One of the most passionate and warm-hearted people we ever knew has passed away. The gap that she leaves as a person, breeder and animal lover won't be possible to fill!
Martina - We are grateful that we became acquainted with you and even if we did not spend as much time with you as we wished to we wouldn't hesitate to call you a real friend!
It is for people like you, that I wish there may be an afterlife - May you rest in peaceful pleasure - reunited with Tilla, Clyde and Ayasha!

The long awaited update!

Well, it has been a very long time since my last entry even though I wanted to post something all the time. But there were a thousand reasons keeping me away from my computer.
First of all I had to get my buisness running again after dedicating all my time to the dogs under the first months of this year. So I was working a lot and used the computer/internet for this purpose almost exclusively. Furthermore the weather was great and I prefered to spend some more time outdoors.

Then something happend which forced me again to give all my attention to the dogs again - Skadi and Isa had a fight!

Everyone who owns multiple dogs of the same sex knows and fears this problem, being one of the most terrible things that can happen and menace the peaceful continuity of the pack.
Fortunately Skadi and Isa have a very deep and special connection which couldn't be destroyed by one single occasion like this. However it shows that something was going wrong and that some work is needed to put their relationship and with it the order of our pack back on the track.
A lot of motion is always a helpful first step, so we spent very much time into the forest these days!
Now the pack is at peace again and there are no visible tensions between the two adults, however we have become very careful now.

Little Tova isn't that little anymore - actually she is already quite big and heavy. She has about 22 kg and it wont take very long until she is as big as her mother.
Her set of teeth is almost completely changed at this point.

Tova is a real nice dog, not shy at all, she is very curious and active, loving to be outside in nature. She likes new people and wants to play with everyone. She is also a lot more cuddly than her mother. With a few exceptions her urge for destruction is limited to her toys - at least inside the house ;)
She loves her mother and auntie Isa very much, however she is occasionally still a bit to wild for them.
Additional to the fotos above a little slideshow with some pictures from the last weeks:

Wahya in a good shape again...

Wahya is totally recovered and she is back in her old shape - if I look at the pictures I see a lot of similarities between Tova and her favourite occupations.
Biting into furniture:
Biting into other dogs:
Actually biting into everything:But she is beautiful!

Great picture of Tjalve

Arn visiting his birthplace

Unfortunately I did not have the time to drive up to Värmland again last week. But instead Arn and his family visited us yesterday on their way back home to Germany.
They had a wonderful time in the midst of a wolf-territory (yes, they even heard them howl!), but only one week in Sweden is always to short...
So the last bigger stop in Sweden was a certain highlight for the dogs again - Arn enjoyed being on known territory, playing with his sister and his fellow Kaya... The videos show how much fun they had:



But also Skadi was involved in this rampage around our house - no matter if with her offspring or youngster Kaya - she was behaving almost like a pup herself.Skadi looks a bit terrible at the moment - after the stress with the rearing of the pups and especially the Tova-Monster she lost a huge part of her coat - the summer heat is doing on last thing... She has nearly no black or darker colored dorsal hair left which makes her kind of strange looking unicolored.For us it was a weird feeling to see our Arn in this familiar surrounding again - the following picture is a good example - I remember him like yesterday, standing there with 4 or 5 weeks...
And now he stands at the same place, in the same pose but a lot bigger - strange and beautiful feeling!
Stefan and Annika, it was really a pleasure that you visited us - Thank you!!!

Update on Wahya

Wahya is now entirely convalesced, recent blood samples show normal values again. The terrible disease which threathened her young life was a case of a Klebsiella infection. Klebsiella is a bacterium which usually can be found in the gastro intestinal system. If it's quantity explodes (for whatever reason) it causes this serious infection in the stomach and the the guts.
She is very hungry now and devours between 1 and 1 1/2kg daily!
Wahya is very active again and plays a lot with her Retriever-friends.
The picture above shows her sleeping in the office of her owner and was taken yesterday.
We are pretty eased to know that she is fine again!

In the footsteps of his parents - Tjalve the digger

Our pups are very aware of traditions it seems. At least Tjalve is following in the footsteps of his parents and obviously aspires a career as a digger!