my Swedish souvenir

So, what was I up to last weekend?  Well, because I clearly didn't have quite enough to do with looking after Keksi, our own 3 dogs and Keksi's 6 puppies, I nipped over to Sweden for a day and picked up our new puppy.  That's right.  We are now the proud (and rather frazzled and stupefied by sleep deprivation) hosts to no fewer than 11 Finnish Lapphunds in our modest, suburban, semi-detached house. 

And so if my blog suffers somewhat as a result, I'm sure you will all completely understand.

Introducing Black Blossom Troll Fia, otherwise known as Tuuli.

Off to Arlanda airport on our way to England.  She was such a good puppy in the car!

"Troll" is Swedish for "magic" and Fia is a girl's name.  We had intended to continue calling her Fia, especially as she already knew her name, and it's such a pretty name.  However, it is phonetically too close to "Neka" and we have found that it is causing rather more confusion than we are able to cope with just at the moment.  Therefore, Fia will now be known as Tuuli.  After a day of being called Fia-Tuuli, she knows her new name, and in the 3 days she has spent in my company, she has also learned a few essential words of English:  sit, stand, wait, wee, poo and, of course, food/hungry.  

On the other hand, it's possible that she doesn't exactly know "food/hungry" so much as she hopes that most of my questions translate into "Would you like to eat now?"  She's a greedy little thing, which makes a nice change for us, having had 3 Lappies who were fussy eaters as youngsters.  In order to slow down her meals, she eats them from a ball that she must roll around the floor getting it to dispense the pieces of kibble.  It's good exercise for her and adds a little dimension of interestingness to her day.  That's what I keep telling her, anyway, when she complains that she can't swallow her entire meal in one inhale.

She is getting rather good at the ball already, though.

 She was a complete angel staying overnight in the hotel near the airport before heading to England on Monday morning.






Lying on my boots to make sure I didn't go anywhere without her.


















But for a proper snooze, only the stuffed moose will do for a pillow. 

There was the long and (for me) incredibly stressful journey from Stockholm to Heathrow and from Heathrow home to Devon, arriving at something after 10pm.  To keep the mayhem to a minimum, the big dogs had already gone to bed and so we snuck Tuuli straight upstairs for some getting-to-know-you cuddles on the bed.  A rare, one-night-only treat!  After the first night she settled into her crate at bedtime like everyone else. 

Next day, playtime with Maija.

And, napping in her den (there's that moose again):

Thanks

I cannot tell you how grateful I am to Pia Juhlin at Black Blossom kennel in Sweden for entrusting this little Troll to us!  Pia has never sent a puppy so far away before, and I can only imagine how difficult it was for her - especially after keeping (Fia) Tuuli at home with her until the age of almost 4 months.  But thanks to her trust in us, she has made my dream of importing a new bloodline Lapphund a reality.

Thanks are also due to Pia's son who travelled with Tuuli from Mora, where Black Blossom is, 3 hours by train to Stockholm.  And also to Pia's daughter, Camilla, who then took care of her and delivered her to me at my hotel.  Between them all, they took what could have been difficult and stressful and made it incredibly easy and trouble-free. 

Finally, huge thanks to the person without whose help I may never have been able to translate my good intentions to Pia at all.  Susanne, for your superior Swedish translating abilities and your generosity in helping me out time and again, what can I say?  I owe you one.  A really big one.  And you've got that in writing.
  
Thank you to you all!