymore. Maybe I should consider having one now although my finance isn’t as good as it was last summer. Also I’m quite interested in adding more alternative heating systems like wind power so that I would not be so dependent on the normal electricity (eg. Fortum that has a bad reputation).

Please sign the petition to stop using live dogs as shark bait!

Link: http://tinyurl.com/SaveDogs

Here is a video of a dog that was saved.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/SavePups/videos/1/

Please share these links too. Thank you.

Alfie has had it!

Everyone who has visted us in our new place, knows how Otto is the “king of the state”. He has been keeping the boys in line. Sometimes I have had to stop him because he can overdo it.

Alfie has been irritated by that lately.

Today Alfie showed Otto his place!

They had a big arguement and since Otto is old and cannot move very well, Alfie of course won the dispute.

Alfie is becoming a man.

Eddie on the other hand just want to please Otto by licking his lips.

Eddie in the photo.

I recently started blogging in English “to serve” better readers outside Finland. To my surprise most of the visitors come from Finland to this English blog!

It might take a while before things change (or not).

I have suggested that the Finnish Flat coated Retriever Society would have the website also in English. Now there is discussion on going about it. To my big surprise some people have said that before English we should have the site in Swedish first!

“Ancient legislation” says that Finnish and Swedish are the official languages in Finland. There are 91.2% native Finnish speakers in Finland and 5.5% Swedish native speakers. From those Swedish speakers 45% think their Finnish is fluent. (source: Folktinget, 2003. Suomenruotsalaiset. Verkkojulkaisuna: www.folktinget.fi.)

The New York Times journalist Lizette Alvarez says: “A result of that constitutional mandate, few would disagree, is that Finland is home to the world’s most pampered minority, the endangered Swedish-speaking Finn. Even as their numbers and influence dwindle – from a high of 14 percent of the population in 1880 to 5 percent today – their rights continue to flourish.”

To my understanding people outside of Nordic countries are interested in our flatcoats and would love to know more about them by visiting English version of the Finnish FCR Society pages. Am I wrong?

Anyway I’m thinking about translating them anyway. There are lots of interesting topics (eg. breeding ethics in Finland). Would you be interested visiting the site?

The snow is melting

It is quite wet outside. Yesterday it was raining heavily and the snow is now melting. It has been quite humid today with no rain.

The boys had lady visitors today: 2 golden retrievers and one flattie.

I was quite happy how they behaved as they did not try to jump on top of the girls at all.

We did about 6 km walk in the forest (the GPS was not on from the start), and you can see the route here with photos.

Just before the girls were about to leave we did a small training with raven. One of the goldens showed how to hold the bird as my boys tend to drop it too soon.

This is how beautiful it was just couple of days ago.