01.12.10
Posted in News at 20:09 by nikki
Listening to all the news about the snow all over even in Spain we wonder if little Iceland was forgotten, not that we are complaining. 
It’s just because I bought a snow suit of course, probably won’t get a chance to wear it. We’ve had gorgeous weather today but unfortunately we’ve been so busy in the house that we haven’t gotten outside at all except to let the dogs out in the yard. Bad thing is the yard is yucky from the heat and my floor looks awful so now I have to spend some time tomorrow cleaning AGAIN.
Rúnar has been working on his new slide show all day (and the past few weeks) trying to get it all finished before he goes back to work tomorrow. We know from experience that even though he doesn’t work long days, time in the evenings goes way to fast to do alot of extra stuff. He has the new class starting on Sunday and everything has to be ready including 12 binders of the exercises because he’s teaching two classes at once.
I’ve been cleaning like crazy, moving books around from different bookshelves and just plain trying to get Skella’s room ready for her with the whelping box etc. She is really look big as you saw from the photos last blog but I’ve also heard from her former owner that she did have her last litter a couple days early so we need to keep that in mind. Along with my running around like crazy in the house I’ve also taken some rests in between because I’ve had a sore throat and at our class last Sunday I had a slight fever (very unusual for me) and I felt I’d better take care of myself a bit, don’t want to be getting sick now that Rúnar is going back to work.
We had a great time in our last clicker class, the students seemed happy with the course and we decided to “play around” in the last class instead of working on the every day behaviours they had been training through the course we wanted to let them do some shaping with different props. Both to see how well they understood the concept and also because we know from previous courses that people love to play with props that they might not be able to do at home.
We didn’t realize until one of the students had left that we should take a photo of the group. One was abroad so wasn’t there so unfortunately two people missing on the photo but we are going to make sure we remember to take photos of all the courses, it’s fun to own later down the road. So here is Rúnar with his very first clicker course in co-operation with the doggy day-care center Voffaborg.
I forgot to say we spent New Year’s Eve with my friend Stefanía and had a wonderful dinner together with her family, it was really lovely. I keep trying to remember stuff to post but like always I remember stuff when I’m not trying to remember it. Hehe I’m sure some of my friend’s know what I mean by that…like phone calls when for the life of you you can’t remember a name or something you were going to mention and then as soon as you hang up, pling there it is. Of other news (not so interesting but good none the less) we got the windshield changed on the car yesterday so we have a nice brand spanking new windshield. We also got a new TV after Christmas, it’s an old TV that Rúnar’s half brother’s half sister (hehe a family member in other words) was getting rid of and we heard about it and got it for just a few thousand kroner so it was an awesome deal given the old one we had was not in really good working condition and was on loan from his mother after our own TV died way back sometime last year.
Now back to work, dishes to do, clothes to wash, binders to put together, so much to do and so little time. Hehe It is just unbelievable how quickly the time went by and all the things we intended to do during Rúnar’s time off but it seems to all be at the last minute as expected because we just were not home much at all during the last 5 weeks. I also hate to admit Rúnar was right about something, the dishwasher broke down at Xmas and so the last while I’ve had to wash dishes and voila, eczema is coming back. I guess it’s a good thing it’ s not just from the puppies, although it’s bad news that it’s from washing my hands too much, I do use all neutral soaps with no harsh cleaners but I think it might be the hot water drying my skin.
I can imagine Rúnar is going to be really tired when he gets home from work tomorrow because we’ve been staying up til all hours and pretty much turned the day around, silly us. It was just so much easier to do computer work at night as I always find with my own writing. I’m excited to see the slide show when Rúnar is finished, it’s looking really good so far from what I can see.
We got a few photos of our little “gold nugget” over Christmas. We often talk about her and wish we had of kept her but she got the greatest home imaginable. She lives in Sweden…is doing really well and her main trainer is their 9 year old daughter who has also shown her and done well. We couldn’t be happier that Karma found her true home even though she had a little detour the first few months of her life. She has such a beautiful colouring, her owner says she shines like GOLD. I guess my guess was right when I named her Gullbrá (Golden Brow or something like that) and nicknamed her my little gold nugget, actually at the time I called her that because of her temperament and the way she loved her grandmother Freyja.
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01.10.10
Posted in Clicker courses, News at 01:59 by nikki
Typical Icelandic weather is back, raining, windy, dark and about 6-7 degrees Celsius so not too cold anymore. I guess the not cold part is good but the wet soggy grass, not so good. I hope it either stays mild or that we get lots of snow like everyone else so the dogs can play, I just don’t want ice or freezing rain.
No doubt everyone has seen Iceland on the world news so I’m not going to go into politics, we are just about sick of politics. Soon we’ll have to vote on the referendum that the president denied to sign. I’m thankful for his courage but at the same time I’m not looking forward to that vote. Just wish this whole thing was over and that Iceland was back to the way it was or at least easier and cheaper to live here. We have had some nice articles in foreign newpapers lately and people are finally seeing our point of view a bit more than they did.
I can’t lie that I have been trying to see the positives with living in Iceland lately and thankfully although I may be overly negative at times I don’t have to look too far, sure there are negatives but the positives outweigh them most of the time. I am so happy that we have a nice warm place to live, hearing about how cold it is in other countries right now makes it even more apparent. Some of my friends abroad have frozen water pipes and their houses are freezing cold, they have fireplaces going but still can’t keep warm. A friend staying in England can’t even take a shower because the water doesn’t get warm enough with the oil heater they have. Rúnar and I (as well as all Icelanders I imagine) walk around the house in short sleeves and have to open the windows half the time to cool down when it gets too hot. We have an endless supply of (extremely) hot water and fresh unpolluted cold water. I can’t kid myself, I LOVE Iceland!
I’m so busy lately…I tell ya I thought it would be relaxing to have Rúnar at home but it seems like we are always either not home or doing something around the house or getting stuff ready for the new courses starting next weekend. The last class of the current course is tomorrow so we are looking forward to hearing what people thought of the course. Praying it’s positive feedback of course.
Took a few photos of Skella, there is no doubt she is expecting, sadly I’m thinking Hófi probably has no puppies. Here are some photos of Skella on day 40 and day 43. She had 5 last time but since she lived with her former owner I don’t know how fat she got so I really can’t say if she has more or less this time. Time will tell and we are excited to see puppies from her and Klói since they are so sweet together.
Before (taken in August)
Starting with Day 40 (or at least we think that’s what day it was. Hehe)
Then a couple taken today about Day 43 (or there abouts).
So as you can see there are a few in there! Getting nervous already. Hehe
I guess I spoke of certain things on Facebook and not on here but then I think I’ve already talked about them. Gee sometimes I feel like a total dweeb at how bad my memory is, could also be I’ve just spoken about something in e-mails or during phone calls. This is one reason why I’m so glad Rúnar is taking over the courses. Most the time I thought that each new class had already heard it all before because I was “repeating myself”. Dingbat, I know…I could never be a teacher in a school with kids, they would so make fun of me. ;-Þ
Well we went into town the other day to get some cheap binders for our next two courses. Long story short Rúnar is starting two courses next weekend one right after the other because there were too many for just one course! He will be saving a bit of gas by having one hour right after the other so that’s a good thing, of course with him working it will be a bit tough but we have to look at it as a positive thing and just be happy with the interest. We had wanted to get a binding machine and laminator sometime in the future but we went to a big office supply store in Reykjavík on the 6th to get paper and some binders. Klói went with us and was in the car listening to all the fireworks in town for the last day of Xmas celebration.
Well, there are sales of course at this time but little did we realize that to get the least expensive binding machine and laminator was cheaper than we thought AND the binders were more expensive than we thought because the ones that were on sale that we went to get were all sold out! Lucky us I guess or we would have never even checked the prices of the other stuff. Need I say we gave in and bought the machines and don’t regret it, Lord knows we’ve spent so much on binders already during the years and we’ve always felt they were a bit unprofessional and boring. Rúnar has been having fun using the new equipment, he doesn’t let me do anything now, it’s too much fun. Lucky me, I used to sit on the couch for hours organizing, putting holes in the papers and putting them in binders, so much for that boring job! Yippee. The binders look great now so we are excited. They have laminated pages on front and back and black plastic binding, no doubt people won’t think it’s as great as we think it is because they don’t have to put the work into doing it, hehehe but at least we feel good being able to offer our students nice looking course material now and it looks much more professional which is the main thing.
Rúnar is working on a new slide show and it’s also looking awesome, the one I had made is almost 10 years old so it was high time it was updated. I’ve added slight updates now and then during the years but the new slide show is modernized, more catchy to look at and less rambling on the slides themselves. You can imagine how much I put on my slides with my “motor mouth”. LOL I’m so proud of Rúnar and his work on the course, it’s going to be great and I think he is enjoying teaching.
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01.05.10
Posted in News at 02:04 by nikki
Here it’s already the 5th of January. We’ve been so busy that I keep forgetting to update and now can’t remember everything.
I guess the most important news is that we did the P.A.T./P.A.W.S tests on New Year’s day and had alot of fun with that. I love to see how different dogs react differently even though they are in the same litter and also the differences that each breed has. Some like an emphasis on things that others don’t, very interesting and I like the way you can actually tell what “type” of dog you are testing just by the results often. Like if the breed is supposed to be standoffish or if they are herding, hunting dogs etc. We always feel privileged when we are asked to do these tests because the breeders are showing us so much trust in helping them to make the right decisions so on that note it is also something we take seriously and can only hope that what we see is correctly interpreted. We have been asked to do another test in March I believe, the litter is due around the same time as my litters. That will be so much fun also because we will also be getting our litters done. We’re doing a test on the 13th of January also for a friend so lots of fun in store over the next few months!
Our clicker school is starting to take off. Now we are almost finished the first course (since Rúnar got his KPA CTP title), only one class left next Sunday. The owners of the doggy daycare are very happy with it and we are now working together and will start the next course already on the 17th of January. It’s a six week beginners course in clicker training which we already have filled and possibly Rúnar will be doing two courses one right after the other on Sundays because we possibly have some more wanting to come right away. We have lots of ideas and are preparing more courses, all kinds of them from short seminars to more advanced courses for those wanting to compete in obedience. We are looking forward to being busy and it looks like I’m going to have to get used to being alone at home a bit since Rúnar will no doubt have to teach on his own after the litters are born, at least alot of the time. We are also planning on taping alot of our upbringing of the puppies to prepare vidoes for our courses for puppy classes for owners of new puppies that are too young to come to a class or for a special class we want to hold for breeders on how to raise puppies the clicker way. These are all ideas and we are really hoping we get around to carrying them out.
Our goals for 2010 are to write books (I have mine almost finished plus some others on the go and Rúnar wants to write a clicker book in Icelandic), hold lots of different classes and raise some wonderful puppies and find them the best homes we can. At the moment I can’t say it’s going to be easy or that we will manage to complete all the goals but we are going to try our best. With Rúnar working full time as well and possibly having to work more hours as the year progresses that will also cut into our other activities so we’ll have to take it as it comes.
The dogs did really well with all the fireworks this year. As usual Klói and Birta wanted to be out and watch them, they play around as if nothing is going on except when the biggest bangs happen Klói might jump but then it’s back to watching the lights and chasing his mom with a ball. Hófi decided to come outside off and on and watch but if there was too much noise she’d back and then go back in the house or stand on the deck. Poor little Frigg seems to have gotten a bit scared as she got older, now she will stay inside and will shake a little bit but I think it’s because her hearing and sight is failing with age. There really were alot and I was surprised that people actually spent money they are not supposed to have on fireworks. They can always say they are helping a good cause because it’s the rescue organizations that sell the fireworks but still, I just don’t understand why you would make debts just to buy fireworks that are gone in a couple seconds. I guess that’s just me though. I took a few videos of the fireworks from our neighbours but the videos didn’t turn out too good. I didn’t get any photos this year. Maybe one or two but nothing spectacular.
We still have one more day of fireworks and bonfire left which is Chris’ birthday celebration. We always say they are just for him because they are shot up on the 13th day of Christmas (January 6th) which is his birthday. Then we can finally take down our Xmas decorations and life will get back to normal.
There were demonstrations downtown during the holidays as well because the parliament was passing a bill that the population is very much against. I don’t think I’ll get into it here, really have had enough of it already….the president took a few days to think about whether he would let it pass or not and the petition list (which both Rúnar and I signed) was given to him at a ceremony on 2nd of January. We didn’t get to go and take part in that but I would have liked to have been there with a flare like everyone else but we’ve done so many trips to town it’s not even funny and it’s going to be alot more so we decided watching the news was just fine. Here is one link to photos of that event. Tomorrow morning there is a press conference to hear the decision of the president and many think that if he signs there are problems and if he doesn’t there are problems so either way, we are waiting impatiently to hear what is in store for the country.
There have been a few small tremors lately and they say that the volcanic mountain Hekla may go off at any time but they have said that for years already. My friend Brynhildur felt some of the quakes tonight but we didn’t really feel anything here. We still have a bit of snow and it’s really cold, I don’t actually remember us having this cold weather and snow that stayed this long in a very long time. It means the roads are a bit icey but not too bad at least it’s not raining ontop of the snow. Rúnar’s holidays are almost over and I think the time has gone way too fast. We still have so much to do before he goes back. Gotta get the whelping box set up and ready since he won’t have much time for that after he’s back to work and also holding courses. We have to go to the dump with a bunch of stuff like the dishwasher that decided to give up on Xmas day. We wanted to train the dogs a bunch and take them on walks but it’s been so COLD that we really didn’t feel much like being outside much. I’m starting to feel a little bit of movement of puppies and I am pretty sure I felt a tiny bit in Hófi too although her belly isn’t showing much, Skella is already getting a belly on her.
Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays!
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