Happy Birthday Tova!

Two years with this beautiful, as wild as sweet tempered dog and I am thankful for each and every single day! Working for and with this first Howling Northwind litter was, despite all the stress one of the best things I have done in my life so far. Gratulations to all siblings of Tova - may the gods grant you a long and happy life!

Wahya getting famous, Tjalve and his father succeed at the Belgian Club Match and Tova's first eye examination

Yes, I know, I promised to write more often but there were a lot of other things to do (actually I was very busy with my arts and craft stuff, creating some of my best works...) and there was nothing new on the wolfdog front that by all means had to be written here. But now I'll return with some really cool stuff (and a lot at once today;)):

1. Wahya is on the cover of the danish rock band Apollo's new album cover:

Here you can find even more pictures - just scrool through the songs! There are 3 pictures of Wahya

http://www.apolloband.dk/player/fullscreen.html

2. Tjalve and his Dad Kiowa were quite successful at the recent Belgium Club Match -
Tjalve won in the "young males class" with "excellent", his father won the "open class males" with the same result. Kiowa even won the clubmatch, is best of breed, best male and is now official Belgium Champ C.A.C. !!!

a father and his sons

3. Last but not least I am happy to say that the yearly eye-examination (by the way Tova's first one) was without any abnormal results for Skadi as well as for her daughter.

Summertime

Isa and Tova playing

This stick is not big enough for you and me...

...even if it is quite big.This second entry for today is for those of you who are here for the pictures instead for a lot of words ;) especially for those who have missed Isa recently.
Just click on the pictures to make them bigger!

Skadi's birthday walk (posted one month delayed...)

As promised you get another nice slideshow today. The pictures were made one month ago at Skadi's birthday, somewhere around here in the woods.
If you want to watch it in full size - klick here!

Tomorrow I will present some great new pictures of Tjalve and Washita on the beach - so don't forget to return ;)

Baltic Rumble

Yes, you can believe it - as I promised yesterday, life will come back to this blog ;)
Today I present a slideshow of a picture set taken almost 2 months ago. That's the problem with taking a lot of photos and being a perfectionist at the same time - you always end up with 1000s of unprocessed photographs on your computer.
These shots were made on a trip to the baltic sea during a week I spent in Germany in april.
The weather was great and the dogs had a lot of fun - but enough with boring words - enjoy this pictures instead!

If you want to watch it bigger, use this link - it should work: Slideshow Baltic Rumble

Some cool pics...

A while ago I decided that it would be quite nice to be a bit more active here and to post new entries on a regular basis. However I didn't find the time yet, even if there are some things going through my mind I'd like to share with you, dear readers.
Well, maybe I 'll manage it somehow...
Anyway - here are some of my recent photographs of our dogs (as recent as from march till may ;)), certainly some of my best shots ever. Just see them as a kind of teaser for some slide-shows that will follow soon.

Enjoy it!

It's a camera, not a bone...

...which plays no major role for Tova and her ever-crunching jaws of destruction ;)

Howling Northwind Alfa Puppies One Year Old!

It's unbelievable how fast time runs - now our babies are already one year old.
We want to use this way to send our best birthday wishes to all of Tova's siblings!
We hope you all got nice presents from your owners and have a little party with your pack mates tonight!

Here's a short video of Tova with her birthday present - a big size version of her favorite toy "Oscar the Octopus":


and a recent photograph of Tova and her mother Skadi, taken yesterday:

Tova becoming a young lady ;)

Another step in the coming of age - in accordance with her wild cousins she decided that those last days of winter would be the best time for her first heat - together with her mother Skadi who also seems to be quite dependend on the passing of seasons when it comes to her natural cycles. It's just unbelievable how time runs...
Furthermore we finally tested Tova's rabies - antibodies so that we will be able to leave Sweden for a short trip to Germany very soon. And, as expected she had a value high enough to pass the border to Sweden again at our return.

Mother and Daughter

Last year at that time we did not even know if Skadi will get puppies - and now she is on a par with her mother ;)

Some news from Tova

Yes, I know - first I do not write here for more than one month and then I do 3 entries at one day...
I just found the time today ;)

Bodily build
With her 9 months she has already grown as big as her mother and even bigger, however she still appears somehow small. Maybe because of the fact that she is still like a puppy - a very big puppy.
She has a very wonderful bodily frame and it is quite amazing to see her run, play and jump around. I think that is due to her slim but still somehow vigorous build. Even if she is very slim, she does not have that greyhound shape. If you look at her it simply seems that everything is on the right place.
I am really curious how she will develope in her further growth.

Temper
If I should describe Tova's character in one word, I would call her "extreme"!
She can be everything from extremely tender to extremely annoying ;)

Though I recognise some traits of her mother in Tova's temper, she is much more extreme in all respects. She shows a lot of that typical Saarlooswolfhond-behaviour serious breeders would warn you of ;)
Having 2 adult Saarloos-bitches I definetely wouldn't call us unexperienced, but Tova really showed us new dimensions of extreme thievery, destruction, omnivorousness and playful ferocity.
You can not leave her alone for more than a few seconds without having another part of your furnishings or household destroyed. Of course the fact that she is able to open doors and cupboards does not make it easier for us!
There's of course one exception to this rule - if she sleeps she usually don't destroys anything - but the point is, she does not need that much sleep!
She is a really active dog and needs a lot of attention.
On the other hand, she can be extremely nice and charming and even after her worst malpractices it is nearly impossible to get mad at her. She looks you in the eyes and you are under her spell!
She needs a lot of stroke units, much more than Skadi and Isa.
A very interesting fact is, that there are situations she listens quite good even if I definetely wouldn't speak of obedience in this regard.

She is not shy at all - every visitor gets a very warm welcome after two short barks - even total strangers are okay if they want to play or give her food.

HungerShe is also extremely hungry - all the time! Her main occupation is looking for food. If it is still on the stove it doesn't matter for her at all - this way we lost big parts of our dinner more than once.
Not only that she does everything to get food - she also eats everything, it does not matter to her what it is - if we eat something, she wants it too.
So not even vegetables or fruits are save when Tova is on a raid.
Last week I took her with me into the hen-house - she did not even look at the chickens more than a few seconds and started to eat the chickenfood instead...

Not necessery to add that we love her extremely for being exactly the kind of dog we wanted!
Never forget: You get the dogs you deserve!

Winter in Brunnsberga

More than one month has passed since my last entry here - a month with a lot of snow!
We have a real swedish winter right now - the first one since 10 years in this region.
The dogs are enjoying the white fun outside day by day - lot's of possibilities for me to get great pictures.
Some of them I'd like to share with you:

Yellow Eyes and a Blue Sky

6 months update part III

Let's look at our own little lady tonight - yeah, it's time for Tova (nickname "Angelwitch")
Well, she isn't actually that little anymore, but the youngest one is always considred the little one I guess.
She is truly our dreamdog's incarnation - her temper is exactly the mixture between a wild beast and a sweet and lovely pet you would expect from a young Saarlooswolfhond.
Being in contact with all the owners of her siblings I can say, that she is quite the same in her whole behaviour. She is very playful and cheeky and really has a mind of her own. However, compared to her mother, she loves to play with us and wants to involve us in any of her rampages and malpratices. Skadi always acted more discreetly when commiting her crimes. Nevertheless Tova is very obedient most of the time, at least in comparison to her adult pack members at that young age ;) The bond between us and her is so unbelievable strong...

When it comes to her behaviour in odd situations or towards unknown people, she is quite more open minded and stable than her mother was when she was younger. With Skadi it was hard work to get her as calm as she is today, Tova seems to be born with this doughty attitude towards the strange things in life. I suppose she got that trait for her father.

During the last few weeks we had different totally strange people in our house - one time two very nice women from the swedish Kennel Club who did a regular Kennel inspection (which was btw. without any negative annotation) and another time a chimney sweeper.
While the two SKK-ladies were not of a threatening appearance, the sweep looked quite suspicious with his black clothes and face and all his weird and loud tools.
At least Skadi seemed to have this opinion and met the workman with a healthy wariness. Tova on the other hand overwhelmed him with the same wild and curious fondness as any other visitor. His pursuit to clean our chimney was simply to exciting...
It seems we were successful with our socialisation.

Unfortunately we still have serious problems between our two adult bitches, Tova however loves both of them and shows the pronounced and varying social behaviour of a sane wolfdog-temper.

to be continued...