Big decisions...

It has been a very nice summer, now the holiday is over, and it is time to look forward for the autumn and winter. Some mushrooms are already growing in the woods, and I try to make a little trip to the woods every day. The blueberries are already in the freezer (about 60 liters ). And now is the time to pick the huckleberries, the cranberries and some of the late mushrooms is still to come.

I have made a big decision, to sterilize Boogie because of her character. Yes, and that is the only reason. Because of a few particular occurrences that have happened, I finally made this decision. She is a healthy dog in every ways, and has been examined properly for her health. However, I have a clear vision of what kind of schapendoezen I want to breed, and unfortunately Boogie has these few dominant features in her character, that doesn’t fit in the breeding indications of the breed’s character partition and my own wishes and values. And these features has become stronger now. She has a fantastic will for working, and she does not give up easily, and she really is an operant dog. I love to train and do things with her, but our obstacle is that she is too guarded with people she does not know. She is too withdrawn when she meets new people, and often barks a long time. And the main problem is that she can’t calm down, she is nervous and on the alert and can’t relax. This is the part of her character I do not like. This is the reasons briefly. 

Almost every import dog is always important for the breed in its country, and Boogie has left her little footprint in our Finnish schapendoes-lines with a wonderful male. And so far it seems that the litter is a really good one. I hope these four puppies after Boogie and Roope will be as social and happy dogs, as they are now, also when they grow up. Maybe they will continue these lines, and the characters will be identifiable for the breed in the next generations. We'll see..

As I have pointed out before, breeding dogs is not easy! If you want to hold on to your own visions and values, and try to follow the breeding indications, it is really a big deal of making hard decisions. I want to be an honest breeder, and I try my best to be a good breeder.

I have had a challenging beginning with my breeding work, with some bad luck too. Maybe one day the rocky road so to speak, will get a bit easier.

 Boogie our little patient :o)

In the summertime, when the weather is fine...

Yesss !! The summer is finally here, though there are still some cool nights now and then, but it is getting warmer all the time. The whole garden is in strong growth, and my treasures (garden treasures) are taking good care of now.

Of course my treasures, and now I mean my dogs, are also taking good care of :o) Like always! I have planned to attend in few dogshows with my both schapendoes-treasures this year, because there has been a long gap, since we were last time in to the showrings. It is always nice to see other dogs, and the most important thing is that it is so nice to catch up the latest with friends. Banjo's coat is actually pretty nice now, but I still want to let her grow the length of the coat a little bit. Boogie has a much better coat now, than she had for an year ago. The only problem is, that she loves to swim and root up in every freaking pond, so it doesn't make any good for the coat. But maybe I have to make some limits there, where she can swim and when :o)

I have just found the function here in my blog, where I can see from which country the visitors come from, to check out our latest news in our blog and websites. And I was very happily surprised ! how many of you really read my blog, and from so many countries :o) Wau !! It is always nice to have connections abroad, and you can always contact me in everything, even just to chat about our dogs or of the breed !!

I wish you all readers a very nice summer !!!!

Spring

EDIT !!
 I forgot to explain why Boogie is going to have a new fiancé. I told you about Milton which I had planned to use to Boogie. Unfortunately Milton has problems with his elbows, so I wouldn't want to take any risks. 

Finally the spring is on its way, and the sun is shining beautifully. We still have lots of snow, and it may take a while before it's all gone.
Boogie is enjoying the wet snow and all the small ponds, she is wet all the time. But Banjo can't stand the wet weather, so she likes to stay home or just take short walks.  But when the snow is gone, she wants to stay outside all the time. She really loves to lie on the terrace all day long when its warmer.

Boogie's planned second litter will come true this autumn, if everything goes well with her fiancé this summer in the showrings. The fiancé doesn't have the required results from shows yet.

 Banjo's daughters from the second litter were to the vet again for blood test. They both had the last year very very high results in liver-blood tests. And unfortunately the results hadn't got any better, the results were so high that both girls should have serious life-threatening symptoms. But both are doing very well, like normal dogs, no symptoms at all. So this whole liver-thing is very strange, and very hard to diagnose. But my biggest wish is that they will live a normal painfree life so long it's possible. There is really nothing else I can do, because no one in Finland or even abroad has knowledge about this. And I really have tried to investigate this thing! I understand there is very little information available, because dog owners doesn't take blood results of their dogs without symptoms, and this is really a symptomfree illness, so far. But I'm glad to notice that some of Finnish schapendoes-owners has taken this thing seriously!

Plans

Now there's some christmas feeling in the air, though there's almost two months until christmas eve. But I can't help it, I love christmas so much. We don't have any snow jet, but outside it's cold and wet and soon the rain will turn to snow, I hope.. The dogs are so muddy all the time, and there's lots of washing every day, but it will be easier soon.

I just released the news about our puppy plans, and I'm very excitied over this combination Boogie and Milton ( Carnac's Gorgeous Grassias). I have met Milton for couple of times, and the last one was at his home. So I can say I know this dog and his character well. A lovely easygoing dog and he is very hansom also. Now we just have to wait for Boogie's heat to come, I think it will be in February 2011.

Our lovely import male Urho was for an official eye examination and his eyes was OK, his hips and elbows was also in good shape. The results of PRA marker test came last week, and he is also healthy from PRA. He is such a lovely life loving dog.

Nothing more special for this time.

And here's some mushroom pics

 Pickle Milkcap

 My dear woods

 No name in english :o(

 Penny bun (bolete)

 Orange Birch Bolete

 Pickle Milkcap

No name in english :o(

What a lovely autumn

It has been such a lovely autumn this year, it has also been a very good mushrooming year. Mushrooming is my favourite hobby besides dogs of course. I have to put some pictures here in this blog so you can see what wonders grows in our woods. I went with Boogie to an unofficial obedience competition, and it went VERY well. There were 16 dogs in our class, and we became third with 170 points of 200 points. Boogie was very good and now I'm waiting how it goes in the next competition whihc is official.. I hope I'm not too excitied and too tense, it effects on Boogies work, and that is not so good and not desirable. Everything is fine with our dogs. I hope you all have a nice and lovely autumn!!!!

Huh what a summer, hottest in many years. The only thing our family did was swimming many times same day. Banjo and Boogie just wanted to be inside the house under our bed. Now the weather is much more tolerable, finally. Autumn is on its way, and I just love autumn. Now it’s time to pluck the berries and mushrooms, that is why I love  Autumn  so much :o)

This summer two of the Hendrix-litter got the Finnish champion title, Aurinkokeijun Purple Haze and Aurinkokeijun Foxy Lady. Congratulations !!!!