4th birthday

Who's who?  Do not ask me, I do not know!











Very happy birthday to the Devon Nine, aka the Monta litter, who are 4 years old today.  Where I felt that the 5-year-old litter must surely be older than only 5, I have the opposite feeling with this bunch.  It doesn't seem so very long ago that Neka was a young whippersnapper squirting out her enormous litter of nine seemingly identical little black puppies.  Here they all are shortly after birth.

They are a bunch of dogs with fabulous character.  I hear that the boys are big babies like their dad, Keskiyo, but sweet natured and loveable with it.  The girls are ... varied!  Maija is a complete angel who loves to play, comes back when she's called, and doesn't destroy things (anymore...).  Of course, we have been comparing her to her mother whose behaviour as a youngster was a little more, shall we say, challenging.  Little Inko is easy to live with too, although she does have her own idiosyncrasies.  Another sister, Kaija (Sulo), recently climbed 30 feet into a tree and had to be rescued.  So I suppose it must be said that these dogs have originality.

The arrival of the Monta puppies inspired me to start this blog, and you can track their whole progress through the archives listed in the sidebar, right.  But now that they are 4 years old, here's how adorable they were at 4 weeks.   First up the girls in birth order followed by the boys.

Monta Jaana

Pet name Sybil, lives with Mike & Sarah & her adopted big brother Basil (see the connection there?) in Brighton

Monta Maija

Stayed home with us & her mum & dad

Monta Sulo
Now called Kaija who lives with the Collins family near Bath

Monta Viivi
Lives with her adopted big brother Jaska, Dave & Sherralee in Surrey

Monta Aurinko
Called Inko, lives with her new little sister Kiittos and the Glover family

Monta Tarmo
Lives with the McKenney family in Hampshire

Monta Jaska
Lives with his big sister Kia and the Taylor family in Lancashire

Monta Rauhan
Lives with his big sister Sukka and the Hollister family in Berkshire

Monta Tarkka
Lives with his little brother Laatu and the Ross family in Plymouth