I just love this pic so much!

Looks like they don't love me quite as much as I love them, right?
Looks like they don't love me quite as much as I love them, right?

Feels good :-)

This morning Orkan and I went out and did a tiny bit of double box training. Felt really good. I guess my tendency to over-handle is linked to knowing I'm being watched and critiqued, and therefore have more motivation to do everything absolutely right. It fealt a lot more smooth when I just had some fun :-)

I've also added another height option on my jumps. I used to have 60 cm for the large dogs, 45 for medium, 35 for small, and then 10 and 20 for jumping technique training. Orkan is jumping very nicely on 10 and 20 now, but the gap to 35 was too big, and he didn't jump that very pretty. Even knocked some bars... So today I added another on about 27, and the good news is that he didn't even seem to mind the extra height. So in some weeks I hope I can add an occasional bar on 35, and make the transition into good jumping style on full competiton height. That would feel awsome! Even though we probably won't compeet before 6 months at the earliest, height is an issue for a lot of dogs, and I would love to have it sorted!

As for the running contacts - there's too much to work on right now. I believe that shaping is a lot more efficient if you do it often, so my goal woud be to do the running contacts training intensively over a couple of weeks (maybe more), but to work on it at least three times a week to keep it fresh in both our minds. Since I don't have the time to do that right now, I'm postponing the whole project for a while...

Tomorrow is handling class day agian - jeg gleder meg! (can't really be translated directly, but means that I'm looking forward to it)

More handling...

Yesterday Lene and I did some agility training again. I spent some time on getting Orkan to keep up a straight line to a jump after a tunnel even when I'm a bit behind (throwing the toy), but our straight lines obviously still needs some work. Another thing that needs work is his response to a front cross or a threadle. He kept turning extremely wide in a front cross situation, even though both my positional cue, the front cross and the repetitive pattern of doing the same exercise several times should have gotten him tighter. I will spend some time on that with one jump, I think. Anyway - we have gotten some training on doing several obstacles with successively more speed and independece over this past week, and I can sense some progress. Look forward to see if we do a bit better on wednesday than last week :-D

One thing I've been twisting my mind about is that Lene thinks I'm over-cueing my blind cross body line (bcbl) by turning too much, or maybe too soon. I tried to do it more slowly (can be seen in the video below), but then I under-did it, which lead to Orkan stepping in towards me (which is absolutely correct since he had met the face of my bcbl and I hadn't kept moving it towards the jump. Then I accelererated the movement agian, but the jump was already a flick, so I'm glad Orkan didn't jump it. Anyway - when I try to think about not turning too fast (aka being to far ahead of my dog, sort of) I end up being too slow! Extremely frustrating. I can see on the video that Lene has a point - I do turn very clearly, and could probably be a smoother handler if I didn't. But a) I don't think it's a very big issue (correct me if I'm wrong!), and b) I think it will fade away when Orkan and I get more "into" this system. As soon as he starts understanding my cues better, I will probably be able to make them smaller. I hope? If any of you have thoughts on this (or thoughts on my handling) I would love a comment...

Bris' first puppy show

Kritikk (in norwegian): For alderen passe stor. Godt skåret hode som mangler utvikling i bredde. Store ører (dominerende, som han uttalte det, red.anm.). Pene øyne. Godt utviklet kropp med bra bryst (sjelden med så bra utviklet forbryst sa han, red.anm.). Bra hale. mg ben og bevegelser. Litt høy haleføring under bevegelse. Meget lovende. 1-1-BIR-BIS3

Critique: Aproperiate size for age. Nicely cut head, lacks some development in width. Large ears. Goodlooking eyes. Well developed body with very good front. Good tail. Very good legs and movements. Tail a bit high when moving. Very promising. Best quality, Best of breed, Third best in show.

I did the handling, since I'd done most of the training, and we (Sigurd mostly) were a bit concerned that she wouldn't walk or stand very nicely. I had done a bit of training with her the day before, but not much else, so reverse luring (it's your choice game) gave me a huge advantage! She stood like an angel! :-D She also walked pretty, and behaved at the teeth check and the measureing. Lots of free puppy food, toys, glass bowls, other stuff (MY - puppy shows give a lot of prizes!) and good socialisation. All in all: good puppy!

Double box fun :-)

I haven't blogged about the handling class on wednesday yet, so it's probably about time! It was fun, but still I was a little bit frustrated by my own performance. I wasn't really disappointed, niether in Orkan or in myself or in anything. It's just that I want things to happen faster than they do! Orkan worked pretty well, I only had to give him a time out once (decided to sniff the ground for food instead of tugging), and his attitude really has improved over the last year. But he's still young, and I can't expect him to do full courses, which leads to not being able to do the sequences that the others work on. This handling seminar is all about teaching us handlers how to work, not the dogs really. My handling needs an upgrade so badly, but in order to actually handle, you need the dog to run the course. When the dog needs to be rewarded for every good move he makes (that means every two, three or four jumps), and isn't up for the challenge of distance, independence and generalisation, you can't really do it the way that teaches you the most. That's a bit frustrating. Of course I could still do it, but that would mean setting Orkan up for a lot of failure (doing six jumps right and then failing on the seventh means not getting rewarded for the previous six, and then not knowing that he did right). We simply need more experience, and I know I need to do that gradually in order to get the confindent, fast and happy dog I want. So I'll do what I can at the classes, and put the rest in the back of my head for later. I promised myself before I got him, that with Orkan I'm not going to move on too fast, it's about hurrying slowly :-D

Yesterday Cathrine, Lene and I did some double box training, and tried to keep in mind what Fanny had told me wednesday - teaching him to hold a line. So I varied between running straight ahead and turning. I think I have sort of neglected doing long straight ahead stretches, like straight across the double box. It was fun to see him figuring that out :-)
We also worked a bit on lead out pivot's and rear crosses. Most of it was filmed and can be seen below (although my 4:5 vs 16:9 issues with youtube have reoccurred). One funny thing I see on the video is that when I dare to push his line early in a rear cross (I tend to be a bit late I think, will be funny to hear what Fanny thinks about my rear crossing on wednesday!) his turning is a lot better. One time he didn't even turn in time for the jump, and I think that was caused directly by my poor handling.

I love agility!

A bit of complaining

(Don't read it if you don't want to - bad mood warning!)

I just want to sigh... Deeply. And not really speak. But somehow I think it would feel good to complain a bit, and this is a great place for complaining, since the listener can choose to walk out of the conversation without even telling me, unlike if I was speaking to you in person. So here we go:

I am just so endlessly tired of being sick... Is it really too much to ask to be able to wake up, and press the buttons on my alarm clock without having to collect all my strength and all the pain my fingers can take? Is it really too much to ask to be able to run an agility course with my dog without tasting blod in my mouth? Is it really impossible to just live a normal, active life, sleep those normal eight hours and feel good? I wish it wasn't. But it obviously is.

One tiny piece of advice: don't ever catch an illness that the doctors can't figure out. It's a bit like what I imagine hell must be like...

And another piece of advice: get yourself a Norwegian Lundehund. They make any pain go away in the blink of an eye. If you ever need that kind of comfort, just ask. Storm will help.

brisbanner

Runnning contacts - day nine

I tried really hard to focus on his front legs today, but the hind legs really are easier to see, and usually they hit lower too. According to Siliva Trkman (founder of this methond) the dogs that do running contacts with their front paws have an easier time turning tight after the contact, but Orkan seems to find the hind legs easier. And I love easy :-p

test

test

Birds?

,,

Why do birds
suddenly appear
every time
you are near?
,,



Remember that song?
I'm singing it with a frown on my face! Orkan has decided that chasing birds is a lot more fun that tugging. He might work for r-e-a-l-l-y good food rewards, but even then he takes off. MAJOR selv-rewarding issue alarm!

After complaining to Thomas today (and getting some good advice) I decided that a good way to attack this problem is to train a crisis "sit" command. I took Orkan (long leash dragging on the ground) and his dinner out to work on a bit of sitting. No birds, so I didn't have to use the leash a lot, but he found some very interesting smelling things (had been a dead bird once upon a time I think) that he wanted to roll in, so we had a selv-rewarding temptation to work on.

My goal is that he doesn't mind the birds flying or jumping around at all. Not when training agility, nor when going for a walk. I want to be able to walk him off leash all year! In order to have him get used to the birds, I need to control them reinforcement-wise, and that's what I hope to do with the sitting. Thomas said that when training hunting dogs he often finds it easier to train a sit than a recall, so I'll try that.

The downside by doing something about this problem is that I need to keep him on a leash (no self rewarding!) until we have learned to handle those winged monsters (I'm going to have nightmares about tiny little birds, ok?). I hope that won't take too long... It means most agility training is impossible right now... Let's just hope there won't be too many birds at the handling classes.... (pray with me!)


A big smile at the end: just before dark, when the birds had gone to bed, we had some three jump fun. Except for having to work a bit on lateral distance, not skipping the last jump before a LOP, he did extremely well! Tugged like a hero, ran like a hero, and responded to my handling just the way I want. His turns are very, very tight, so he knocks a bar every now and then (yes, both), he just doesn't seem to mind. I guess that will change as soon as he is introduced to heavy wood bars... Mine are very light plumming pipes, hitting one of Fanny's bars will feel quite different. Reminds me we need to work a bit more on the jumping technique. I guess I'll do that tomorrow :-)

bannertest

RC day 8

We're getting the hang of it. I think...
Catching myself saying ouup-yes, redeciding about whether it was a good hit or not. My mind just isn't fast enough...
And just a sigh before the video: it's april, and we're already picking ticks off the dogs! The snow isn't even all gone yet! Grrroowl! I've given all the dogs Exspot today. Orkan didn't work very well on that last year (he needed new treatments every two weeks, which is way too often) so I think I'll get him an anti-tick collar instead. On the other hand, he didn't respond to anasthetics very well last year (we had to drug him as much as a 30 kg dog!) but that has changed after growing up, so the Exspot might last longer now too... It's a lot easier and I think more comfortable for the dog to have a drop of something in the neck once a month than having to wear a collar all the time... Siiiighhh!

Storm's puppies!

I haven't heard much about Storm's puppies since they left the breeder a year ago. Today I found this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22.01.2008 ble det født 2 valper hos fam. Storli Kullnr. 081434
Far N Uch Maahornet`s Storm 25099/05 Dette er hans første kull.
Mor Lyrypa`s Jette 12442/02 Hun er nå mor til 7 valper

06110/08 Lyrypa`s Viking Leo 7670 Inderøy
06111/08 Lyrypa`s Viking Kaisa 6868 Gaupne
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd love to hear from their owners, see pictures etc... If you know anything about them, please email me: ingerid.klaveness@gmail.com

Feeling good!

When I went to my father's place in Østfold yesterday I brought one of my jumps, and did some one jump training on his (dry!) lawn. Orkan worked really well, he tugged like a hero, and we had no issues with distance and understanding. Feels good!

We also did the daily bit of running contacts training. I have replaced the 50 and 30 cm tapes with one (red) 40 cm tape, since I've decided that 40 cm is an ok criterium for Orkan. Somehow it was a lot more difficult to see where he hit after I did that! I'm not sure if it's the color, or if it's just that it looks different now, but I hope I'll get used to it. Since the criteria was a bit more strict he missed more, and it didn't feel good at all... Fanny really was right when she said that running contacs either feel very good or very baad. It's such an ambivalent thing...

Running contacts - day six

vYesterday the first session was still good, and I decided to raise the plank. That resulted in some insequrity (he slipped off once and tried to run beside the plank after that), but I kept working him through it, and as soon as he had tried to run beside it and not gotten rewarded for that a couple of times, he decided to try the plank version agian. His hits got higher, but still ok. One serious jump where he took off before the 50 cm mark, but the rest were below 50, and some below 30, and I rewarded all of those.

More angle made it easier to differ between running and jumping. Some of the 50 cm hits were jumps today, so I'd like him to hit lower than 50, and before the next session I'll replace the 50 and 30 tapes with a 40 cm mark. That will make it easier to narrow the hits down. I'll still jackpot the really good ones, but the ones that were right on the 50-tape yesterday were done jumping-style. The black line really helps a lot with seeing where he hits, I focus my eyes on the tape, and then I see clearly if the paws landed above or under it. Sounds funny, but before I needed to check the video to see if I had rewarded something I shouldn't have :-p

Fun!

This: http://norwegian-speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com/
I'm somewhere around 450 characters per minute. Can go faster, but then I start making mistakes. One funny thing is that I type the same speed and accuracy in norwegian as in english (it has multiple language options). I'd really expect myself to be slower in english... Wish I had a swedish keyboard so I could try that too (I sort of speak swedish, leart it when I was a kid) - but typing in the special letters that don't exist on my keyboard would take too much time. Try it! A bit addictive!

Bad dog - shame about the handler?

It's not that I expect our tugging ordeals to ever end, but still its soooo frustrating whenever I run into a problem. Sigh...

Situation being: Orkan doesn't want to tug as long as the grass is wet (or any other reason he might come up with). I know his behavior is a reflection of my abilities as a trainer, so this means I'm not doing my job. Since tugging isn't really fun in these situations, I tend to avoid them (work on jumping technique using food rewards instead of just going out to tug, right?) - which makes the problems ten times worse. I need to step up and face these issues. Waiting won't solve them...

Having him tug for the food doesn't really work very well, so I guess my only option is tugging A LOT, or maybe going back to the no food rewards regime. New rule from today: every day Orkan and I have to go out and tug, do circle work etc (no planned training, just tugging), and try to have a blast. I want a border collie!

Running contacts day four and five

I uploaded the videos from yesterday and today. Have a look at my youtube channel if you're interested (http://www.youtube.com/user/ingeridklaveness).
The progress is ok, I still catch myself on the video rewarding not so perfect behavior, but anyway we're getting somewhere! Karine and I discussed ideal criteria (how picky I want to be before raising the plank) and I sort of see the point of not necessarily demanding 30 cm hits, as long as they are in the lower half of the contact (below 45 cm). That would make the training a lot easier (most our hits are already within that area), so I'm going to consider a bit of change in our plans :-)

More RC

Statistics of today:
Total miss (ran beside the plank): 31% - probably due to the fact that I tried to run beside him etc, which got him a bit out of focus on where the reward was etc.
Below 90 cm mark: 12,5%
Below 50 cm mark: 22%
Below 30 cm mark: 34%

Usually he hits below the 50 cm mark as long as his focus is straight forward and nothing else goes on around him. Pretty ok. I need to start failing him on the hits that are everywhere els, but I find it a bit difficult to see where he hits and react in time :-p

Jumping :-)

Today is too rainy to do difficult stuff, like shaping hits on the contact plank, but a little bit of jumping was ok. Orkan actually behaved pretty well despite the rain (ok, he tried to avoid hitting the grass, but who cares :-p), and we got some work done on not being intimidated by big looking jumps. Nothing higher than 35 cm, but bars all over the place got him sometimes jumping with bigger margins than he needs:

Proper statistics

Running contacts criteria...

Let's start with an update on Storm: He isn't feeling too well, but an headache is a detail compared to what we were afraid might happen! Thank all of you for your express of concern for our baby, that really warmed our hearts!

Now some Orkan training: I tape most of our running contacts training to be able to analyze how our hits really are. So far my only criteria has been that he needs to run on the plank, no excessive jumping, and no jumping off the plank (to the side). After having a look at the footage from this morning in slow motion I find that not too many of his hits are below the 30 cm mark (last third of the contact point), even though he's just runnning, not jumping. This means that the criteria of just running isn't enough. With more speed comes less precision, and I think I would end up having marginal hits by the time I start competing...

Time for a criteria plan: I will reward the 8 best out of 10 until I have a 100% of hitting the last 30 cm's, and then move the plank up gradually. That means rewarding hits in the last 50 cm of the plank right now, and monitoring the success rate to see when it's time to change the criteria. I hope that by establishing the criteria of where to hit first, and then adding angle, the angle will not be such a hard thing. He is an intelligent dog, so I hope that he will get that the same criteria applies no matter what angle the plank is on. Who lives will get to see :-)

One really great thing is that he has been tugging like a border collie the last couple of days! Let's not mention what happened when the neighboor dog came around, or two horses, but at least most of the time, the tugging is great!

Running contacts!

Since my lawn isn't dry enough to start training one jump yet, I decided to use the driveway for running contacts. My plank is 5 meters long, has hinges on the middle (so I can start making it higher like a mini a-frame as we progress) and 21 cm wide. A normal dogwalk is 30 cm wide, so we're in one manner over-training. I like :-)

The first step in my plan for criteria is running ON the plank no matter what I do, what kind of reward we're talking about, and if a toy is placed up front or if I'm throwing it after the click. Next step will be hitting the last 30 cm of the plank. Then I'll start adding angle.

Started pretty well, with two sessions of 100% success. Then (not so sure why) he started running beside the plank, jumping off the plank half way etc. Turns out I have to work a bit on that. Before I move on I want him to know that he has to run on the plank all the way, even if I add an angle of approach, if the reward isn't in a completely straight line, etc. Some generalization, then... I hope that will save me some time later, in building value and accuracy. Orkan is the kind of dog that might try everyting BUT running on the plank if I fail him due to poor hits, so I really want to put some value and certainty into the equation before we make it harder :-)

Here are the first four sessions:

Let's go for a swim in the bathtub?

Yesterday someone mentioned that my dogs were small enough to swim in the bathtub. They aren't - but still, the bathtub can be used for physical training. Doesn't beat the water treadmill in Laxmi's office (I wish I could move into that office!), but it's considerably cheaper, so it'll be ok for now...

Handling theory and a bit of practise

Yesterday was the theory class for the handling course with Fanny. I've become quite used to thinking in Greg Derrett ways over the past year, but it's always nice to get some repetition, along with the details I've managed to forget since last time. We had a really nice time with coffe and brownies :-)

First of all, I learned that we are just going to be four handlers and dogs (in addition to Fanny of course), which means lots of time for each of us, and they are all really nice people. Me like! Secondly, I learned that if it feels flicky, it probably is, and it can most likely be solved by a serpentine. Sure, that is an exaggeration, but that was my over all thought. I could really use some practise in finding the serpentine possibilities in a course, since it's such a smooth manouver, and for some reason they haven't become obvious to me yet. Third - which I sort of already knew - I can't trust my instinct in descision making, I always have to go through the three points (where are you coming from, where are you going, and what is the shortest distance? See Greg's last dvd if you don't get what I'm jabbing about). As mentioned I knew this, but still I was somewhat surprised by how wrong I am when I guess!

Today I took Orkan and two jumps (With bars this time! Yey!) down to the horse riding arena owned by my landlord, to do some double box corner proofing. I want to have confident and independent turns even with longer distance in two weeks, at the first practical class. Started nice with some very good 90 degree turns, then my plan was to move to 180 turns and then 270. But instead our training turned into one of the many battles in the war against horse shit (or anything else that might be eatable or otherwise more interesting than tugging). Oh MY I'm SO tired of that...

Right now the clippers are charging, and as soon as that's done I'm going to freshen up Orkan's haircut. I am completely gobsmacked by how fast his hair has grown, but at least he does not shed at all any more, and the matting is long gone :-D

My world collapsing

Storm fell on his head today. He has been in Horten with Sigurd and Bris the last couple of days, and today Sigurd walked in on him standing on the table. Storm got scared when Sigurd entered, and tried to jump to the floor, but fell. His feet didn't help him at all, his head crashing to the floor. He screamed, eyes rolling, not albe to keep control of his body. Everything moved slow. Sigurd rushed him to the nearest vet immediately, borrowing the neighboors' car.

Luckily his neck didn't break, he doesn't seem to have serious brain damage, and after several check-ups and a cortizon shot (I think - I was on the phone the whole time, trying to hear what was said and what happened) to avoid swelling in his head, they got to go home to Sigurd's parents' house and relax. Storm has to be alone, no interaction with other dogs, and he will be woken up every fifteen minutes to monitor him and avoid passing out...

Not much more to say right now, except we pray and hope he'll get through this... Complete and utter sadness...

Storm - we love you...

Youtube 16:9?

I still can't figure out why youtube makes my videos appear in 4:5 format!
I'd love some tips on that...

Egg search instruction video

The Norwegian Puffin dog, or Norsk Lundehund, was designed to search for and retrieve puffin eggs and the puffin bird itself. On a cold winter day we decided to put Storm's abilities to the test. Here is the result:

Jumping progress and general happiness :-)

I've made a habit of taking Orkan and his dinner out to the grid outside our house almost every day lately. When we started the jumping techniqhe training some months ago, he did really well. We focused on basic grids, progressive grids and after a while we started working on distance evaluation. That was when the problems started. He didn't seem to bother to adjust his stride if the last jump (distances 4/4/8-12) was a bump, so I tried making it look a bit more difficult. That didn't work at all, and I started to wonder if he found the exercise too difficult, but that didn't really make sense either. Hence frustration.

The handling course starts next week, and I really wanted him to be confident and happy with jumping bars (the handling I've done so far has been done with bumps only) before that. I'm not planning on having him jump competition height or anything that soon, but having to change the bars for bumps etc would be a downside, and it would be a shame if the handling training got to ruin his jumping style because I started too difficult stuff too early, but after working on this every day since our driveway got dry enough to make it possible, it's looking a lot better! I'm not really sure what made the difference, but I know where to go from now.

Today we worked in set-up based on a distance grid: bump - 4 feet - 10 cm bar - 4 feet - bump - 10 feet - jump. That last jump started out being just a bump, and with every repetition I changed it, until we finally had bars on 35 cm in addition to various confusing bars and a bump to make it look bigger than it really was.

In order to make it as little difficult as possible (building confidence first of all, but still having him cope with the height) I didn't vary the distance to the last jump like you normally do with a distance grid. That could cause some trouble with his distance evaluation since you're supposed to change the distance with every repetition, so I need to go back and work on that as soon as possible. This has in some ways been doing things in the opposite order, there is only one thing that can really mess up these exercises (according to Vappu Alatalo), and that's height on an early stage. Orkan really is on an early stage, so I'm compromising with that to get him ready for sequencing, and I was't really sure if this was the right thing to do. But now, with one week left of jumping technique before the sequencing starts, I have plenty of time to focus on distance, collection and some one jump. We're back on schedual!


Now for some other stuff. Sigurd has gone to Horten to visit his best friend who studies in Bergen (almost a day of driving away from here), so they don't meet very often. He took Bris and Storm, so Orkan and I are home alone most of the time. My mother is visiting, that is she's sleeping here while she works in Oslo this week, so I have some human company as well, but all day Orkan and I get to play agility, read books, chew on carrots (not stolen by Bris) and chase flies.
We love it! (Yes, I miss you Sigurd.)

Finally we're getting somewhere :-)

Today I got Orkan jumping 35 cm's in a nice style, looking comfortable and confident.
As usual I took his daily ration of raw food outside and we worked on the distance grid. Three bumps 4 feet apart, and then a full stried (10 feet I think, or something like that) to the last jump. I didn't vary the position of the last jump (aka distance) but kept varying the look of it. One bar, two bars, crossed bars on different heights, bars all over the place etc etc. Good results, finally! He even jumped with three bars, 10 cm, 20 cm and 35 cm without any problems. He used to run under the 35 cm bar, so when I added one on 20 cm I kind of expected him not to jump it at all, but he didn't seem to mind, and his technique looked good too :-)
I LOVE grass! Although it's a bit wet out here still, we can finally do some training!

Muddy jumping

I've had too much to do and some lack of energy lately, so my laptop hasn't even left my school backpack - hence no blogging.

The heel position is finally looking somewhat like what I want it to, though I haven't worked on it as much as I probably could have. The low carb diet makes it hard to find low energy treats (he still has his tendency of putting on wheight in a hurry, remember), and some shaping is a lot of work when using toys... So.... Lots of excuses, but at least we're getting somewhere :-)

We have also tried to do some jumping technique exercises out on the little patch of grass that has re-appeared (spring is finally coming my way!) outside. But in Orkan's opinion wet, muddy grass is WAY too uncomfortable, and he won't place his pretty paws anywhere near it! So my plan of getting him used to jumping bars and hopefully with some height, since the handling classes start next week (which I'm looking forward to, btw!). Anyway, because of his getting dirty fobia, we haven't gotten any of the planned bend work and height work done. I stick to basic grids with a tiny bit of variation, but his speed and enthusiasm is nowhere to be seen as long as the ground is wet, so the training is more about doing SOMETHING to get used to moist conditions (to put it nicely - but we risk running competitions on similar surfaces if it's raining enough, so we really need to get over that!). In other words - not much to brag about, but at least we're trying to have some fun! I look SO much forward to start working on weaving and running contacts, but I'll try to keep myself serious and get over our jumping technique issues first...

His coat looks really nice now that it's grown a centimeter or two, I think I'll stick with it. His shedding is reduced to a minimum, which can't exactly be said about the two other monsters... I don't get why Bris has decided her puppy coat has to go alerady, she's just three months, for heaven's sake??

I have to go do some work (piggy weekend), but I'll try to get the portrait pic's of the huskies posted some day soon. If this was television, I would have said "thanks for watching", but since it isn't I'm not ;-p

I've gone dog sleddin'!

Had a really fun weekend with Ingvild and her dogs :-)