These puppies were born on New Year's Eve and conceived on Halloween so I wanted their middle name to be something related to one of those festivals. In case you don't know, Finnish words tend to be long. Often very long. So it can be tricky coming up with something short enough that it doesn't take up the whole character limit permitted by the KC for registered names. And with a kennel name like Infindigo, the names start out pretty long already before anything at all is added.
It took me a couple of days, but I finally decided on "juhla", Finnish for "celebration". It is pronounced, approximately, as "yoo'-lah". In all but one case, the puppies' owners will be choosing the rest of their eventual registered names, so they won't be coming for several weeks yet when we figure out which puppy is going where. In the meantime, so that I don't have to keep referring to them as "puppy one", etc, here are their baby names.
Puppy 1 - Tux
This is a smartly-dressed boy with very distinct tan and white markings like his mother and also with very neat white front feet and a crisp pink stripe in the middle of his nose like his father.
Puppy 2 - Kukka
For obvious reasons, the second girl was the first puppy name chosen, and as she is named after a flower, so the first girl is also "flower" which is "kukka" in Finnish. It is pronounced "koo'-kah".
Puppy 3 - Ensi
"Ensi" is Finnish for "first". Because it's crazy to give puppies in the same litter different birthdays (are you even allowed to do that?), we tend to pick a date and stick with it for the whole litter. It has to be said, though, that puppies are usually born at night and therefore most of my litters have been born over two dates. In these cases I always pick the date that the majority of the puppies came and then go with that. In this case, 2 puppies were born before midnight on the 30th and the other 3 were born after midnight on the 31st, starting with this one. In my sleep-deprived and addled state, I somehow managed to equate being born after midnight on the 31st as being the first born in 2015. Oh well, I like name anyway so I'm keeping it. I can tell him apart from the other two boys mainly because he has a black nose.
Puppy 4 - Liila
The most distinctive puppies in each litter are always the easiest to name, and so the lilac-ish girl got her name first. Liila is Finnish for "lilac" and pronounced "lee-lah". As for her actual colour, it has been difficult to capture on film - frustrating for the colour-guessers! I thought she would get lighter with time, but she is looking darker by the day. She may yet end up looking rather like what is known as "bear-brown" but that colour, also known as "seal" is actually genetically black and I understand that newborns with that colour look solid black and have black noses. Apparently there are brown "seals" as well - but what colour do you suppose they are at birth? And what colour the nose? It's a minefield! To be honest, I have always been convinced that Tuuli does not even carry brown. Yet, here is the pup looking ... brown.
Puppy 5 - Tan
The last-born puppy is very similar to the first-born so I wanted to give him a simlar name too. He also has the pink stripe on the nose and the strong tan and white markings, but where the first puppy has white feet, this one's legs and paws are all tan with only the tiniest bit of white on the tips of the toes. So they are Tux & Tan which, to me, sounds like top & tail, first & last, this & that.
So there you have it - the Juhla puppies with photos taken on their second day in the world.
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