08.29.10
August 29th
Rúnar has put together a new slideshow of the puppies from this past week.
But he’s also been busy with the new website. Yes we are still working on getting a better site up and running again, built around the old site but with some improvements.
He has also been working in the yard and it’s finally ready, the grass has grown from the seed that he put down earlier this summer and he’s moved the fencing now so the dogs now have more room to run. Ha it was funny to see a stray cat who obviously didn’t realize the inner fencing was gone. Hahaha He got barked at and jumped so high when he realized that they were right beside him, he shot off like a bullet. I hope it’s the cat that comes in the laundry room window all the time and that now he won’t have the guts to come back. It was also funny to see how Birta at first just stayed at the same boundary until she figured out she was allowed to walk on the other grass as well.
It’s been a busy weekend in other words even though we didn’t venture out to the dog show like most. I don’t believe in going into areas where dogs frequent (especially shows because so many dogs get sick after those because of the carpets) while we have pups in the house. I am starting to wonder though how much our own cautiousness matters when everyone around us frequents them without a second thought when they have small pups at home, then might come visit us or we visit them. In any case I’m comfortable being the worry wort and know that I at least do my best to keep my litters safe and can’t do any more than that. I mean the trips to the vets lately in itself was worrying knowing they could catch anything there! Hófi got her stitches out on Thursday and has healed nicely, only problem is that she hasn’t been wanting to eat anything other than cheap canned food (she wouldn’t even eat raw food) so she has had a bit of loose stools and even diarrhea the past few days and has kept me up at night letting her out every couple hours. Although the pups aren’t keeping us too busy at all. They pretty much take care of themselves, it’s such a strange feeling after having the totally bottle fed litter last time.
It’s so nice on weekends to have some peace and quiet since all during the week the road crew is busy shaking the house and making tons of noise. Looks like they have alot to do yet but here you can see how close they are now to the house, I hope the foundation doesn’t get damaged. Rúnar said it should be okay but he’s away all day and doesn’t know the extent of the pounding. I wonder when I sit here at the computer during the day and the table and floor moves underneath me, it’s worse than the last earthquakes and quite continual. Anyway, the pups should be quite used to stress I’d think.
I will say I still kept an eye on who won the show for curiosity sake and I’m happy with the winner of the Icelandic sheepdog this time. It was our student from the last course who came to us with a problem of barking and lunging around other dogs and after our course was a totally different dog. His owner was extremely good at using all the tools and advice we gave her even though at the start of the course she no doubt did find (like most do and unfortunately not everyone comes back after sessions like that) clicking him for calm and not doing “anything” while all the other dogs were working a bit boring and strange. Most people find the concept of letting the dog make the change from the inside out a bit weird I think, society is so intent on “controlling” everything. This owner was different though and we liked her open and accepting nature! It’s so funny that those who actually continue to do the things needed for the foundation work of reactive dogs instead of giving up and thinking it silly are the dogs that shine and gain self confidence. That in turn makes the owner’s proud and they train them more and end up often making more visually observable progress than the other dogs. It looks like from photos that I’m sure will be shared on DIF that she didn’t show him herself but you can tell by the photos that her training has made him a wonderful calm and happy dog. We had said to ourselves that it’s too bad he is so young we would have loved to use him in our breeding. Well, we’ll see what the next couple years brings. 
It’s so fun to say that when she asked us about him at the course and we told her that he was one of the most beautiful ISD’s we’d seen in a long time. Wonderful size, head, proportions, coat and expression that it would appear there was a little bit of truth to that. I’m ecstatic that finally a show where the male and female actually show a very big difference in sex and size where you don’t have to look underneath the dog to figure out which is which.
Here are a few photos for those who don’t want to watch the whole slide show. They have opened their eyes, Patti a few days ago already but little Pési still has a little ways to go, his are still just half open tonight so either during the night or tomorrow he’ll be able to see the world as well. They are starting to play of course now that they can see each other so it’s more fun to watch them now, they do more than just sleep and drink. Hehe
A couple of Perla Prúð the big girl who just keeps getting bigger, unbelievable how much she weighs already and she appears long hair. Over 1130 grams. WOW!
Next Patti who is such a fun guy, he started playing with us because he was the only one with his eyes open for a couple days so we feel like we know him a bit better than the others already. He also appears long hair but not as long as Prúð. Patti is over 1090 grams.
Little Pési is growing sure and steady and is an impressive 740 + grams which is 4 times his birth weight so they are all growing it would appear at the exact same rate it just seems different because of the difference at birth.
