Living with a Lappy

Early mornings

2011-06-06T06:14:00.003+01:00

When you've got a Lappy that is nearly 3, who let's you sleep in till when you want, it is easy to forget quite how early little pups need/want to get up (5.15 this morning!), and the level of energy they have in the morning once they get up! At least we know from when we first got Inko that the early mornings gradually get later, which will be nice :)

I'm hoping my neighbours are deep sleepers because Kiitos has been in fine voice this morning making sure that every toy is properly told off! I reckon she'll probably soon be getting sleepy as it's nearly an hour and a half after she woke up, so I'll be making sure I get a nap on the sofa while she's snoozing, as will Inko, who looks a little surprised each morning when we've been getting her up at the same time as Kiitos :)

Qualified for Crufts!

2011-06-05T22:00:00.000+01:00

We were starting to panic slightly that we might not get Inko qualified for Crufts this year. Now the Finnish Lapphunds get Challenge Certificates (CCs), the chances to qualify are much smaller than they used to be, as only certain shows are now qualifying shows. Given that the number of opportunities are smaller, the number of dogs being shown at each qualifying show is also higher. At each of the possible shows we've attended so far this year, Inko hasn't placed high enough to qualify, and given that we couldn't make it to all qualifying shows this year due to date clashes, we were worried we wouldn't manage it.

Today was Southern Counties, which is always a popular show because we always get a Finnish Judge for your classes. We had entered Inko into Postgraduate Bitch, and when I saw the catalogue this morning, I could see that this was a big class. Despite a small number of absentees, there was still a decent number of entrants, so I just had to keep my fingers crossed for a top three finish for the Dink.

I needn't have worried, becuase she did me proud and was a really good girl, ending up being picked as 1st place!!! I couldn't believe it, and my heart was pounding while standing for the critique to be written. We didn't get anything in the Bitch Challenge later, but still a super result for our super dog...and now we can definitely go to Crufts next year :)

Socialisation, socialisation, socialisation

2011-06-05T21:30:00.005+01:00

Because we want a nice bomb proof Kiitos, we are working hard to make sure she is getting well socialised. She has already had several visits from friends, family and neighbours, but Saturday night was an oppotunity for some major socialisation, when we took Kiitos to the SFLS Quiz, fish and chips night at the Newbury Showground. While Inko spent the evening in Jo and George's awning with her brother Tarkka, Kiitos stayed with Adam and I during the quiz and then for the drinks afterwards, and was passed between many people, all keen to have a cuddle of the cute puppy! She was such a good girl! She didn't seem phased by it at all. For most of the quiz she was curled up on Jo's lap and then snuggled up inside Jo's jumper when it got a bit chillier later in the evening.

She must have been a good luck charm, as our team won the quiz!! It was either her, or perhaps George's very impressive quiz knowledge (he nearly single handedly won us the quiz!).

Once the quiz was over, eighteen of us squeezed into Steve and Shelley's awning to have some drinks and to have a sing song with Terry playing guitar. He was accompanied by Philip playing drums using an upturned dog food box, and Adam played the bongos on an upturned water bowl - all very creative. Kiitos had much fun being passed around all eighteen people for a cuddle! She once again took it all in her stride, and didn't seem fussed by all the chatting, laughing, singing, guitar playing and 'drum' playing, and after the 'pass the puppy' just curled up on my lap and had a snooze!

One of the conditions of getting a cuddle with her, was that people had to have their photos taken with her :)

There's a selection of the pics of her cuddles with lots of people on our Flickr site.

In other news…

2011-06-04T09:01:00.001+01:00

There is also plenty to update on Inko since my previous post. Last time I wrote we had been training for the Kennel Club Good Citizen Bronze award. Despite her best efforts to deafen the assessor and everyone else in the hall, she managed to pass, and now has a lovely certificate to prove it . I think we have a little way to go before we can get the silver, especially given her barking (as we were all very firmly told by the assessor that barking is a sign of the dog not being under control…in Inko’s case she barks when she’s excited, and being trained, or being in the show ring are very exciting, so it is fighting a losing battle to try and keep her quiet!).

Since that last post, we also had the trip to Crufts, for the first CCs to be awarded to lappies, judged by Kiitos’s breeder, Toni Jackson. It was a great day, catching up with friends (human and dog), and great to see lots of dogs having fun in the ring. When we saw the size of the postgraduate class that we had entered, we didn’t hold out too much hope because the class was huge, and Inko was in a very vocal mood! However, we were very pleased to get 4th place. Unfortunately not high enough to qualify automatically for next year, but we were extremely pleased to get so high, especially as she was a bit out of coat. Adam filmed the whole day, and there is a video of the winning dogs and bitches from each class on the SFLS website (http://www.sfls.org.uk/results/2011/crufts_video.htm).

For the Royal wedding weekend, we all went up to Malvern for a few days to stay with Jo, George and Tarkka, and to catch up with Andy & Karen, and Steve & Shelley who were camping at the Malvern showground down the road. It was a lovely few days, with good weather (mostly), so we had a great time. Unfortunately we had to leave slightly earlier than expected, and had to miss the WELKS show that was at the showground on the Sunday, because Inko decided to finally have her second season. We had noticed that Inko’s brother Tarkka had been quite interested in her, but they often try and hump each other when playing, so we didn’t think much of it. When we realised she had come into season, we were actually really impressed what a good boy he had been, as I’m sure she was starting to smell very tempting to a boy dog!

I think that’s everything! I am going to try and be good and keep on top of this blog writing for a bit, so that we can record how Kiitos is progressing, and how the friendship between Inko and her new shadow is developing – they seems to be becoming good friends already.

Living with lappies

2011-06-04T07:54:00.008+01:00

Once again, I seem to have been a little slack with blog entries, so it is about time for an update.

On Wednesday this week, we picked up our new little edition...Elbereth Kiitos, and we are very excited to have her. Her mum is Elbereth Kaisa at Arktinen, and her dad is Multi Ch Fidelis Duuri (known as Usko), from Holland. She is 8 weeks old tomorrow, and is a very sweet black tri, and she seems to be settling in well. 'Kiitos' is Finnish for 'thank you', and we thank Toni Jackson, her breeder, and Pia Reynolds, Kaisa's hu-mum, for entrusting her to us...we'll look after her well, we promise!

After picking her up from Pia's house, she was a perfect passenger on the way home, and curled up quietly on my lap all the way home. When we got home, Adam took Inko out into the garden, and then I brought Kiitos out to meet her. Inko was a little unsure what this small thing was at first, but was soon wagging her tail and saying hello.

We were unsure how the first night would go, as many pups like to have a good old howl when put to bed, to express their annoyance at being left on their own, especially with as everything is new and unknown, but she was a star. Apart from a very small (maybe 5 seconds) whine, she settled straight down and went to sleep in her crate. When I woke up at 6.15, we hadn’t heard a peep from her all night. She’d had a little accident in her crate over night, but not unexpected really, as she’d had her routine of feeding changed slightly, and she was in a new place.

I had forgotten quite how much energy puppies have when they first wake up, and I’m not sure Inko knew what hit her in the first hour of the morning! She was such a good tolerant girl, letting Kiitos climb all over her, and she didn’t even grumble when Kiitos was pulling at her face and leg fur. We’re so lucky that Inko is so sweet natured, because we didn’t need to worry too much when they were playing. Occasionally Inko forgets how small Kiitos is, and tries to play a little rough, but a quick reminder from us to ‘be gentle’ and she backs off.

We’re now moving into day 3, and despite accidents in her crate each night, Kiitos is doing very well indeed. She is already getting to grips with ‘sit’ very nicely, and is also doing pretty well with ‘down’. Her ‘stand’ is taking a little more practice, as at the moment it is more of a lunge at the treat, but we’re definitely making progress. Looks like we have another very clever one, which is fab, because we love doing the training. I have even had Inko and Kiitos in synchronised ‘sit’ and ‘down’ training this morning. We had forgotten quite how tiring puppies can be, but we are enjoying the fun of having two lappies. I am just starting my two weeks of 'puppernity leave', and then Adam has his two weeks off. By the end of that month we should have Kiitos well settled into a routine. 

Here’s a few pictures that we’ve managed to get so far.

Ok, I might have set this picture up, by plonking a very sleepy Kiitos on a very sleepy Inko, but when they aren't sleepy it is hard to get a photo that isn't blurred!!

This was always Inko's fave spot as a puppy, but it is a somewhat tighter squeeze for Kiitos to fit under there! She is definitely a bit bigger, possibly because she was only one of 5, whereas Inko was one of 9!

working towards Bronze

2011-02-08T19:16:00.002Z

Ok, my plan to write more regularly isn't going so well, seeing as it's over a month since the last post!

On 27th February, at the SFLS AGM, there is going to be the opportunity to be assessed by a qualified Kennel Club Good Citizen Scheme assessor, so we've decided to finally try for Inko's Bronze award (and maybe her silver if we managed to pass the bronze and are feeling brave!!).

Inko has continued her training since her initial puppy classes, with a stint doing heelwork to music, an intermediate training class, and lots of training at home, but we have never quite got round to doing her bronze. Looking at the requirements on the Kennel Club website, I think we should be ok because it is all stuff she can do...the question is whether she will be bothered to do the tasks on the day of the assessment with other lappies around as a distraction!

To help with getting her a bit more polished on some of the tasks, we are starting a new training class tomorrow night. The class is specifically geared towards the bronze good citizen award, so hopefully it'll give us enough practice to pass on the day.

On the more fun side of things I have just bought a new dog training book called Brain Games for Dogs - I'll have to see what new tricks I can teach Inko over the next few weeks :)

wow...two days in a row!

2011-01-02T15:06:00.005Z

Over the past year we have continued working on Inko's tricks, but probably not as often as we should. My plan for this year is to try and do more with her, to make her performance on tricks more consistent, and to try and learn some new ones too. I also hope to try and finally get round to doing the Kennel Club Good Citizen Bronze award with her (and maybe even Silver) - I must get booked onto a training course soon, to learn the last couple of bits more solidly, and then we need to keep our fingers crossed that we both can get it right under assessment! I'm pretty sure she's nearly ready now, but it depends on her being in the mood on the assessment day!

I managed to get a quick video of us doing a bit of practice the yesterday. Whilst she knows quite a few tricks, she is a little haphazard in her performance at the moment, and often starts trying to 'offer' tricks in the hope of a treat, rather than waiting for the command!! This is especially the case for 'shy' and 'wave' - she starts flapping her front legs as soon as she sees me get a treat, so we need to work on getting some more control there. Hopefully it should be do-able with a bit of effort, seeing she does generally know the commands.

I did also take another better quality video on our new camera today, but I just uploaded it and it was 106MB! Ooops - seems I recorded it in HD! I'll try and work out how to reduce it in size so I can upload it on here...or I'll try recording a new one!

In the meantime, here's some more new pics

Inko showing off her long toe hair!!

A bit more singing!

Such a grown up girl now!

Thought it was about time for a new post!!!

2011-01-01T19:37:00.011Z

Just realised that it has been nearly a whole YEAR since our last blog post, so I thought it was about time we did an update! I have made a New Year's resolution to try and keep more up to date with the blog this year - fingers crossed I manage to stick to it!

Last year has been quite a busy year (with us getting married!), so hopefully we can be forgiven for the quietness on the blog (ok, maybe it might partly be laziness on our part, but we were pretty busy too!)

It is hard to believe that Inko is now nearly 2 1/2 years old - that time has gone by just so quickly. She is quite the grown up now and is definitely starting to be much calmer now. She still has her crazy moments, but she is also much more willing to lie down quietly than she was when she was a bit younger.

So what has she been up to for the last year...?

Well, she went to several shows, including Crufts. At Crufts she decided to try and put off the opposition with a LOT of barking - anyone who was there will testify to her determination to ensure that everyone at the NEC was aware of her presence! She was in an enormous class, and as one of the babies in the post graduate class (having only just moved up from Junior) she didn't manage to place, but we all had good fun, which is all that counts!

Shortly after Crufts, Inko finally decided to have her first season, aged approximately 20 months! She certainly took her time with that, and to this day has still not bothered to have a second one! We're still waiting for that, and we're hoping it won't coincide with Crufts for this year!

At other shows over the last year Inko has done better, qualifying for Crufts at nearly all of them, and sometimes beating several dogs to get into the top 3. Whilst we didn't manage any firsts with her (apart from at the Finnish Lapphund Club of Great Britain show...where she was the only one in her class!), we did manage several seconds and thirds at various shows, which was great. Unfortunately she made her presence known at all of those almost as much as at Crufts, so that is something we need to be working on for the shows this year! She just gets so excited at shows that she wants to let everyone know :)

As well as the shows, Inko also had some holidays over the last year. Jennifer and Jay, her breeders, very kindly had her to stay when Adam and I went on holiday to Scotland, and they also had her to stay when we went on honeymoon. She had a great time, because she got to play with her fur-mum, fur-dad and sister!

Inko also got to come to our wedding last year. She was being looked after by a local dog carer for the weekend of our wedding, and the owner very kindly agreed to bring her over to the wedding venue for the photos! Whilst it wasn't practical to have her there for the whole day, it was great that she could be there for at least part of it, and we have got some lovely photos of her with us :) Inko also enjoyed a trip up to Malvern with us to see Jo, George and her brother Tarkka.

More recently, Inko very much enjoyed the covering of snow we got. It never ceases to amaze us just how at home lappies are in the snow - she just LOVES it, and likes to spend as much time in it as we'll let her! As the snow began melting she would run to the last patch to lie on, making the most of every last moment she had with it! Whilst many of us are hoping it doesn't return too quickly because of the disruption it causes, she, like most lappies I'm sure, is probably hoping we get more January/February snow like last year!

That's probably enough of an update for now, but here are just a few pics...

Inko at one of the shows in the summer

And at another show, sat next to her sister, Kaija

Inko at the pub in the summer, looking like she's singing!

Inko at her second birthday party with her doggy pals Sammy, Bobby and Guiness!

Inko at our wedding

Inko on our weekend in Malvern in October

Inko and her brother Tarkka in Malvern

Inko in one of my t-shirts, to keep her calm during the fireworks

Inko in the snow this winter

Inko...on your mat

2010-01-19T19:13:00.003Z

Here's a short video showing Inko practising 'on your mat'. She's definitely making progress :)

(although when I tried to get a video of this at lunch time as soon as I got the camera out she picked the mat up and shook it instead of sitting on it! Unfortunately I didn't catch it on camera!)

Sorry for the silence!

2010-01-17T17:55:00.004Z

I can't believe it was October when I last posted anything on here! It has all been a bit crazy recently with the renovation work, and we're not quite finished yet, but we're much closer to normality than we were!

The actual building work is now complete and three rooms have become one at the back of our house! It is a lovely space, and makes so much more sense as it is now than the clumsy layout it used to be. We have installed the new kitchen and we're really pleased with it. We have a bit of painting left to do in there, some coving to fit, handles to go on the cabinets and the new flooring to lay, but it is actually a fully functioning kitchen since the cooker went in last weekend, so no more cooking on the two ring portable electric hob! Not to knock that too much though, as it has served us very well for the last 3 months or so!!

We haven't started on the other end of the room yet, as you'll see from some of the video below which scans round the new room (sorry it's a bit blurry - it was taken on my phone), but we plan to get going with that fairly soon. We need to damp proof the floor and pay self-levelling flooring, and then we'll be laying laminate. It also needs painting, and some pipes need boxing in, but none of that should be too difficult hopefully. We haven't really worked out what to call that end yet. Ideally it would make a great dining room but as we don't have the money left to buy a nice dining table yet, at the moment we are just referring to that end as 'the bit' :)

Now that we're not so chaotic Inko is much more settled than she has been, as it is starting to feel like a home again, rather than a building site. She is still sleeping upstairs in one of the bedrooms as her den area is still full of stuff at the moment but we hope to be able to clear that in the next few weeks, as much of what is in there is destined to end up in 'the bit' once the flooring is down!

This is a rather wobbly and blurry video, but shows what the new kitchen looks like

Looking backwards from the new kitchen to 'the bit'

And again from a slightly different angle

One side of the kitchen, facing out to the garden

The other side of the kitchen, with our new cooker that we LOVE!

"Inko...arms"

Thought I'd better include an updated picture of Inko, seeing as we have been using her blog for house stuff for so long! This is Inko's favourite position, which she gets from her Dad, Keskiyo, having the underneath of her arms scratched. She likes to ask anyone to do this by hopping up onto her hind legs, and will sit there for ages loving the attention!

At the end of this month Inko has her first show of the year, an Open show in Reading. I just have to hope that we both remember what we are supposed to do in the ring - seems like ages since we last went to one! We're off to ring craft tomorrow night to get back into the swing of things.

I have also started doing some new training with Inko at home as I have been a bit lazy with it with all of the house stuff going on. I am trying to teach her to sit on a mat on command. The mat in the picture above is the one we're practising on. She seems to be picking it up very easily at the moment which is promising, but it still needs a bit of work yet. Hopefully it won't be long before I get it more consistently from her...and can start getting a response without the constant promise of a bit of sausage :)

OT - more progress (or at least more destruction to make way for progress!!)

2009-10-17T18:55:00.005+01:00

We've had a bit more wall knocking down done this week and today Adam and I have been emptying our house of furniture into storage ready for the electrician who is coming in on Monday to start the re-wire and an empty house will make it easier for him to get it done quicker. We have also taken up the laminate flooring in our lounge/diner so he can take the floorboards up for the wiring. We have already ordered carpet to replace the laminate but now we've seen the floorboards they seem quite nice!

Here's some more pics...

Here's the latest 'hole' - we've had the old shower bit taken out, leaving a hole. We now just need the bit between this hole and the doorway taken out and then it will be one big room finally. Then it's a case of the builders putting pillars and RSJs in.

Here's Inko watching me attempt to cook in the shell that is our old kitchen - she loves watching, and now she has more space to do it in! See her 'devil eyes'!!

Inko watching from her den while we're clearing - feeling very annoyed at being left out!!

Sofas gone into storage and replaced with garden chairs so we could eat our lunch, before beginning the rest of the clearing...

There's quite a lot of stuff to clear out!

Nearly there with the clearing

Once most of the stuff was out, it was a case of ripping up the laminate flooring.

To reveal some nice old floor boards...

OT - first wall out!

2009-10-13T22:22:00.003+01:00

Opening the ex-kitchen through to utility room is well one it's way. The wall is mostly out now and awaiting the RSJ. Next step is for the wall between the utility and back room to be taken out and then it will be one big space. Already we're getting the sense of space and it is very exciting...if a little echoey with no flooring and no furniture! Inko is having great fun running around it all desperately trying to eat bits of dust. Luckily we can shut off this part of the house because otherwise she'd be licking all dust off the floor!!

It was another take-away tonight as couldn't face trying to cook in this chaos! Even though we still have a functioning oven and sink in the old kitchen it was so much easier just to get a chippy tea!!

and some more demolishing...

2009-10-11T19:52:00.011+01:00

Taking out the last of the kitchen cabinets...

All gone...just oven and sink remaining - and the old dishwasher kept in there to act as a temporary extra work surface while we're still living in here before moving out once the electric re-wiring starts in about a week's time.

Looks like there might be some nice quarry tiles under the old kitchen floor. Not sure if they will be all over in the kitchen but will have to wait and see. They are covered in a lino and then other tiles, plus laminate type tiles on the top. We are going to keep these down for now to protect ant quarry tiles that exist underneath from the building work and will then uncover them later and are keeping our fingers crossed that there might be lots of them and not just a few where we've already uncovered.

All looking rather bare!!

We've also had to take down the ceiling in the kitchen ready for the electrics and wall knocking down work. It was clad in wood, so all had to be pulled down!

Here is the little conservatory at the side of the house that runs alongside the rooms that we are working on, that we will be turning into a mini utility room. Flooring up and near enough cleared, ready for work to begin.

Flooring all up in the back room where the kitchen will be once the walls are knocked down. Now just need to find a home for the exercise machine that we NEVER actually use!!!

And finally, here is the scene this evening where we were doing our best to cook in our shell of a kitchen - not the easiest of tasks!! So glad we kept the old dishwasher in there diconnected so that we can use the top of it as a worktop. We have got a kettle, microwave and other bits and pieces on the floor...let's hope all the work gets finished fairly on time as this could get a little tiring!!

OT - more preparation for the building work

2009-10-04T20:10:00.011+01:00

Getting rid of the last of the wall cabinets in the kitchen

Getting rid of the loo, sink and shower in the utility room

OT - starting the work on our house...finally, after over 2 years!

2009-09-27T21:25:00.009+01:00

Not to do with Inko this time, but thought we'd post it anyway so we have a record of it.

Since moving into our house in July 2007 we've had quite a long list of work that has needed doing, most of it stemming from the need to get the electrics re-wired ideally.

Finally, after over 2 years of saving and planning we are at last about to get it done. We are going to be knocking through 3 small rooms at the back of our house to make one big open plan kitchen/dining room. We have spent today starting to clear the house ready for the building work to start in mid-October. We have got a lot of stuff everywhere so this is lookinhg like taking some time! We spent most of the day clearing out our third bedroom...our junk room...to put stuff in the loft, the shed and the bin! This evening we have started the task of demolishing our current kitchen which is being knocked through to make the new big room. We have taken out all of the stuff we rarely use so that we can start by taking the wall units down. So far we have removed one wall of units. We'll be gradually removing the rest over the next couple of weeks, in between clearing the rest of the house. Think the next few weeks may be quite chaotic and a little stressful...will be worth it once it's done though. Here's a few pictures so far...

Starting to empty out the cupboards into storage boxes!

First wall of units down

Corner unit gone now too (seemed sensible to have a glass of wine to help keep the energy levels up while working!)

Inko has been somewhat confused by all the activity. She has been pottering round watching everything but has sometimes seemed a little unsettled by it. Not surprising...we're not normally known for much DIY so she's probably wondering what on earth is going on!

Lappies and their love of dens

2009-09-13T11:37:00.002+01:00

I've often heard that lappies love having dens, and Inko definitely loves her crates.

Today I was looking for something in our spare room (where most junk ends up!) and came across the little cat box that we had when we first picked Inko up as a little pup. I brought it downstairs and put it on the floor to see what Inko thought of it. Without hesitation she squeezed herself into it, wriggled round in the tiny amount of space there was in there and settled down for a snooze! She spent several minutes in there before squeezing back out. She now keeps going back in there...think she likes it! As she kept going back in I settled down with my camera to try and capture her getting in...it's quite amazing how she manages to sqeeze into such a small space and turn herself around!

Lappies clearly do love dens!!

Birthday and holiday in Devon

2009-08-08T21:05:00.013+01:00

On 31st July, our little Inky Dink turned 1! Can't believe how quickly the last few months have gone, and the Devon Nine have already had their first birthday - time has flown!

To celebrate we headed down to Devon to meet up with her fur-mum, fur-dad, a fur-sister and fur-brother and her fur-half sister for a walk on Slapton Sands. Very nice to have a catch up and for the dogs to have a play.

From Slapton Sands (and a night staying with Inko's brother, Tarkka, and his hu-family - thanks Jo and George) we headed down to a lovely farm cottage near Holbeton in South Devon, about 30 minutes from Plymouth for a lovely week's holiday with two friends and their sprocker spaniel, Sammy. It was a fantastic dog-friendly place to stay and it was great how quickly the two dogs settled down together. We spent days at the beach and walking the coastal paths and the dogs had never had so much fun. Inko even got extra brave and had a go at swimming in the sea!! When we first had her she would barely walk through a puddle but she has gradually got braver and braver with water and she had a fantastic time at the beach! All these walks meant we had lovely quiet and sleepy dogs in the cottage every evening.

The cottage we stayed at was lovely. It sleeps 6 (one double room, one twin and one room with bunks) and accepts up to 3 dogs at a time. It is great having a crate-trained dog because Inko settled perfectly well at night in her crate because to her, it was no different to being at home so she didn't feel at all unsettled, and slept really well. There was a nice enclosed garden that they could run around in too. Inko and Sammy enjoyed running around chasing each other, and occasionally barking at the cows on the farm when they walked past the end of the garden. Inko also enjoyed exploring in the shed in the garden and on one night came out eating a dead mouse...ew!...lappies can be so unpleasant with their eating habits sometimes!

We did have one scare on the last night though when Inko, who had been spending quite a bit of time playing in a big hedge down one side of the garden, managed to find the one hole in the wire fence behind the hedge and escaped into next door's garden and then across to the cottage opposite ours, and ran round their garden before heading back towards us...I swear she had been plotting it all week while she had been playing in the hedge!!!

All in all a very nice week away, and we'll definitely be storing the details of the place to visit it again.

Managed to get a lot of pictures, and a few short videos of Inko and Sammy. They are all on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/22914982@N08/sets/72157621856191963/), but here is a few ones that give a good overview of our first proper holiday with Inko.

Update

2009-07-13T18:52:00.005+01:00

Sorry I've been so rubbish with updates recently...here's a quick catch up of some of the things Inko's been doing.

Inko and the heat

Like many lappies, Inko has been struggling a little bit in the unusually hot weather recently. To try and keep her cool we have been spraying her with a water spray and have been leaving a wet blanket in her den for her to lie on while we are out at work. Despite being hot, Inko has still been running round like a hooligan most of the time...a bit of sun isn't going to slow this little lappy down!!

On one of the particularly hot days we had the fan out in the evening (we didn't want to leave it on in the day for her in case it over-heated and caught fire!). She got so close to it! Luckily no fur, or ears, found their way through the little holes in the front! That could have been messy!

Tarkka came to stay

On the night before the Windsor champ show, Inko's brother Tarkka came to stay, with Jo, George and Josh. Inko and Tarkka had great fun playing and were actually very quiet...I have warned the neighbours that there might be more woofing than normal but they were actually very good. Managed to get a few photos that weren't entirely blurred! To save uploading them individually I've added the link to them on my Flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22914982@N08/sets/72157621256269845/

The emergency vet...why to get insurance!!

Last Thursday evening I decided to take Inko for a road walk for a change instead of the usual romp in the meadow and waited till the evening was a bit cooler. After we'd been walking for about 15 minutes I noticed a spikey seed stuck the side of her face and bent down to pull it off. As I did, I had a quick check that there weren't any others and, as I touched her left ear she went mental! She squealed sooo loudly. I know that lappies are well known for their over reaction to anything that could potentially hurt (just to warn us that they might possibly die!) but this was much worse than what she does normally. She refused to walk on her lead after this because her collar was obviously rubbing slightly on her sore ear. I tried to see what was wrong but couldn't see anything, not helped by her huge amount of wiggling, so all I could do was pick her up to carry her home. She is not light!! Being about 10 minutes walk from home, my arms were practically dead by the time we got back home, and I'm sure passers-by must have thought I was trying to dog-nap her based on her squealing and wiggling!

When we got back home both Adam and I tried to see what the problem was but had no luck. She was clearly getting very distressed so we called the vets. This was about 10pm so got through to the emergency vet and arranged to take her over. It turns out that just to walk through the door of the emergency vet at that time of night costs £123! The vet tried to look at Inko's ear but she wouldn't stay still and was getting a bit snappy where she was scared. They tried a muzzle but Inko wiggled out of that in about a second! So there was no choice but to give her an anaesthetic...another £100! The vet pulled out a nasty large barbed grass seed that had gone right into Inko's ear. Luckily it hadn't burst or damaged her ear-drum. To remove it, the vet charged another £34 on top of the consultation and anaesthetic fee! I should have trained as a vet and run out of hours clinics, not been a psychologist!! Luckily we have Pet Plan insurance and we should be able to claim this back, minus the excess. Who'd have thought this might happen on a boring road walk!!

Inko's poor leg after being shaved for her anaesthetic!

Meeting up with Tarmo

The other day we met up with another of Inko's brothers, Tarmo, who she hasn't seen since they were about 4 months old. We went for a walk in the woods at Hrsell Common, Woking, and they had a fantastic time. There is a large sand pit there and they had great fun running around and rolling in it...it didn't take long for them to change from black tri lappies into orange dogs!! There was also a pond. It didn't look the cleanest pond in the world but they were getting pretty hot from running around so they enjoyed having a good paddle. It was shallow enough for them to cross right through it. At one point Inko sat down in the water and then decided to lie down in it!!

Link to the photos on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22914982@N08/sets/72157621256235671/

Visiting her fur family

In the last month I've had to work down in Plymouth for the day on a few occasions. As Adam was due to be working on an event two of the nights I was away there was going to be no-one at home for the Dink. So I took her down to Devon with me and dropped her off with Jennifer and Jay and she had a great time playing with her fur-mum Neka, fur-dad Keskiyo, fur-sister Maija, and the lovely Annie-Bear.

Show update

Inko is still very much enjoying going to shows. She loves meeting up with all the people and dogs. She also loves having a chance to sit on lots of chairs! She is obsessed with them, and doesn't care who they belong to!

She came 2nd in puppy bitch at Bath, where she was up against her sister Kaija.
She came 2nd in puppy at Guildford, to her brother Tarkka.
She came 1st in puppy bitch at Southern Counties, but got beaten by Tarkka in the puppy challenge.
Windsor wasn't quite so successful, where she came 5th in the junior bitch class...but she behaved very nicely...better than she often does...so I was pleased enough with that so didn't mind the 5th place!
She got best puppy in breed at East of England...she was the only puppy but that's by-the-by! She once again behaved very nicely so that's very good.

Looking forward to National Working and Pastoral Breeds in Malvern next weekend, followed the next day by Evesham...camping with loads of the lappy gang will be good fun :)

The Dink is home!

2009-05-21T19:02:00.001+01:00

Woo hoo! The Dink is back home after her trip up to Scotland and it's great to have her back. I got a lovely wiggly and squeeky welcome from her when I picked her up from Jennifer's on Wednesday morning!! I think she was pleased to see me! Didn't hear a peep out of her all the way home and she slept all afternoon and much of the evening. Think all the excitement of having so many of her fur-family to play with over the last few days had tired her out!! I think she is missing them quite a bit too...will be nice when we have a second lappy sometime to give her a playmate!!

Too quiet!

2009-05-15T16:18:00.003+01:00

This weekend Inko is going to her first 'foreign' show! She is going to Scotland with her breeder Jennifer! On Wednesday afternoon Adam drove the Dink to a service station somewhere near Bristol for a carpark handover with Jennifer as it was roughly half way between us in Surrey and her in Devon! I will then be picking her up on Wednesday next week. A whole week of no Inky Dink!! :(

It is sooo weird here without the Dink!! It feels very odd not having her pottering around. I'm sure the neighbours are appreciating the lack of early morning and late night barking in the garden but we're finding it very strange!! Sounds like Inko is having a great time with her fur-mum, fur-dad and sister though, so I'm sure she's not missing us at all!!

Sorry for no posts for ages - and some more pics

2009-05-04T21:46:00.012+01:00

To congratulate Inko on her qualification for crufts at Builth Wells, Jennifer (her breeder) sent her a present in the post (addressed to 'T. I. Dink'....for 'The Inky Dink'!!) - she got a great squeaky toy and some very smelly tripe sticks! Inko thought the squeaky toy was fab and spent the whole night squeaking it! Unfortunately for our ears, Inko is not one of those dogs who manages to 'kill' a squeaky within a matter of minutes - she's actually quite gentle with cuddly toys so squeaks last ages. Managed to get a video of her squeaking...multiply this by about 2 hours and that was how our evening went :)

Inko's congratulations card from Neka (mum), Keskiyo (dad) and Maija (sister)

Can't believe Inko turned 9 months old a few days ago - she is growing up so quickly!! Thought I'd put a few other pics on to show how big our little girl is getting!

Inko age 8 weeks on her first day at home...can't believe how quickly they grow!

Inko quite likes bamboo canes!

Inko doing her best 'parrot' impression on my shoulder

Sorry for no posts for ages - Showing update

2009-05-04T20:50:00.018+01:00

Sorry, I haven't posted for ages, but with shows and decorating time just seems to be flying.

Inko went to her first championship show at Builth Wells in April. We had a ridiculously early start, having to leave home at 5.30am so that we could get to mid Wales for 9.00am! It turned out that this was very much worth it, as Inko managed to get first place in the Junior Finnish Lapphund Class and then got Best Puppy in Breed. She didn't place in the puppy group, but just getting to take part in the puppy group was an excellent experience...even if it meant we had to be at the show ground all day, till gone 5pm! At shows, in a bid to get Inko used to all the sights, smells and sounds of the show, I like to keep her out of her crate as much as possible. At Builth, she decided that she was going to steal Adam's chair and watch the world go by in comfort! I decided at this show to keep her bark collar on the whole time while she wasn't in the ring to try and prevent her getting into the habit of barking and it seemed to work really well. Although I had to remove it when we went into the ring, she behaved really well and her usual vocal approach to showing was absent...much to my relief as I could then concentrate on the business of getting her to walk nicely without having to fight against her barking! It obviously worked for us to get the result we did - this means she qualified for crufts at her first attempt! Her brother Tarkka also qualified for crufts, getting 2nd in junior, and reserve best dog!!

Inko and her rosettes

Inko - sat in Adam's chair watching the world go by

Why sit like a dog, when you can try and sit like a person!!

Starting to feel rather pooped towards the end of the day

Because Builth is so far, we really didn't want to do the return journey in the same day so booked into a local campsite and stayed with fellow lappy owners Steve & Shelley (with Apina and Kippis) and Jo (with Tarkka). They were staying in a caravan and we were in a tent alongside - Inko was very good in the tent - this is where having a happily crate trained dog is really helpful! We had a lovely evening in the lovely Wales countryside next to a very pretty river having a yummy take away and natter in the caravan!

Beautiful scene by our campsite

A very sleepy Inko when we finally got back home....didn't hear a peep out of her for ages!!

We have also recently been to the WELKS (West of England Ladies Kennel Society) championship show where Inko got to catch up with a brother (Rauhan) she hasn't seen for a very long time (since they were about 3 months old), her half brother (Taito) who she may have met once I think, but doesn't see often, plus her mum and dad (and her breeders Jennifer and Jay). The weather was stunning and it was our first outdoor show...I even got a bit sunburnt, which was rather a surprise for April! I was a little concerned about how Inko might behave when being shown on grass as she just wanted to run and play like she is normally allowed to do on grass. She was definitely more distracted here than at Builth, and ended up coming second of 2 in the puppy class against her brother.

...and then there was quiet!

2009-04-01T16:02:00.004+01:00

After the success we had with the citronella collar that we hired, we have now bought our own (Dynavet Masterplus Pro) - not the cheapest purchase in the world but SO worth it. Since we've had it we have a lovely quiet Inko who still seems very happy pottering, playing etc...but she does it quietly!!

I took it with me to ringcraft this week to see if I could use it to start to break her habit of barking in the ring. It was brilliant! She didn't bark once while being walked up, down around, being felt over etc!! Obviously I can't actually take it into the real show ring but if I can get rid of the habit of barking and keep it on till the last minute at shows till the habit is well and truly broken it might just work!! The other people at the class were amazed at the difference it made, and I think were rather pleased for the peace and quiet after weeks of lappy yapping!! Now I just need to work on Inko's occasional biting of the lead while in the show ring - muich easier to focus on that when there is no barking to try and control too!!

We were supposed to be at Tunbridge Wells and District open show at the weekend but Adam was poorly and I was still getting over a cold so we decided to give it a miss and I just did some show training practice with the Dink in the back garden, and did some more tricks training. I'm trying to start some work on back end awareness with Inko because I'd like to try teaching her some more tricks such as walking backwards round my legs, just for something new. Nik in Australia has been helping give me some tips based on her experience with Jedi and Ahsoka and the videos on her blog are very helpful! I think it might take a bit of practice for me to get to grips with what I'm supposed to be doing!!

barking, showing, and chasing

2009-03-22T20:54:00.002Z

Attention barking

Inko's attention barking had been getting a little out of hand at home! She's usually ok during the day if we're in (as far as we can tell she is always asleep when we are out), but it is the evenings when things can get noisy - and it's worst when we are both in with her. After trying to consistently pop her in her naughty crate when she barked (which gets a bit annoying to constantly be getting up, putting her in, letting her out, every few minutes) we decided we needed to try something else.

We had realised very early on after getting her that Pet Corrector does nothing with the Dink, who just looks at it as if it is nothing! We also found the stones or coins in a jar shaken at her had much the same effect! Water in a spray she actually really likes and it tends to make her bark even more!! So we needed something new. After chatting with a few people who we knew already used them, we decided to try a citronella collar for her. We knew that our old trainer hired these out and so we decided to start with that option. Given Inko's past responses to things that make a noise as a distraction, we knew that things often don't work with her as they should due to her total lack of fear or concern about loud noises etc! Another reason for wanting to try it out on hire first was that we weren't sure whether it might freak her out slightly, and we really didn't want anything that might worry her or frighten her.

We picked up the collar about 2 weeks ago and were amazed that it actually worked!! We needn't have worried about it stressing her...as with everything she comes across she just took it on board and was completely relaxed!! She happily pottered round with the collar on, eating, playing and sleeping, and didn't seemed bothered at all. It is remote controlled so we press a button when we want to release the spray, rather than it being bark activated. We wanted that control so that we could control the attention barking, but can still allow to have a small bit of a bark as passers by, just so that we retain a certain amount of guarding, as that is a benefit of having a dog. This also means that we can use the collar to distract her from other unwanted behaviour if needed (e.g. her chewing at my arm, or if she refuses to drop something she shouldn't have). It was magic - when she started barking and we pressed the remote control to release the spray of citronella, she stopped what she was doing, and actually gave us enough time to reward her for being quiet!!! It was brilliant because it stopped us spending the whole of evenings telling her off for being noisy - much more peaceful for us and her!!

Based on her response to it we decided to buy one for ourselves and we now have to hope that it continues to work as well as it has so far!!

Latest show

Shame she can't wear it in the show ring!! Inko had her latest show yesterday at the Bristol and District show in Weston Super Mare. We could tell from early on that she clearly wasn't in the mood to be on best behaviour, and it wasn't really helped by the fact that we were on fairly early, in quite cramped hall, so that didn't give us long to have Inko out of her crate and doing some training to try and get her focused on working and used to all the goings on in the hall. We had really hoped she'd be well behaved at this one as this would be the first time she was going to be up against other lappies, as there was an actual lappy class this time, rather than her being in AVNSC. No such luck! From the moment we got into the ring she was on fine vocal form and barked all the way round!! She stood fairly still when being checked over which was nice as she had been bad at that before (and I've been working quite hard on that), I just need to really work on the walking around bit now as that was less good, mainly because her barking makes her legs jump as she walks, making it a little messy!! She ended up getting 3rd of 3 in the puppy class!!

Lappy walk

Today Inko had a fantastic time on the SFLS monthly walk, this one being down in the lovely sunny New Forest. Inko had a great time running round with her half sis' Keksi!! They were chasing each other everywhere and having so much fun. Inko spotted a few new forest ponies at one point and started running off barking, presumably in full on herding mode!! We were actually very impressed that she about-turned and came running back when called!! Very nice to see this as her recall can be a little variable!! She managed to get completely covered in mud after wading through puddles all through the walk, and even sitting down in quite a large puddle!! Luckily Karen let us go back to her house after the walk to hose her down before we headed home!! It was a reall lovely day...and means we now have a lovely and quiet lappy...and she's not even wearing her collar tonight!!

Inko's second show

2009-02-21T18:26:00.003Z

Inko had a very good day at her second show today. It was the Maidenhead and District Canine Society open show in Reading. We weren't sure what time the AVNSC Pastoral classes would start so made a rough guess based on the numbers in earlier classes but we ended up having quite a long wait before we had our turn. While waiting we didn't bother setting up her crate and just let Inko watch what was going on. She seemed really calm right from the start and just watched people and dogs go by without showing much interest at all. It was a great socialisation opportunity for her to spend such a long time with so much going on around her.

To keep her focus while waiting I did some training with her such as sits, downs and stands, and also some of her other tricks that she enjoys doing, like spin, wave and high five. This way she was very much focused on me (or on the liver muffin at least!) this time, rather than on everything else. I think it helped not having sand all over the floor like her first show - much less interesting to be in a sports hall!!

We were entered into the Junior AVNSC Pastoral class. She was up against just one other dog, an Australian Shepherd. She stood pretty well for the judge and then did a fairly good walk round the ring, mostly focusing on me and not trying to jump up at all this time which was a fantastic improvement on last time so I was really pleased. I was over the moon when the judge picked her to take first place!! So another rosette to add to the second place the other week...this time a lovely red one!! When the judge was making the notes about Inko she commented that she show good potential, but also said that I should work on training Inko so that she knows that the ring is for being very still and calm and not for playing at all so that she stands rock solid and walks perfectly.

After winning that first place Inko was then able to go into the ring again for the AVNSC pastoral best of breed selection. As the last remaining puppy, she got awarded best puppy in breed (AVNSC) here so rosette number two!!

Having got this, we were then able to stay around for the Pastoral Group judging where all the winners from each of the Pastoral breeds came together to be judged for best in Pastoral. We were eligible to be judged in the Pastoral Puppy Group. The same judge who we'd had for the AVNSC judged this group. As she had already 'seen' us we waited at the side with three others in the same position while six other dogs got checked over by the judge. Then we got to do another walk round the ring so that the judge could see Inko moving again. She walked her best this time and I was very pleased that she was still being focused after so much hanging around. However, she did 'find her voice' during this session of judging and was somewhat vocal!! She stood very nicely (though loudly!!) while the judge did her final look over of everyone and then I was really pleased to be shortlisted with three other dogs. We ended up being placed 3rd!! Rosette number three!!

Brilliant day!! Very tiring as we were there nearly four hours or so, but well worth it!! Here is Inko with her three rosettes!!

She is now having a well deserved snooze!!

When we got home we checked the post and found out that we won second place in the competition we entered at Pets at Home back in December where Inko had her photo taken by the Dog Portrait Company!! We won a £20 voucher to spend either towards a copy of the winning photo or to go towards a photo at another session when it is next run at Pets at Home.

So all in all a very good day for the Inky Dink!!

SFLS Hankley Common Walk

2009-02-08T21:32:00.005Z

Nothing tires a Lapphund out like a walk with other Lapphunds...

Today was the second monthly SFLS walk of the year, hosted by Liz Mowatt (of Tabanyaruu fame). The location is a "little used" army training area, although as we were to find out a sunny, but snowy Sunday in February is an ideal time for the Army to use it! About five minutes into the walk we were greeted by the sound of gun-fire in the distance! We came across a group of "soldiers" on their training, I say soldiers in inverted commas as they barely looked old enough to take their GCSEs!! Although that didn't stop some of the ladies amongst us getting a little hot under the collar!!! Luckily they don't use live rounds in that area so we were able to continue on our way. Think the soldiers were a little surprised to see so many people and so many dogs interrupting their exercise!!

As always Inko had a fantastic time with the other Lappies and on this occasion x1 Akita Inu, x3 German Spitz Kleins and x1 Lappie x German Spitz Klein.

After a great walk across the common, which still had plenty of snow, we were all invited back to Liz and Rory's new house for tea and cakes, followed by a lovely short walk through their woods :)

A very nice way to spend a Sunday...and means we've had a very nice and sleepy Inko all evening!

Adam

Inko's first show

2009-02-07T18:11:00.001Z

Inko went to her first show today! She was a bit wary of what was happening when we first got there with all the people, dogs and smells everywhere but she seemed to settle down pretty quickly.

First the good performance...

Our first go in the ring was AVNSC puppy - Inko went up against a PMD and a Sammy. She came second, with the PMD in first and the Sammy in third. Was pretty pleased with that...nice to get her first rosette!!Not bad for her first attempt - she was pretty good when being handled by the judge and stood very nicely. She was a bit 'wobbly' on her first run round the ring so the judge suggested we go round again and she was much better that time, and then she stood nicely when the judge looked at them all again. But that wasn't to continue!

And then the not so good (also known as terrible!) performance...

We then went straight into AV puppy stakes being judged by Toni. It would appear that Inko had used up all her 'calm' and 'goodbehaviour' or had left it in the other ring because Toni definitely didn't see her at her best!! I really struggled to get her attentionin the ring this time, even with liver cake a plenty! I think she was more distracted this time as there were lots more dogs in the ring with her, and I think she was also getting tired by this point. Being a novice myself didn't really help as I wasn't too sure what I was doing either so didn't know any tricks to try and get her focused again!! She wiggled all over the place while Toni tried to check her over and then looked like a complete nutter while I did my best to try and get her to do a triangle round the ring - she jumped up trying to chew at my coat the whole way...not exactly a controlled performance by any stretch of thge imagination...not a chance in hell of Toni being able to make any sort of judgement about her gait etc!! Needless to say there was not another rosette won in this class!!

So one good result, and our first rosette...and also lots of stuff to work on for next time so that I don't have to look like I have NO control over my dog again!! LOL

Now have two weeks to prepare for the next one we've entered!

Snow!

2009-02-02T09:59:00.015Z

We. like most of the south east, had lots of snow when we woke up this morning!! Inko had great fun out in it and is only now reluctantly lying inside because I had to bring her in to have her breakfast! Once her breakfast has gone down she can go out again!!

She was in her element out in the snow - you can tell it's where lappies are meant to be!! She seemed to be genetically programmed to like snow!!

Managed to get a few pics of her having fun playing!!

I'm sure my biscuit is around here somewhere!

Yay! I've found my monkey toy!!

I seem to have snow on my dog tag and bell!!

I've found my biscuit!!!!

I've lost monkey again - I'm sure he's somewhere close!

Flower pots are fun when they have frozen mud in them!!

You've gotta run to keep warm in this weather don't you know!

I'm sure my sand pit is under here somewhere!!

First bath

2009-02-02T09:39:00.013Z

Inko had her first bath last weekend!! Thought we'd best take some before, during and after picks to mark the occasion!!

She wasn't too sure what to make of it I don't think!! She decided it was probably safest to sit the whole time whilst in this weird white bowl thing and she whined most of the time too!! She didn't seem too worried about it though and enjoyed it when I let her drink the water out of the shower hose!!

Before the bath - nice and dirty after a walk in the woods!

Straight after the bath - 'punk lapphund!'

And now nice, clean, and fluffy again!!

Time I did a new post!!

2009-01-20T18:05:00.002Z

Time seems to be flying at the moment - just realised how long it had been since my last post so thought it was about time I added a new one!!

Grown up teeth
Inko has now lost all of her baby teeth as far as we can tell - it is a very big relief to no longer have those needle sharp puppy teeth when she tries to chew us...I say us, it is mostly me she tries to chew...Adam gets licks!! Need to work on that!! She is definitely better than she was with chewing, but it is still happening enough to require visits to the naughty crate several times a week. The barking is much better though and visits the the naughty crate for barking seem to be required much less which is good.

Naughty crate
Speaking of the naughty crate, we have noticed recently that this has become a frequent place of choice for sleeping by Inko! We often look round to see where she is if we can't hear her (to check she's not doing something she shouldn't!) and find her curled up asleep in there - she must like it!!

Fear!
For the last couple of weeks Inko seems to have been going through a very slight fear period. She has always been pretty bomb proof and hasn't been the littlest bit phased by any noise etc, but recently she has been a little more jumpy. She was very spooked one evening when she went out for a wee in the dark in the garden and could hear a cat frantically scrambling to get over the fence. I think it freaked her out a bit because she couldn't see what was making the sound. It would probably have been less of an issue if the poor cat had managed to get over the fence on its first attempt but after failing to make it the first time it had to scramble up again to make it out of the garden. Inko shot into the house like a bullet and then rather cautiously returned barking at whatever scary thing had made the noise!! After that, for the next few visits into the garden Inko barked towards that corner just to warn anything else that might be lurking that she was ready to attack if necessary!! She also got slightly spooked by the lights on an aeroplane flying over head one evening and by a particularly scary stationary motorbike covered in a silver blanket type thing while we were out on a walk one evening. She seems to be slightly better with all this now, and hopefully no permanent fears have been left!!

Water
Inko seems to be developing more of an interest in water when out on walks suddenly. After never wanting to get wet in puddles, and definitely no interest in following her pals Sammy and Bobby in the lake (luckily!), this last weekend she decided to wade through all puddles along the way and even paddled in the shallow part of the lake that has a gently sloping shore! She did, however also manage to nearly take a full nose dive into the lake when her new found interest in water lead her to lean a little to far into the lake where there was an edge, rather than a gentle slope - I turned round to find her with her head and front legs under, frantically struggling to pull herself out before she completely fell in! By the time I got there to rescue her she'd already got herself out and luckily other than looking somewhat damper at the front than at the back, she didn't seem to be too badly effected by the experience - will have to see how she reacts to water when we're next at the woods with the lake!!

Chasing
One issue we have started to notice on walks is that Inko has started chasing people! She has always been keen on running up to dogs on walks as she loves being chased, but she never really did much with people, other than to wander over to say hi, and would come away when called. It seemed to start when we went on the lappy walk down to Devon at the start of January when she decided to chase a poor surfer all the way across the beach, up the stairs and into the carpark!! That incident led to her spending most of the rest of the walk on her lead!! We've now noticed that when out on a walk on her lead if someone passes, rather than largely ignoring them like she used to, she now tugs towards them quite a lot, which has nearly tripped us up on a number of occasions. When off lead in the woods this weekend she chased after two joggers and it took us ages to get her to come back. I felt quite sorry for them, out for a quiet jog on a Sunday morning, and they've got a lappy after them!! (although to be honest, choosing to job through a wood that is extremely popular with dog walkers, it was very likely that they'd be chased by at least one of the dogs!!). This is something we really need to work on - if anyone has any advice on how to stop this let me know!!

Teething, training. digging, and the naughty crate!!

2008-12-21T08:16:00.007Z

Sorry, I've been lazy with my updating again!! Here's a bit of an update on the last few weeks! In many areas Inko is doing very well - some, we're working on!!

She is looking very cute at the moment (ok I may be a little biased, but I'm a proud mum and think she's beautiful!). We had some professional photos taken at Pets at Home the other week and entered one of them into a competition they were running - we should find out in a few weeks whether she's won. I scanned them onto the computer at work but forgot to send them to myself so have just taken photos of the photos (!) so that I can post them on here - so they aren't as clear as they are in the originals but it was the only way of getting copies.

'Good 'down', Inko!'

'Look mummy and daddy, I'm smiling :)'

Such a cutie! This is the one we've entered into the competition

Teething

Inko is full swing with her teething now and has quite a mix of baby teeth, gaps and new teeth!! Not the neatest of mouths right now but at least there are far fewer of those needle like baby teeth now!! Inko is still doing a lot of chewing (not of furniture....of us!) - not as painful as it was with a full mouth of baby teeth but her jaw is getting very strong now and she has quite a grip which can be painful if one of her teeth manages to dig in!!

Zero tolerance!

This chewing/biting was starting to become a bit of a problem, as was her barking for attention, so we have got a new crate.....a naughty crate!! We are trying to be very good with a new zero tolerance regime, whereby any barking for attention or biting is followed by a firm 'No!' and her being taken into the naughty crate for some time out!! Overall I think this is starting to have a positive effect, although we're not there entirely yet! I think she's definitely got to the stage where she is settled enough here to start seeing how far she can push things and what she can get away with!! We're hoping that by being firm with her will make her realise that barking for attention and biting is not acceptable. Some days she is great (which is a good improvement on this behaviour every day) but as is to be expected there are also some days where she still tries it on quite a bit and there are a few trips to the naughty crate!!

Training

We had our last Heelwork to Music class before Christmas last Sunday. Inko is progressing really well...even if \I'm still getting confused by what way to spin myself etc!! She has now doing (still lured by treats at the moment):

heel (her walking next to my left hand side)
close (her walking next to my right hand side)
spin (her spinning round on my left hand side)
twist (her spinning round on my right hand side)
bow
dart through (her next to me then me twisting round and stepping over her as I do)
back track (walking backwards)
over (only going over my legs while I'm sat flat on the floor as she's still too young to do big jumping)
under
crawl
stick around (walking round my legs close to me)
weave

I must make sure we keep up the training on these over Christmas, not least so that me and Adam don't forget what they all are!! We're also been trying to keep up the stuff we did in obedience class. I've been really working on 'down' with her as she has always been good at this when there is a lure and when I'm putting my hand on the floor in front of her but as it's such a useful command for politeness around people I wanted to make her respond more just to a verbal command. She will now do this which is good (although I'm not sure whether this has actually now just become her default first response to a command for 'something' or whether she genuinely knows the word?). I've also been working on getting her to stay in a down position for more than just a split second by delaying any treating and using the 'wait' comm and which she is quite good at now.

Pulling

An area we've not noticed much improvement in is her loose lease walking, probably due to laziness from us rather than anything else. She is walked on a lead in the mornings before work, but off lead in the evenings. As the morning is a time when we are shorter of time, and we want to ensure she has a decent bit of exercise before we leave her for a bit, we have got lazy and have not been correcting her pulling as consistently has we should have been. This is becoming more noticeable as she gets stronger and stronger! We have ordered a Lupi harness to try so will give that a go and we'll also have to try and get better at doing all the necessary things to try and get her walking better loosely on the lead. Not expecting full 'to heel' walking necessarily, but looser would be nice. She's good when we have a treat in hand, but other than that there are far more interesting things ahead to try and get to!!

Digging

We've also found that her digging has just started up again - we went out the other day to discover a really rather large hole!! Because of the bad weather we can't use her sand pit at the moment....mostly because it turns out the lid is not very water proof and it is now more of a sandy bottomed swimming pool and Inko is not particularly keen on water!! So, after several weeks of no digging and us thinking she'd grown out of that, she has proved us wrong with the big hole! Maybe she thought the flowerbed looked bare and should have a large shrub planted - she's definitely given us a hole big enough to put one in with ease!! Lol. Unfortunately another side effect of her re-learned love of digging is that she is using her 'need to go to the loo' bell as a 'can I go out and dig' bell. We're having to ignore the bell when she first rings and see if she persistently stays there. If she comes away after a bit it seems to be that she wants to dig, and finally gives in, but if she is staying there it tends to mean she needs to loo and we let her out!

But she's still lovely despite all that!

Despite the few ongoing challenges in some areas with her she is such a lovely little thing to have round the house! We are loving all the walks with her (especially the weekend ones where we walk with our friends who also have dogs where she gets really tired out and is sleepy all afternoon afterwards! Lol!). We are also really enjoying the challenge of doing the training with her (the obedience, heelwork and general good behaviour training) as that was one of the reasons for getting a lappy that we knew we'd have to work hard with for the first two years - we wanted a dog that would make us put the effort in!

Can't believe it's only just over a month until she's 6 months old!! Time has flown, although also feels like she's been here so much longer than she has! We must start doing more work on the ringcraft side of things while the classes aren't running over Christmas so that we're getting ourself ready for show number one - that will be the Slough and District open show at the start of February. We're hoping to pick up a show lead for Inky Dink at the Guildford show that we're going to pop over to this afternoon!

2008-11-27T18:37:00.006Z

Inko has had a good week training wise. We had our first heelwork to music class on Sunday and Inko did very well with stand, bow, spin, twist, close and heel...unfortunately it tested my co-ordination skills somewhat! Then on Monday evening we had our first ringcraft class. We were quite surprised when someone recognised Inko as a Finnish Lapphund - it turns out that she has a 7-year old lappy, Ellie (TabanyaRuu Sello), from Smuu and Tuukka's first litter. Inko did fairly well considering it was her first go, but we need to try and work on getting her to stand without constantly having to be chewing at a treat held in my hand! Sure we'll get there!

Thought I'd add a few pictures to show how much our little girl is growing up! Can't believe she is 4 months old on Sunday. Still such a cutie and she's getting a fantastically big coat! She's also quite chunky - she weighed in at 9.5kg yesterday!

Update

2008-11-22T21:18:00.012Z

I haven't been very good recently at updating the blog I'm afraid as we seem to have been quite busy (mostly busy being chewed by a small lappy!!), so here is a bit of an update of the last week or so. Bit of a ramble through different things I'm afraid!

Meeting up with Tarmo

Last Saturday Inko got to have a lovely romp around in the woods with her brother, Tarmo. Tarmo lives with Stacey and Shane in Woking, not far from us, so we travelled over to have a catch up walk. We went to Horsell Common and it was great. There is a shallow lake and big sand pit type are in the middle of the woods which both Inko and Tarmo thought was great!! Much bigger than Inko's little sand pit at home!! After much rolling around they both turned from Black Tri lappies into a somewhat orange colour!! Luckily, the wonder that is lappy fur meant that with very little effort after the walk, Inko was quickly looking her usual lovely, fluffy self!!

Paddling!

Nice and coated in sand!

I think maybe Inko was trying to be in disguise!!

Might be all sandy, but still a real cutie!

And here's the lovely Tarmo

My birthday party

The evening after the walk with Tarmo was my 30th birthday party - luckily Inko was quite tired after the walk so was nice and quiet at the party. She got lots of attention from all the guests and was an absolute sweetie all night! None of the guests got chewed or barked at which was great!! Such a good girl! Inko looked somewhat confused when she walked into the back room where people were playing Guitar Hero World Tour on the X-Box 360!! Not sure she was impressed with the singing and instrument playing!! When it got to her bedtime she decided to pack herself off to bed!! Think she was a bit surprised that people were still around at such a time, but she wasn't going to let that get in the way of her bedtime!! She normally gets put to bed at about 10pm but people didn't lave the party till about 12-12.30 so she didn't properly go to bed till much later than normal. Luckily this led to a wake up time of just before 8am - much better than the normal 6.30 wake up call!!

Lappy walk

Inko had a great time at the lappy walk up in Watford last Sunday. It was quite a long walk so I had to carry Inko for a bit of it - she is getting quite heavy now so this was somewhat harder work than it was at the Bath walk last month! Luckily our friends Alison and Mike very kindly assisted with some of the carrying, saving my arms muscles a little. We met an absolutely beautiful husky type dog - think it was a Siberian husky, but I'm not sure - with one blue eye and one brown eye - it was stunning! It was lovely to have a catch up with lots of lappy owners and for Inko to have a good run around with other lappies.

Teething

Inko is still massively chewing - mostly chewing hands, arms and feet!! She seems to have very little interest in toys for long at the moment but is very, very persistent with her chewing of people. Because she still has most of her puppy teeth (she's only lost 3 or 4 of the small front teeth) this is rather painful!! We have tried lots of different things - yelping to let her know it hurts, trying to stuff a toy in her mouth for her to chew instead, and shaking a coin filled plastic jar to try and distract her, but none of these seem to be working! She has also been loving chewing my new slippers so we bought some bitter tasting spray from the pet shop to spray on my slippers (and on the sofas where she chews and digs them), but unfortunately this is not doing much good either - it would appear that the fun of chewing is worth the bitter taste!! We have now taken to popping her into her den area for a bit to calm down when she gets too over the top with her chewing.

We have bought a big bag of frozen carrots to give her to help sooth her gums and she is enjoying eating them, and we're still continuing with ice cubes. We're hoping that the persistent chewing phase stops fairly soon as she has left quite a few scratches on people's hands, which isn't the end of the world when it's just us too, but great when she does this to guests!!

Eating what she shouldn't!

Unfortunately Inko has become quite a fan of eating cow poo and mud! On walks we constantly have to pull her away from cow poo in the fields and in the garden we are constantly having to call her out of the flower beds where she has always got a mouthful of mud! She also keeps bringing mouthfuls of mud into the house - and she seems to have a habit of spitting it out on the sofa! Nice!! This doesn't seem to be doing her much good as she's been sick a couple of times now, bringing up either mud or cow poo that she has eaten before - not sure really how to stop her doing this as, like with the chewing, if it's something she enjoys she is very, very persistent!

Some pictures of one of our favourite walks

On the morning of my birthday on Wednesday Inko and I went out for a lovely walk to one of our favourite places, Hawley Meadows, and it was a beautiful sunny morning. I got some lovely picture of the meadow and a nice one of Inko there too in a rare moment of her standing still. Such a lovelt way to spend the start of my birthday :)

Meeting a parrot

This afternoon Adam, Inko and I went over to see Adam's Nan and Grandad. They have an African Grey Parrot and Inko seemed quite confused by the whistling and talking coming from the cage in the corner. Apart from the odd yap at the parrot, Inko was actually really good and most of the time just watched the parrot climbing around her cage and swinging on her swing bar in the middle! Even when the door was opened up to put a bowl at the bottom for the parrot to have a bath and it was left open Inko was still very well behaved!

The bell

And finally, I thought I'd give a quick update on how Inko is getting on with the bell to go out to the garden - I think she's finally cracked it!! She now goes and sits by the bell whenever she needs to go out and if we haven't noticed she then starts nudging the bell! It is one of those ones like you have on a reception desk at a hotel. She doesn't manage to get it to 'ding' every time, but it makes enough noise with her pushing at it with her paw or her nose that we turn and notice her waiting there! What a clever girl!! However, she has learnt that ringing the bell gets her out in the garden....this means she rings it if she wants a potter and a dig, as well as if she actually needs to go to the loo!! We had been so keen for her to learn it that whenever she pushed it we'd take her out so that she made the association with going out. We are now trying to wait a bit longer before letting her out, whilst keeping an eye on her body language so we quickly take her out if she clearly looks like she needs a wee or poo. This way, if she is just ringing it because she fancies a play outside she generally gives up sitting by the bell after a short while and and wanders back to the room. But if she really needs to go out she will stay there and usually try nudging or ringing it again. People seemed very impressed with this at my party! It's very cute :)

Boxes

2008-11-08T06:56:00.003Z

Yesterday, in a very uncharacteristic moment of tidiness I decided to sort out a 'toy box' for Inko to stop the rooms looking like a bomb had hit them every moment of the day (knowing in reality that this would never really last with untidy people like me and Adam, and a lappy!). So I hunted out an old cardboard box and popped all her toys in there. All was nice and neat until Inko came out of her den area where she is kept when we're at work. She then proceeded to start systematically removing the toys until she realised it was much quicker to tip it on the side and half get in the box to remove them all!!

Once they were all out she found that actually this new square thing that had been introduced to the room, which had been keeping her toys prisoner, was actually even more exciting than the toys!! So she spent ages last night 'killing' the box!! I managed to get a video of her having so much fun, half in the box most of the time!! It's a bit dark, but the darkness seems to have shown up the devil in our little lappy - notice her normally beautiful brown eyes looking bright red eyes whenever she looks to the camera!! Explains her hooligan behaviour!! You can even catch her red eyes peeping through the hole she has created in the bottom of the box at one point!!

I knew there was a devil in this dog!!!

Think she really enjoyed having a good chew as she definitely seems to be getting to a teething age now - she is extremely 'bite-y' at the moment and we can't walk her to the garden for a wee without nearly losing a toe, despite many efforts at distraction - this lappy is not phased by any loud noise - even the magic red can of Pet Corrector - or by having water sprayed at her! Just have to hope her sharp needle teeth start falling out soon!! She's also started trying to chew our hands and arms quite a lot when we're sat here. She pushes right to the back of her mouth so I think her gums must be sore at the back. She was doing this with the box too - pushing the cardboard right to the back. Have been trying to give her lots of decent chewing toys to try and help (although they appear not to be as fun as hand/arm/toe/ankle/box). Have also been giving her ice cubes regularly which she has been chewing and sucking - think they must be nice and soothing so need to make sure we have a regular supply in the freezer.

We have a busy weekend ahead of dog walks with friends (canine and human), a puppy party, and lots of training for Inko's assessment at puppy class next Wednesday - really want her to pass and get her KC Puppy Foundation certificate!!

Visiting lappies, chewing and moles

2008-11-04T07:13:00.004Z

We all had a lovely visit to Liphook at the weekend to meet up with some of the lappy lot who were camping there and Inko had a fantastic time on the lovely walk that we had, running round with all the lappies and with Toni's border collie. Thanks loads to Steve and Shelley for the cups of coffee and for letting Inko explore inside your caravan!!

Inko decided to do a bit of decorating while we were at work today. She had been fine all morning and had a lovely play for nearly an hour with my mum and dad at lunch but she must have got a bit bored in the afternoon. We have a wooden radiator cover in her area which is a bit tatty so we weren't going to be too concerned if she nibbled the edges - but it would appear that Inko thinks edges are no fun, and she went for shredding the front of it instead! Guess we must have jinxed things by telling Shelley that we've been lucky so far with Inko not chewing very much of our stuff!!

Last night we went out for a walk to a local meadow that runs alongside a river which is just down the road from us which we often go to. We decided to walk across one of the big fields and Inko started going mad, barking and pouncing at the ground - using the torch (as it was rather dark), we scanned around and noticed lots of mole hills - don't know whether she could hear the moles or smell them, but she definitely seemed to know there was something down there!!

Clocks, snow, and walking to heel

2008-10-30T06:38:00.008Z

Clocks going back

It is now the 5th morning since the clocks went back and I am yet to be successful in my bid to persuade Inko that she needs to stay in her crate a bit longer in the morning because her body clock is still clearly on British Summer Time? Unfortunately my body clock has now adjusted to the new time so each day the pre-6am starts feel earlier so I feel it's more of a strain getting up (on Sunday and Monday it wasn't too bad as it still felt like BST to me too!). As I still hadn't fully adjusted to getting up some time between 6 and 6.45, this is even more painful!! Although it does give me plenty of time to write this update before I even need to think about getting ready for work!

"I like snow!"

On Tuesday evening we got snow!! Inko seemed to quite like it, trying to eat lumps of it off the ground (she must have thought it was great - liking having one big ice cube to play with!!). Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a decent photo of her outside as it was coming down because I only had my phone camera with me and despite it being a reasonably good camera for one on a phone it was just too dark to get a good pic without a decent camera. I did, however get this picture of her looking like she had rather a bad case of dandruff when we finally got her in!!

On Wednesday morning much of the snow was still on the ground but it had turned rather icy over night so Inko had the very strange experience of the ground crunching under her feet so it was quite slow walk around initially until she got used to it...she quickly discovered that this weird new crunchy stuff also tasted like ice cube so had fun eating some more!! She was rather confused when she wandered over to the lid of her sand pit to have her usual drink out of the swirly grooves in the top which collect rain water (which she likes to use as a nice outdoor drink bowl!) to find that the grooves has disappeared and had been replaced by more cold stuff - rather like a long swirly ice cube!! So she had a lick!

Training update

I was very pleased with Inko's 'stays' last night at training class even with all the distractions of the other dogs who, despite her reluctance to interact with them in the first couple of weeks, are now great fun to play with she thinks!

Our main issue now is walking to heel, or even just consistent loose lease walking - we need to be much better at investing more time in this than we have...we've been too lazy and not always doing as instructed, such as changing direction or stopping every time she pulls. She's quickly learning to walk how she wants, not how we want! We need to get this right, or at least vastly improved on what we've got now if we are going to get the KC puppy foundation certificate at the end of the training class. It would be such a shame not to get this when her other stuff is coming along so well.

I have found that on some walks having a small amount of food in my left hand while walking along helps keep her pretty close to me as long as I am regularly giving her the treats along the way so that she doesn't feel like she's just being teased. I find that when I have done that for bit she will walk with just my left had down at my side without a treat for a little while too so I need to make sure we do more of that, as this seems to show that she is starting to work out that my hand at the side and walking near it is a good thing. Other times she pulls either to the front or occasionally to the back, or weaves in front of me or behind me, nearly tripping me up on occasions. And then other times, when she's really not up for doing as she's told she just won't walk without jumping, barking and chewing at my ankles. I've tried pulling her away with the lead but this is tricky if I want her walking on my left and have the lead in my right so that I can have the treat in my left hand! All very confusing!

I'm wondering whether she is doing this is she needs to go to the loo when she's out. She's really reluctant to poo or wee when out on a walk around the roads. She'll do both fine when off lead (or on lead for that matter) when out in a field or woods as grass is definitely her preferred place to go. I've started taking her out for a short walk up the road as soon as I get her out of her crate so that I know it's a time she'll be desperate to go. I've managed to get her to do a wee on the pavement (well actually in the gutter each time so far - she just steps off the kerb to wee!) but still haven't manage to get her to do a poo. It's after the wee that she actually starts her jumping and nipping. I always take her into the garden when we get back and she usually then does her poo, which does suggest to me that maybe that's a big issue here. Just don't know how to make her do it outside. It's hard to just stand around to allow time for her to give in and just do it on the pavement when she's yapping and barking because I'm not sure it'll endear me to the neighbours having her do that at 5.30am!!!

Paula

New fave snoozing spot

2008-10-26T17:15:00.005Z

Inko has discovered that a very comfy place to snooze is on top of the cushions of the sofa!

You will have to forgive the utter un-tidiness of our lounge which is revealed in this shot below, but as you can see, she's happy to be sat up on top of the cushions on either sofa!!

Both Inks and I spent quite a bit of time curled up on here this afternoon having a nap after a great walk this morning with some friends, two sprocker spaniels and a labrador! She had sooo much fun running round with the other dogs - she can definitely hold her own with the bigger dogs now - no fear whatsoever!! She had a great time running, or should I say bouncing, though some tall ferns - you could just see this ball of black, white and tan fluff jumping up out of the ferns ever now and then!!

It was somewhat damp this on the walk this morning so I came back with a punk, spiky lappy puppy!! Soon sorted that out with Inko's first experience of the hairdryer!! She was a bit wary at first but soon seemed to get used to it and actually quite enjoyed it on her back (though was less keen when I tried to dry the front of her chest - don't think she liked it blowing in her face!) - soon had a nice dry and fluffy lappy again!!

Sorry...have been very lazy with updates!!

2008-10-24T19:32:00.007+01:00

Inko is thoroughly enjoying getting her daily walks now she's had both her jabs. She's been out and about on and off lead and is doing really well with both. She met a Newfoundland the other day but, despite him really wanting to play, she was a bit wary. However she had a great time playing with our friend's sprocker spaniel and our other friend's labrador. She also had an absolutely fantastic time on the lappy walk - it was so hard to keep hold of her to stop her walking - I reckon she'd have kept going for hours if I let her!

She's also still enjoying her training...although 'stay' has definitely been the hardest command so far!! She managed it a few times in the class but something that involves staying still was never going to be Little Miss Inko's best training performance!! Having said that she actually did some VERY good stays this evening...possibly aided by the lack of distractions here at home! So there's hope yet!

Here's a few new photos of the hooligan!

"Yes, this is still my favourite bush in the garden!!"

Inko caught mid-woof!!

"Ok, I'm sitting...can I have the bit of chicken now?

Inko - where's your body gone?!

Cows and helicoptors

2008-10-18T07:08:00.002+01:00

We took Inko for a walk down by the Blackwater river a couple of evenings ago. It was a chance to do our first bit of off lead practice as it's a really nice big expanse of meadow (it is a flood plain for the river so a nice big space). We weren't brave enough to have her fully off lead the first time so clipped a 5 metre lead onto her collar and let it trail on the ground while she was wandering around so we could easily step on the end if we had to go after her.

In part of the meadow we had to pop her on the shorter lead again as one section is used as grazing for a few cows! Inko spotted them from a way back and stood staring at them woofing quietly half under her breath - not sure she was quite sure what to make of them!! When we walked past them she was really good and apart from a small amount of tugging on the lead at one point she was very good. Unfortunately, having cows, also meant there was cow poo everywhere and, like all lappys who have gone before her, Inko seemed to think this was quite the delicacy and we spent quite a bit of time pulling her away from the piles so she didn't eat them!!

As we were walking back towards the car we noticed up on the road ahead that it looked like rather a nasty accident had taken place. There were lots of cars stopped and several police cars and an ambulance. The next thing we knew, an air ambulance was landing in the field that we were just walking out of. We thought that this might startle Inko a bit as it was very noisy and there was lots of dust being blown about but she didn't seem even the littlest bit phased by it, which was good, and she just continued pottering around on her lead sniffing interesting things on the floor. Unfortunately we very sadly found out on the local news later that the air ambulance hadn't been able to help - a man on his motorbike had been killed when he rode into the back of a car :(

We are very much looking forward to the lappy walk up near Bath tomorrow morning - it will be great for us, and Inko, to catch up with loads of lappys, especially as it's going to be somewhat of a litter reunion!!

2008-10-15T20:28:00.003+01:00

Inko has been having a good week so far.

She's putting on weight really well which is good - weighed her yesterday and she'd gone up from 4.8kg last Thursday to 6.4kg!! No wonder she's feeling so much heavier when we pick her up!!

She's also been getting good at having longer and longer on her own which is such a relief for when we are both back at work in a week and half so that I know she'll be happy after we leave her until I get back at lunch to see her.

Adam has been doing lots of training with her whilst he's been off work the last few days - practising 'watch', 'sit', 'down', 'stand', 'paw' and 'come' and she's doing really well with these...although 'come' could still do with some improvement as it falls on somewhat deaf ears if there is anything even marginally interesting around!! LOL!! We had a chance to show off her progress at training this evening - she did all perfectly!! The new things we learnt at training this evening were some of the basics around walking to heel. She did really well, even with the distraction of the other puppies (who she took much more interest in this week than last week which was really good to see considering her slight hesitance last week).

She's also been good with letting us brush her, check her teeth, handle her ears, face and feet, and she has also started having her teeth cleaned every few days. We are using a small child's toothbrush and poultry flavoured dog toothpaste. She seems to enjoy it. I don't know if I'm doing it right or not but I'm kind of just rubbing it around a bit while she has a bit of a chew!! Reckon it's doing the job reasonably ok! Managed to get a quick video of a toothbrushing session!

Puppy Parties & Re-unions

2008-10-13T20:48:00.005+01:00

In a bid to try and keep up the all important socialisation we decided to go to a puppy party organised by the people who run the training we go to. So on Sunday morning we headed to the village hall hoping that Inko would relish the chance to play with other puppies.

The guys that ran the party were really good and didn't just let the pups run around like hooligans, we did alot of introductions on leads and they talked to us about the responsibilities we have as dog owners, not only to look after our little bundles of joy, but also to ensure they are properly socialised.

There were six pups in total; A 22-month St Bernard (Benny), who towered above all the others, but still had an awful lot more growing to do! A beautiful 14 week old West Highland Terrier (Flora), a complete nutter of a 16 week old Cocker Spaniel (Chester), an incredibly tiny, but amazingly confident Pug cross (Wellington), the trainer's Czechoslovakian Wolf Dog (Maya) and our little Inko.

Inko wasn't scared of any of them, which is good, but she also wasn't really interested in playing. She was more than happy exploring the hall on her own, sqeezing through tiny gaps between chairs as she likes to do! By the end of the session she had decided that now was the time to play and proceeded to introduce everyone there to the Lapphund's unique bark!! She spent the last 5 minutes barking at the others asking to be chased...maybe next time she might decide to play a little earlier.

At lunchtime we had Paula's sister Michelle over and she bought her boyfriend's 9 year old daughter Rhianna with her, Inko loved having her here and she was definately a big hit with Rhianna.

Later in the afternoon we went over to visit Liz, her family and her TabanyaRuu lappies and Zinty of course...not only did Inko get to meet Liz's Tuuka, Sisko, Smuu & Zinty, but Jennifer and Jay came over as they were visiting family and bought Inko's sister Maija with them. It was really great to see Jennifer and Jay, they live down in Devon, so we don't get to see them as much as we'd like.

It really was a houseful as Liz had a couple over who are beginning their search for their own Lappy, all I can say is good luck Rachel and partner (sorry, I forgot your name) they are definitely worth the wait!

Inko & Maija had the best time playing in Liz's garden, we really don't know how they kept going so long...

All in all it was a lovely afternoon spent in the sunshine, relaxing and chatting, it was also great to meet Liz's daughter Rell, if you haven't heard her sing, you really should!

Adam

Where's the off switch?!

2008-10-10T12:58:00.004+01:00

Wow...Inko had a lot of energy yesterday afternoon and evening!!

She has often had the normal puppy crazy half hours where she runs round like mad, but yesterday this lasted all afternoon and all evening, with maybe only a total of an hours peace in several hours of craziness!! We tried tiring her out with some training, playing with toys, and puppy ping pong, but none of it worked so we just had to keep a real eye on her as she was into everything!! We had visitors over last night to meet her and they were introduced to her full level of energy with her pouncing, running, woofing and chewing!! Luckily they still seemed to like her LOL!!

We thought she'd never settle in her crate last night, but actually she was very good and was very quiet and then when I woke at 6.30 this morning she still wasn't making a sound...I think she had completely tired herself out!!

She has been much calmer today! I went out and left her in her secure area for nearly three hours this morning while I did some shopping and she was completely settled in there when I came back, which is great.

Because she has been chewing so much I bought her a new spiky chew toy and a new bone to chew on while I was out shopping, which she seems to like. Guess she might be starting to teeth (? not sure what time this happens really). I also bought a football shaped cushion for her to play with! It's nearly as tall as she is but she has been having great fun dragging it round and shaking it!! Hopefully she'll be able to use up some of her excess energy on all her new toys, rather than on furniture and visitors LOL!! It seems to have worked so far as she is currently curled up quietly at my feet!

The vets

2008-10-09T10:45:00.002+01:00

Inko has just had her second jabs at the vets and was also micro-chipped. She squawked a bit when the huge micro-chip needle went in but soon seemed to forget about it! She has put on a reasonable amount of weight this week. She was 3.86kg last Monday and was 4.73kg today - can definitely feel it when picking her up!!

They said that it was time to worm her and I asked what worming tablets they were going to give me and I was pretty sure they were the ones that lappys can't have (milbemax). So I text Jennifer to check and she let me know the correct ones so I explained the potential issues to the vets and he gave me Drontal instead.

At the vets I bought a dog toothbrush and toothpaste. I have tried rubbing my fingers on her teeth when she is sleepy and she seems to have been ok with that so far (most of the time!) so will now have to see how she reacts to toothpaste too!!

Saying hello to people and puppies

2008-10-09T06:45:00.006+01:00

Yesterday afternoon Inko and I had our visit over to Reading University. The friend I was meeting up with completely fell in love with her and Inko was really good sitting in her office while we had a catch up. I had been a bit worried that she have an accident on the floor so went armed with cleaning products but she was really good. I took some of her toys with me and she sat on the floor playing with them. My friend also gave her a small penguin toy that had been sat in one of her filing cabinets for ages - Inko loved this!

Playing with the Penguin back at home - "I like my new penguin!"

When it looked like Inko needed a wee I took her downstairs and then we wandered around the department so she could meet lots of new people. She met several lecturers and support staff and also several students who were wandering around. She also met a lady with a toddler and a baby in a pushchair and very gently said hello to them. I was walking her around on her lead to continue getting her used to it and she was doing really well on it.

Then yesterday evening Inko, Adam and I went to our first puppy training class. She was the youngest one there but definitely not the smallest - that prize has to go to a teeny tiny 14 week old cavalier king charles spaniel, closely followed by a very small black and tan terrier of some sort! On the other extreme there was also a 5 month old german shepherd who was huge (with a very big woof!)!! We covered 'watch' (getting her to look up at our face when we say the word and gesture upwards), 'sit', 'down' and 'stand'. Most of the time she did all of these fine, although she was definitely tiring towards the end of the course. Next week may be tougher as it is going to be some heel work - not her strength at the moment, but something we really want to work on as we don't want to have a dog that is dragging us down the road.

Inko did not seem overly keen to go over to see the other dogs, but she didn't seem particularly nervous - she was just lying down by our feet. It was almost as if she just wasn't really interested. We are really hoping that it is not that she is nervous of other dogs. As we were finishing up at the end she wandered nearer a couple of the dogs and had a bit of a sniff. Hopefully the puppy party we're going to on Sunday will help increase her liking of other dogs, and we'll also probably have another visit over to see our friends with Sammy, the sprocker spaniel this weekend to see if they will have a play this time. We really want a dog who is happy and comfortable around other dogs so if anyone can give any tips on what else we could try that'd be great - thanks.

This morning Inko is going to the vets for her second injection and to be micro chipped. I'll be interested to see what she weighs now as she definitely feels bigger and heavier and she's been eating well. Not sure she's going to be fitting under the sofa much longer - she'll be gutted because she loves sleeping under there at the moment! Will report back on the weigh in later!

Inko in one of her angellic moments...normally followed by running round chewing things she shouldn't be chewing! LOL

One of the things that Inko has started doing, which I know she shouldn't be doing, is climbing. When we first got her she thought she loved crawling along on her belly under small spaces and squeezing through small gaps - she would choose a tight gap over the normal route any time. She still likes this but as there seem to be slightly fewer places she can fit now, she has now taken to trying to climb on things too. This morning I turned my back for a second and when I turned back she had climbed on top of a filing box we have behind one of our sofas and her paws and head were suddenly peeping up over the top of the sofa where she was standing up on the box on her back legs!! As she discovers each of these things to climb on I'm trying to move them so that she can't get on them (our upstairs is going to get very full of things as that is one place she isn't allowed and can't get too because of a stair gate - although that doesn't stop her trying!!).

Two things that we can't move are the sofas, and she has started running at them at full speed and trying to jump on them - she can launch herself with quite a bit of force. She can't get up yet but I'm very aware of the fact that the jumping can't be good for her legs. I guess maybe this may be our fault as we do allow her up on the sofa but we have deliberately only been lifting her up to join us when she is sitting calmly in front of us, and not jumping up...but maybe she doesn't understand this distinction. We have consistently been using the word 'off', pushing her down, and then trying to distract her with one of her toys if she is jumping up (I think our neighbours must be sick of hearing this is they can hear it through the walls!! LOL) but I think this command is going to take quite a while to learn - she's definitely not got it yet - or maybe she understands and chooses not to follow it LOL!! We will keep persisting but any tips gratefully received in the meantime!!

Digging sand

2008-10-08T11:23:00.007+01:00

Got my delivery of play sand this morning and the weird, slightly scary plastic box in the garden suddenly didn't seem so scary!! After helping me put the sand in (mostly by standing on it and poking her nose in it!! LOL) Inko then proceeded to have great fun digging in there!! See video below.

I can see me having to keep buying more sand, and our garden gradually becoming a beach, because there was sand flying everywhere!! We have a nice pile starting to form on our decking next to the sand pit.

Nice collection of sand on the decking!!

So that I could get her back in the house, and to prevent to local cats thinking they'd got an exciting new litter tray to use, I popped the lid on, and Inko then thought she had a great new vantage point on which to stand to survey the garden!!!

I'm the queen of the castle!

I also took delivery of two new door mats this morning so that I can try and keep the door ways a bit drier after all the trips out to the garden. You will notice that Inko can obviously read the note on the mat to 'wipe your paws' - unfortunately she also took that to mean 'and also eat the mat'!! LOL. See video below.

"There must be some treasure buried in here somewhere!!"

"What do you mean, 'leave'? If you look very closely, mum, it says in very small writing that I should also chew the mat...honest!"

I'm going to be taking Inko over to Reading University later. I did my degree there and then worked there for a bit so I'm going to go over and meet up with someone I used to work with for a chat and a coffee and Inko is going to come along too. I'm sure that the students will like having a puppy to say hello to so will be a good chance for some more socialising.

Inko is also going to her first puppy training clas this evening! Let's hope she remembers the commands we've been working on! It's also going to be another good chance for her to meet other people and other dogs - think she's going to enjoy having a bit of a run around!

Meeting Blue

2008-10-06T06:58:00.002+01:00

Inko went over to meet Adam's dad and his dad's girlfriend yesterday afternoon, and also got to meet their 10 year old border collie, Blue. We had been keen for Blue to be one of the first dogs that Inko met because he is very calm and gentle. Inko was a little wary at first but seemed to settle down pretty quickly really and was soon running around trying to invite Blue to play by bowing down and barking. Unfortunately for Inko, Blue was feeling a bit tired and achy yesterday (he's got problems with his joints) so didn't really feel like playing, but it was good to see that Inko was happy to get really close to him, and clearly felt comfortable enough to want to play. She even showed off by showing some of the stuff she's been doing in our training. She seemed to take a bit of a liking to sitting on the shelf of Adam's dad's coffee table! She also thought that the Tesco Direct catalogue looked rather tasty!!

I'm off to pick up a sand pit for her today for the garden, to try and prevent her from digging up the flowerbeds. Managed to get it free from freecycle - can't complain about that! It's a 45 minutes drive to the lady who is giving it to me so it's a good opportunity to do more 'leave on own' training!

Frozen peas

2008-10-05T13:24:00.004+01:00

Forgot to say on the last post that Inko has discovered a most exciting new training treat - frozen peas! She thinks they are fantastic!!

Here's a quick video of her doing some of her clicker training...with peas!!

Next thing we are going to try and do, having got the idea from Nik, is to buy a bell to try and get Inko to ring it when she needs to go outside to the garden.

Meeting a dog

2008-10-05T11:21:00.003+01:00

Yesterday afternoon we decided to take Inko over to our friend's house so she could meet their sprocker spaniel (cocker spaniel crossed with springer spaniel), Sammy. He was very excited to have a visitor and Inko was a little bit wary so we decided to keep Sammy on a lead for a bit while Inko explored the garden and settled in. She wandered over near him quite a few times and was very soon wandering around with her tail up and seeming fairly happy but she wouldn't go right up to him. Whenever she got too close and he tried to get nearer to her she took a bit of a step back. Sammy is only quite young himself (about 9 months old) so gets very excited by visitors, and we didn't want to risk him getting rough with her when playing - he's a lovely friendly dog but as he's so much bigger than Inko we didn't want things to get too boistrous for her.

As we didn't want to risk her getting frightened during her first experience with another dog we decided not to push it today and kept Sammy on the lead the whole time. Inko's confidence was definitely improving as the visit went on so hopefully next time we go and visit she'll be much happier with things and we can let Sammy off the lead so that they can have a proper play.

Inko and Sammy in the garden - she got a bit closer to him than this, but only for a few seconds before wandering off again!

When we got back from visiting Sammy she fell asleep for ages! Think all the excitement must have tired her out! Unfortunately this meant that she was completely hyper last night!! We had a couple of friends over to visit her and to have some drinks and a take-away and Inko was running round like a hooligan! We just couldn't believe quite how much energy she had!! In a bid to try and calm her down I ended up holding her to my chest, so that her back was to me and her tummy was up, and kept rubbing her tummy and stroking her head until she stopped wriggling. She kicked up a bit of a fuss for a while but once she stopped wriggling and I put her down she had completely calmed down out of her hyper phase...so much so that she finally curled up at our feet and went to sleep! We could finally eat out dinner! While she was asleep I gave her a good brush and comb through (to neaten up her fur after days of running through plants!) - so much easier when she's sleepy and isn't thinking it's a great game!! Luckily her hyper energy didn't extend into the night and she went straight to bed when we popped her into her crate and she slept through till 6.30.

We are taking Inko over to see Adam's dad this afternoon and she will get to meet his border collie, Blue. Blue is about 10 years old and is a lovely well behaved dog who is likely to be very gentle with her so she'll get to properly interact with him. He is used to having very small children round playing (Adam's step nephews) so should be an ideal adult dog for Inko to meet. Will let you know how we get on.

We have also booked Inko in for a puppy party on 12th October where she will get to meet lots more dogs. Think she'll enjoy having lots of other little puppies to run around with.

We've had a chat with the puppy training class we've found and our vet and they've both agreed that Inko can start her puppy training the day before her second jab when the next puppy class starts. We are really keen to get her started as soon as possible as it will help with her socialisation, and she really seems to enjoy the clicker training we've been doing at home so should really like going to the class. We go on Wednesday evening next week! Hopefully she will do all the things she's been learning during her training here at home!

Visiting HuDaddy at work!

2008-10-04T07:08:00.004+01:00

Yesterday afternoon I took Inko to meet some of my work colleagues and she was a big hit! We stood in the foyer at work and some of my team came down to meet her and as it was the entrance to the building, she also met several other people who were walking past who stopped to have a stroke!!

Then we went over to Adam's work to see him and his work colleagues! Inko was actually allowed into the office here which she thought was great fun! She was on her lead and had a good wander round all the desks!! She met lots of people here too, and was once again a big hit!!
On both visits I went armed with cleaning spray, kitchen towel and poo bags, as was worried she may have an accident, but she was good as gold!!

When Adam got home from work we had a game of puppy ping pong in the garden with Inko to try and work on her recall! She thought this was a fantastic game!! Hopefully if we keep doing this regularly she'll get better at coming when she's called and not just when there is nothing more interesting to look at or chew!!

Lat night, on the final garden trip before bed, I saw that Inko had picked something up (as she does most minutes! LOL) so I went to remove it from her mouth as she looked particularly pleased with herself which is usually a sign it is something she shouldn't have!! It was a piece of poo!! Urgh - not a nice thing to have to pull out of a dog's mouth with your fingers!! I must have missed a bit while cleaning up after her during the day, or perhaps she found some that a cat had buried in the garden! Let's hope she doesn't make a habit of that!!!!

She didn't get up till 6.30 this morning!! Most impressive! I was actually awake before she was and wondering why she wasn't up yet! She actually only woke up when someone next door walked down their stairs, as you can hear the sound of the stairs through the wall!! She can keep that habit!!

Inko sitting on the bottom of our computer desk!

Inko having a snooze!! ....yes, we're letting her on the sofa :)

Meeting people, ice cubes and digging

2008-10-03T10:53:00.005+01:00

Yesterday morning, Inko was very good at being left on her own while I popped out for half an hour or so to go round to my mum and dad's to collect the new dog guard I'd ordered for the car - looked very relaxed when I came back.

Inko had some more visitors to the house yesterday. My Nan and step-grandfather came over to visit for a few hours in the morning and she was very good - even showing them her 'sit', 'down', and 'stand'.

I decided to take her out for a wander in my arms yesterday afternoon to try and meet strangers who would be willing to say hello and to give her more exposure to the noises of the world. She heard a train go under the railway bridge, lorries and cars went past, people went past on motorbikes and push bikes, and a car beeped it's horn! Took it all in her stride. I then decided to call the chiropractors which is near our house, which Adam and I have both been to so they know us there, to see if they'd mind having a puppy visitor!! They were very excited by the idea! We went in and met two receptionists who each had a cuddle, 3 patients who had a cuddle, and then one of the receptionists took her upstairs to see one of the chiropractors!! We've been told we're welcome back any time!!

Then when we got back we did a bit more clicker training (inspired by Nik's very impressive video!). I have managed to get her to sit when I am standing and cross my arms and I am getting there with 'paw'. She had great fun showing these off yesterday evening when my sister and a friend came over to see her. She even sat for my sister on request! I have decided to try and get her to sit before we go through doors so that she doesn't bolt through like a crazy thing - she seems to be getting the hang of that. I feel rather silly wandering round everywhere with my coachies treat bag attached to my jeans!!

She also had her first ice cube today and really enjoyed it. Thought it was great fun

"I quite like this weird little cold thing...it's shrinking...what's going on?!"

Something Inko has also discovered is digging!! Took a video, but from now on it's a case of me trying to discourage this!! Not really something I want her to think she's allowed to do - any tips anyone?! ~(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LrCTxH7DX5U) - have decided to put my bigger videos on youtube to free up storage on my blog.

Tried to follow Jo's lead with the nail clipping yesterday and we weren't quite as successful - think we timed it wrong as she started waking up - got half of one foot done!! Will try again tonight!!

This morning she slept in till 6.10 so not too bad really and was her usual manic self for about an hour and a half - she has soooo much energy in the morning!! I have found that she seems to like doing a bit of training in the morning - good way to get her to eat some of her breakfast in her excitement as she will sometimes train for kibble. I noticed lots of people walking past outside on the school run so decided to take her out to see if she could get some more cuddles. She met quite a few adults, and also lots of children and was very well behaved. She also heard a very loud car alarm this morning and didn't flinch.

When we got back I popped her into her crate and headed upstairs for two hours as part of her 'being left alone' training and she was such a good girl!! I took this as a good opportunity to catch up on some sleep and had a nap!! I think all the excitement of going out and meeting people tired her out! ....and me it would appear!!

Difficult start..but got better

2008-10-02T06:48:00.007+01:00

Yesterday morning was quite hard, not helped ny having been woken up at 3.50 (see previous posting!!). I decided to start the 'leaving alone process' when I went upstairs to get myself showered and ready for the day. Inko was shut into her crate (her one in the lounge, not the one she goes in at night, as she'd already wandered in there). I headed upstairs and she howled! She kept howling and barking and just wouldn't stop. I didn't want to give in because it is so important that she learns to enjoy time on her own if Adam and I are both going to be out at work. She kept going for an hour!! After she had been quiet for a bit I started making my way down. She then started again so I stopped where I was on the stairs until there was a temporary pause in barking and when there was I quickly came down and let her out. I felt awful because she had got herself so keyed up that she had sicked up the scrambled eggs she'd had for breakfast and had split the water from her bowl all over the crate. I let her outside and felt quite stressed because I just didn't know how to get her to not howl when on her own. She also wouldn't stop whining at me - she just seemed to want constant attention or would whine, and that is definitely not something I wanted to encourage!! She was most definitely being Little Miss Sod yesterday morning!! LOL! I text Jennifer, Jo and Adam and got lovely supportive texts off each of them, and some good tips from Jennifer - thank you :)

After a bit of playing with Inko I remembered that I had bought a DAP collar for her before we got her but had never put it on. I thought it can't hurt, and may actually help with this so I popped it on. After a little bit she went into her enclosed area (of her own accord) and whilst she didn't actually go into her crate she curled up next to it on the edge of the sheet that covers it. I decided to try shutting the gate on the enclosed area - something she had normally squawked at, and there wasn't a peep from her. I managed to sit upstairs for quite a while being quiet in the hope she wouldn't know I was there, and there still wasn't a peep from her! Yay!!

I realised that I wouldn't be able to do much actual getting out of the house today because my dad was coming over to fix our broken radiator and to drain the whole system and bleed all the radiators - my dad is fab! He's really good at helping me and my sisters out whenever we need it! So I decided that it would have to be isolation in the enclosed area/crate while I was in the house but well out of the way. We did this in blocks (up to about 30 mins at a time, possibly up to an hour at one point) and she seemed not to fuss at all. I admit that I was only shutting her in the main enclosure area rather than right in her crate, but as this is where we will be shutting her when we are out at work I figured this would be ok. Each time she settled straight down and went to sleep or played quietly with the toys I'd put in there that were safe for her to be left with - such a relief!! I don't know whether it was the DAP collar or just that I had won the battle with the crate earlier and she had learnt that whining doesn't get you out. I don't know...but I hope it continues!

"What? I'm just helping my HuGrandad with fixing the radiator!"

Once my dad had finished the radiators I decided to do a full 'leave alone' and go out of the house as I needed to do some shopping. I popped her into her enclosed area and she settled straight down on the sheet to sleep. I then headed out the door and was probably out for about 30 minutes. When I came back I peeped through the window, which would pretty much be out of her eye line as it is across the other side of the room and she wasn't pacing around or trying to get out or anything, and more importantly I couldn't hear any woofing or howling! When I came through the door I could see that she was still asleep in the same position as before!! Bless her!

Sleeping like a little angel...finally!!

Another thing we spent much of yesterday doing was some clicker training. I had managed to get her to do 'sit' on command a few days ago (with or without a treat now) and had also been working on 'down'. Today I added 'sit' (from the down position) and 'stand' - she seems to be doing really well with all of these. She has been doing them in the house and in the garden and when she's at full attention levels she does all of them excellently!! Very pleased with that. I can see when she starts getting tired with it though because it becomes a little messier with what she does so then I give it a break. We'll be doing some more work on this today. Will try and get a video when Adam is back from work later.

Last night we popped her to bed at 10pm (after much playing and some clicker training to tire her out) and she went straight to sleep (locked in her crate, not just in her enclosed area) and she didn't wake up till 6.10!! Woo hoo!!

Inko...come!

2008-10-01T11:29:00.005+01:00

I'd be lying if I said she came this easily every time I called her in the garden (LOL) but here's a quick shot of Inko doing as she is told...and very enthusiastically!!

If you listen with the sound on you'll see how she comes when I call her - before that there is a bit of her favourite game of pouncing through plants :)

3.50am!!!!

2008-10-01T07:04:00.002+01:00

I should start with a bit of praise...last night we put Inko to bed and there was pretty much no peep from her. A couple of teeny tiny woofs a couple of minutes after we went upstairs but nothing more than that. It was actually quite disconcerting having her be so quiet! Not that I am in any way complaining - let's hope she keeps that up. I started wondering whether maybe we have cracked the sleep thing.........but then........

.......We got howling at 3.50am today!!! I think Inko could hear the bathroom door upstairs creaking as it was being moved by the wind through the open window, as I have to admit that it woke me too. Before she started making a noise I had crept as quietly as I could to pin the bathroom door open with a book n(as it creaks more to pull the handle down to shut it!) and crept back to bed. Only about 2 minutes later, Inko started making a noise - quite a big noise!! Even though I knew the neighbours would probably be cursing me (I was cursing myself!) I left her to it! I didn't want to risk rewarding being awake at that time of night! She kept going for about 30 minutes!!!!

Once she finally settled we managed to finally get back to sleep. I woke up again at 6.30 and she didn't seem to have stirred yet. As this is the time we'll ideally be wanting to take her out for a walk before work in the future when she's had her jabs, I walked downstairs pre-barking to let her out. I thought this might also help to show her that she doesn't have to be barking to be let out in the morning!

She is now sat on her blue bit of vet bed in the lounge eating last night's Markie!! She seems to do that every morning - doesn't eat it at night when we give it to her, but saves it for the morning!!

I am going to be doing a lot of leaving her on her own today to start really getting her used to it for when we are both at work - I feel I may get a lot of complaining from her at first! I had done a little bit yesterday but I really haven't been doing this enough. If I can manage to get this cracked I'm sure things will be much easier - have a feeling it may be easier said than done - wish me luck!!

Will report back later on how we get on!

Paula

Playing under the sofa

2008-09-30T12:20:00.003+01:00

One of Inko's favourite games at the moment, which she won't be small enough to play much longer, is crawling under the sofa, having a scout round for anything of interest (usually finds a stray bit of kibble) and then crawling out again. I just managed to get a video of it so thought I'd post it on here!

Paula

Settling in

2008-09-30T09:03:00.001+01:00

On Monday morning we had yet another 5.30am wake up call from Little Miss Inko which is not a nice time to wake up!! It's difficult to get her to be quiet enough before opening up the crate door so she learns that she doesn't get let out when she's making a fuss. It was pretty much a case of waiting till she paused to take a breath and then quickly whipping the door open while there was temporarily no noise!!

On Monday morning Inko had her first visits to the vets for a puppy check-up and to have her first jabs. To try and get her used to her lead I popped this on to go out, even though she would be carried. I then took it off as I put her in her car crate so she gets used to that too. She was an angel once again in the car not making a sound all the way there while sat in her crate. When we got there I popped her lead back on and then when I picked her up and got out the car to go into the vets she didn't make a fuss but I think she was a bit anxious because I could feel her snuggling in tight in my arms. She was a big hit with the receptionists who made a nice fuss of her over the counter.

The vet seemed to be a fan too and had a good cuddle. She was so well behaved in there, not making a fuss at all when being checked over - the vet was really pleased with her condition. Then he weighed her - 3.8kg. She thought the weighing scales were quite a nice toy to chew and when she was taken off of them she lay down looking very sweet and innocent, sneakily chewing the side of the scales with the corner of her mouth!!! When she had her jab she didn't even flinch - such a brave girl! She was going to be micro chipped as well, but the vet said he prefers to do this on the second visit so that the puppy's first visit to the vets isn't a frightening experience because of a big scary needle.

When I got back from the vets I decided to set up our spare dog crate in the lounge next to the sofa so that I can pop her away to sleep during the day near to where I am and mix between near me, and away from me in her main crate. This way I can also quickly pop her away as soon as she falls asleep and then can have a quick snooze on the sofa myself!!

During the day yesterday my mum and dad came over to have another visit and so did my sister, Michelle. Inko had a great time being made a fuss of! When they had gone, and Inko was fast asleep in her crate, I decided to take my first trip out to leave her on her own for a bit. I needed to pop just down the road to pick up a prescription from the doctors so I thought that would be a good opportunity to give it a go. I felt really stressed the whole time I was out!! I was probably only out for about 15 minutes but I was worrying about her the whole time!! Need to make sure I do more of that though so that she gets used to it...and I get used to it...for when I go back to work.

When I got back we went round for a visit to my sisters house and Inko had great fun exploring a new house! She is a huge fan of squeezing into small places, especially running behind sofas (as Jo and George will testify from our night at their house on Friday!). My sister and I spent much of the time trying to stop her going behind a sofa that had a couple of wires behind it -it's amazing how quickly she manages to run to get to places she knows she's not allowed!! Managed to miss her requests for a wee and she had an accident on the floor - quite hard to spot when she is just running and squawking from excitement and when she is doing that to get my attention! Most of the times I've managed to correctly spot it!!

On the way back I knocked on both of our neighbours doors on each side to introduce them to Inko and to apologise for the noise at night and in the morning at the moment (and bought them some chocolates as an appeasement gift!). They both loved Inko and said they hadn't really heard her...I have a feeling the people living in the house attached to ours must surely have been being polite when they said that as I don't know how it can't have travelled through the walls - for a small dog she has got a very powerful set of lungs!!

I had been worrying that she wasn't eating enough as she only seems to have been picking at her food so I got my sister to pick me up some pedigree chum puppy food pouches at the shops. I didn't have any biscuits mix to put with them so I put a few bits of her dried food in with it too. She thought this food was the most yummy thing in the world ever!! She scoffed it down, even quicker than she did the scrambled egg the other night! She even kept going back to the bowl to see whether there was any more in there!! Might do this for one meal a day.

Last night Adam made sure that for the 30-45 minutes before we wanted to go to bed we played with her loads to tire her out. When she started to look sleepy we quickly took her out and then popped her into her crate for the night. We had a fair bit of howling and barking (she has quite a repertoire of sounds!) that lasted for about 20 minutes or so and then she settled down - finally!!

6.15 wake up call this morning! Much more civilised - yay!!!!!!!!!

Paula

"What? I like sitting in the middle of plants!"

Do you like our new interior design look? - it's called puppy chic!

"Helloooo!"

"Look at me, all grown up with my ID badge!"

The first night

2008-09-28T21:06:00.000+01:00

At about 10pm last night all three of us were starting to look rather sleepy so Adam and I popped a tired looking Inko into her crate and headed upstairs. She whined and howled for no more than 3 minutes and then settled down - very good start!

Didn't hear a peep out of her all night until just after 5.30. I (Paula) dragged myself out of bed and headed downstairs, a little bleary-eyed, and was met by a very excited Inko! When she stopped yapping (briefly!) I whipped the door open quick so she could get out before she started again so that I wasn't rewarding yapping! She was soooo excited to see me, bless her - made the early start worth it!! I quickly led her out into the garden for a morning wee, as she hadn't been all night by the look of things in her crate. She seems to be getting the knack of how to get to the garden now and, more importantly, what she needs to do when she gets there! Glad it was dry, and glad I didn't stand on the slug on the decking!

I ummed and aahed about whether I should pop her back in her crate for a bit at this point and head back to bed or whether to stay up. In the end I curled up on the sofa in the hope that she might join me and we could have a snooze together with me knowing where she is (and not worrying that she is eating wires, furniture etc...!) Unfortunately she was quite awake at this point and thought that climbing all over me and trying to eat my hair was much for fun than lying still so I ended up popping her on the floor on the new vet bed mat we have in lounge!!

Today she has switched between being very sleepy and going quite crazy! She still likes playing with her toys on the blue mat in her enclosed area but she is also now playing with them on the vet bed 'mat' in our lounge! So she has spent much of today moving toys between the two!! She has been having a good explore of the garden and has been much braver doing that today, covering much more of it than she did yesterday. She also started pouncing through the flower beds - luckily our planting is somewhat untidy anyway so no damage to be done! She has discovered a real liking of leaves, mud, stones and especially sticks! We have been doing a lot of 'Inko, let's see what you've got there' today - good practice for opening her mouth as we must have done that about a hundred times today to remove various bits of garden!!

Another new favourite thing of hers that has started today is taking the manky bit of vet bed out of her crate and bringing it into the lounge...and then taking it back again...and then coming back to the lounge with it...and so on!! This, it would appear, is much fun!! This evening she took it one step further as she dragged the big bit of vet bed out of the crate that we had put in and doing the same with that! Very funny to see her dragging something that is easily twice as long as her around the room. I just hope she doesn't try and pull the big blue mat out of the enclosed area next!!! There's a short video at the bottom - sorry it's not great quality but I took it on my phone - notice how she stops for a quick snack before carrying - well this vet bed moving is hard work...she needs to keep her energy levels up!

We have started doing a little bit of training with her today, we've decided to use clicker training - we started by introducing her to the clicker and getting her used to the idea that a click means a treat or a cuddle so she knows when she's doing the right thing...Inko, it turns out, is a big fan of cheese! I even managed to get her sitting on command which she still seems to be doing (without cheese) so will have to see whether that knowledge has still been retained tomorrow.

She also had her first go with her lead on today - the first thing she did was grab hold of it and, of course, took it to her blue mat - problem was, because it was attached to her, it followed her when she left the mat! She seemed to think this was a great game so I quickly grabbed hold of the lead so she didn't eat it! She didn't seem to keen at first but then when I just wandered along with her, holding it very loosely, she seemed not to worry too much about it, although did turn round to bite it a couple of times. Will try and get her more used to it tomorrow.

After a bit of crazy running around and toy playing (on the mats of course!) she has now settled back down again.

Might have to wake her up shortly to tire her out really well before we head up to bed in the hope that she settles as quickly as she did last night, and in the hope she'll stay quiet slightly longer in the morning...if it's another 5.30 I think I might go back to bed tomorrow!

It's first vet trip tomorrow for first jabs and mircochipping - hope she doesn't hate me afterwards!!

Coming home!

2008-09-27T17:57:00.000+01:00

Inko and Tarkka had a pretty good night last night. Apart from a quick trip to the garden at 4.30 for a wee (thanks Jo for taking them out!), we didn't hear from them again until about 6.45. We all headed out into the garden and they had a fantastic time running around together, jumping on plants, and hunting for sticks!

After tiring Inko out sufficiently for the journey home, and ensuring she had 'done her business' so we didn't get accidents on the way back, we headed off on our trip back to Camberley at about 9am. We were pretty lucky with the traffic on the way back and managed to get back by about 12.30. Inko coped really well with the car journey - no accidents at all and she wasn't sick. We didn't hear a sound from her either which was great. She spent the time moving between the crate and Adam's lap.

Inko asleep on the way home

As soon as we arrived home we took Inko straight into her new garden and she went to the loo straight away - clever girl! We tried to give her lunch, but she was much more interested in exploring the house and garden and was happy to go into her crate for a look as soon as the manky bit of vet bed from her litter pen was put in there!

We have set up an enclosed area in our dining room that she can stay in when we are out and her crate is in there.

There is also a mat in there which she seems to have taken a particular liking to. As soon as she picks up any toy she runs over to the mat and lies on there while playing. She also lay on there and leant over the edge to eat her food when she finally decided she was hungry!

She has had five visitors already today (Paula's mum and dad, Paula's sister Michelle, and Paula's sister Jennie and her boyfriend John). Lots more people lined up over the next few days and weeks to make sure that her socialisation is getting off to a good start. She has gone down very well with them all - they all think she's fantastic!

We've been making sure that we take her out into the garden regularly and so far we've only had one accident in the house which is great. Let's hope things continue to go well in that department!

After spening a lot of time exploring, she is finally asleep and is curled up on the sofa with us at the moment looking very angelic! Have a feeling that this may not last - expecting some rather crazy running around before bed!!

Will report back tomorrow to let you know how her first night completely on her own goes!! Fingers crossed all will be peacefull!!

Picking up Inko!

2008-09-27T17:27:00.000+01:00

Having waited about 8 months since first deciding we wanted to get a lappy, we finally set off from Camberley for our trip down to Devon to pick up Inko yesterday at 3pm. The journey wasn't too bad until we hit the A303 near Stonehenge where there was the usual bottle-necking of traffic which slowed us down for an hour or so.

We finally got to Jennifer and Jay's house at about 7.30 and got to have a play with Inko and the other 3 remaining puppies! Jennifer was great and went through loads of tips to help us over the next few weeks. Both her and Jay have been fantastic over the last few months and we are both so grateful for the huge amount of work they have put in with bringing up our little Inko over the past 8 weeks. Of course none of this would have been possible without Neka and Keskiyö who have produced the most beautiful litter of puppies!!

Once we had our puppy pack (wouldn't recommend reading this hyperlink page if you are eating!) and had signed all the paperwork, we finally headed off with a lappy of our own!!! We headed off down to Plymouth to stay with Jo, George and Josh, and Inko's litter mate Tarkka. Inko and Tarkka had so much fun last night, running around like hooligans! Below are a couple of pictures we took once they had tired themselves out a little bit and actually stayed still enough to take them!

Here is Tarkka

And here is Inko having a well earned rest!

They settled nicely in their crate, and didn't make a noise as we all headed off for bed!!

Introduction

2008-09-27T17:20:00.000+01:00

We are Adam and Paula and this is our blog about living with our Finnish Lapphund, Infindigo Monta Aurinko - Inko for short! Infindigo is the Jennifer Simmons and Jay Henson's (the breeders) affix and kennel name. Monta was chosen by Jennifer as a 'middle name' for all the puppies - it means 'many' in Finnish. This was chosen because Inko was one of 9 puppies - the largest litter of lappys born in the UK to date. We chose the name Aurinko - Finnish for 'sun' - as they were born in the summer.

If you want to read about our adventures of getting to know the breed, join the Southern Finnish Lapphund Society and ask for a copy of their summer newsletter. If you want to read about Inko's story before we picked her up go to Jennifer's puppy blog.