11.29.09
It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas…
We had our first class yesterday (4 hour lecture) and it went really well. A great group of people that will be training with us the next 5 weeks. They seemed to enjoy the info and a couple of the guys took Rúnar aside (they took a smoke break) and said they had learnt so much they didn’t know already just from the few hours with us. That certainly makes us happy to hear. Now the whole course is still left with all the exercises and meeting the dogs, that will be so much fun. We had two chihuahua’s for our guinea pigs in show and tell and they were awesome. Everyone was amazed at how quickly we could get them to target an item, one was a mouse mat and the other a target stick. We also had their owner as a guinea pig in Genabacab. I always love to start my courses off with a short demonstration with that game. It’s really amazing for people unfamiliar with clicker training to see the results in a few minutes.
We played a timing game with them with a tennis ball and Rúnar did that, they were laughing so hard when he tricked them a few times. One lady said “this is great Saturday entertainment” which was good to hear because before the course started she was talking about how the weather outside was so good that it was a shame to spend the day inside instead of walking the dogs. Totally forgot to take photos except for a couple of that game. Of course I was the one training the guinea pigs so I couldn’t take photos of that!
We got the raw food again but Klói still refuses to eat. Poor guy he is so thin, I can’t wait for the girls to all stop this heat stuff. At the moment it looks like Birta is the last one, she is ready now but the rest seem to be just about over.
So it was a long hard day and we came back home and ate and then grabbed Hófi and took one more trip into town last night before we decided to call it quits. We wanted to be able to say we tried our best. We had a 15 minute tie between Skolli and Hófi on Friday evening and are hoping that we were lucky enough that this one single mating with tie will be successful, but only time will tell. Such an old dog you never know, fingers crossed. She only had one tie last time with Dreki and it resulted in puppies so now we wait.
They both have clear eyes, Hófi has A hips and Skolli has B. Both are red short hair, Hófi has double dewclaws on back and Skolli has double dewclaws on all four legs (alspori) and is one of the few living members of the “original” O family (the family groups that Pieter Oliehoek created in his study). Hófi’s grandmother is Skolli’s littermate sister so also the O line and Hófi also has the M line in her, B and in terms of “new blood for Iceland” she also has some Norwegian blood. We think that if we get puppies that most or all are already spoken for in this litter.
Klói and Skella are just experts in this mating game by now and the longest tie they have had of the many was 30 minutes and we are trying to let that be sufficient but to calm Klói down we decided to let them “play” a bit more tonight, he’s been so antsy today and whining. She must be just about finished by now, he’s still humping her but it’s more in fun now that before. I think he is whining more because of his mother but since he is “allowed” to play with Skella he takes what he can get. We have watched them from inside the house laughing tonight because it’s such a game with them now. No tie today but they had alot of fun in the snow.
Klói and Skella both have clear eyes and A hips. Klói is a medium coat wheaten and most likely carries black tri, Skella is of course as can be seen from her photos a long hair. Both have double dewclaws and Klói’s are very strong, hence his name.
The dogs woke me up early this morning as usual and when I let them out it was snowing, then I went back to sleep and shortly after Rúnar got up with the dogs and I got to sleep a little bit longer. Sure needed it! When I got up Rúnar said, have you looked outside and I said yes there was a little bit of snow this morning (hardly covered the ground). Then I looked out and went WOW, the snow was so deep that the dogs have it up to their bellies in spots. Apparently it had snowed non-stop all morning. Beautiful soft and fluffy snow. No doubt it will be gone soon but it’s fun while it lasts and it makes it feel a bit more like Christmas so that’s good. I find it hard to believe there are only a few weeks until Christmas. Turned on the advent lights today, boy time flies.
We had to go into Selfoss to get potatoes today and we are not happy with the fact that they didn’t clear the roads. They are already horribly filled with deep packed snow and it’s getting very bumpy and uneven to drive over, you could see where the family size cars had scraped the bottom on the snow that was in the middle of the road. If we get a little bit of rain then that is going to be treacherous, even if we get a good freeze or continued snow there is no way they are going to be able to totally clear the roads now that the snow is so packed that it’s already shining and thick from all the traffic. I don’t think saving money is always a good idea when it comes down to safety.
It was so funny when they went out, Skella went out first and wanted Klói to come out with her. She couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t let him. So Hófi got to come out with her and the two of them played together.
I guess that’s about all for now. I really have to get working on my sweater, so little left to do but I made a mistake sewing it together the other day and have to take it apart and do it over. Have to get writing some Xmas cards too. Rúnar’s busy with the stuff for the course and wants me to help him too so there’s no rest for the wicked as they say.
