this & that

After the great Tuuli/Taito event, I had a few opportunities to see some other members of the family.

First, there was the Richmond Championship show where Finnish Lapphunds were judged by Valerie Foss.  Taito was 2nd and Kuura was 3rd Limit Dog and Kiittaa was Reserve Postgraduate Bitch.

 Kuura hanging out at the benches

 Kiittaa looking gorgeous - photo Blake Bower

Taito concentrating hard on standing - or on the sausage I'm

holding in front of him - photo Blake Bower

After that there was a brief overnight visit from Taika and Minna and then a visit for me with Neka and Tuuli to Jane and her fur-gang.  Somehow I managed to take no photos of either of these events.  The first one was a very short stay, and we spent most of our time getting everyone walked.  With the second, I spent most of my time trying to keep Neka from all the joyful and embarrassing activities she specialises in when visiting other people's houses, viz running upstairs to investigate the bedrooms, opening cupboards and rummaging around to see what she can find, sticking her head into the rubbish bin for the same reason, breaking and entering into the garage in search of the pussycat ensconced there.  And one or two other things.  Embarrassing, yes, but she does make me laugh.

And I've had some new photos of Bo enjoying her new hobby of haystack climbing.

Bo on a haystack - photo John Dobbie

Finally, the belly update.  We are now about 2-and-a-bit weeks from puppy arrival day.  Tuuli is starting to slow down on her walks - i.e. she doesn't do quite so much flat-out running.  And for a week now she has been on daily worming.

You can see she's a bit dubious about all this posing malarkey this morning.

The other newsworthy event in relation to all things puppy is that the new whelping box has arrived.  That width equals half of the floor dimensions.  I wasn't happy with the recommended "Border Collie" size as I remember how little space the litter of 9 had in a "medium-sized" whelping box by the time they were 3 and 4 weeks old.  So I went for the size up and it is going to be enormous!  Lots of space for mum to stretch out and excellent for growing puppies to exercise.  But it will take up approximately half of Jay's office in the back bedroom so he will be needing some kind of rope and pulley system to hoist himself from the doorway to his desk.  Rest assured I will have the camera at the ready.

 Neka is hoping the whelping box isn't for her benefit