Living a dogs life - in the moment!?

Yes, yes - I KNOW I have not written anything in my blog for ages......! Weird how time sometimes just flies by when we are living in the moment? Since late summer, we have been living a life full of dogs....! Our "little puppy" Joey is growing, growing, growing - in the the video here, taken late in the summer, he had a visit from his brother Sapian - of boy, did they play!

With a quartet of sick dog, old dog, puppy dog, and a full-of-energy dog (Phoebe), out training in the autumn as been less-than-ideal! We have run the Dyck cart on the local streets, up to 8km... In November, my wife and I had a late, late "summer" holiday - safari in Tanzania...!  On our return, weather turned very cold and seemed stuck in the -10 - 20 deg C barefrost mode for ever...!

It is now snowing and we are looking forward to training with the sled...

Growing in confidence...

The half-week that Joey has been in the house have been just wonderful :-) He is such a likeable, cute "little boy" - running around with his tail up, investigating, chasing the cat..... He has been several times down in the run-around kennel with the other dogs, but always under our supervision; Phoebe loves to play and interacts well with him, Burka can sometimes growl at him to put him in his place, and old dude Luke patiently corrects him :-) Just now, Phoebe and Joey and the cat Nexus are all together here on the floor enjoying a good nap after the running around...

The two boys enjoying a moment with Priscila :-)

Adding to the team...

We have for a couple of days now had the pleaseure to welcome "little Joey" into our expanding dog-family! "Little" Joey is almost 9 weeks young....but has already weighed in at 7.5kg!!! Judging by the size of his paws, he is set to become a BIG Siberian Husky when he grows up! :-)
His parents are both lead dogs from a Norwegian racing kennel, so we have hope for his future as a sled dog.... He has already had a chance to run around with the other three adult dogs in the big kennel space, as well as try to play chase our cat Nexus... Of course, being a baby he still sprinkles our wood floors with an ample dose of "angle water" pee..... Love him to bits! :-)

Extending the living space....!

In the heat of summer, the dogs generally enjoy a bit of shade and tend to relax...

However, despite the heat and to the detriment of my lower back, but to the gainment of the dogs....the new run-around kennel space is hereby declared as OPEN! :-)  Yes, yes - I have slaved away for a while this summer, making holes, driving poles...

So - now the kids can run around a bit, sniff, pee, dig....dig, dig, dig....! They really seem to enjoy the added space and look forward to the opportunity to stretch their legs! Phoebe in particular is full of energy, running back and forth, around and around.... Burka is content to sniff around and run just a little, dig just a little....then sit in the shade... :-)  Luke, however...is the DIGGER! He has found some exciting smells it seems, that he really, really, REALLY needs to dig for....hehehe! Enjoy the rest of summer!

Summertime swimming...

Polar dogs are often shy of water.... I guess naturally so, since getting wet in the freezing arctic cold is the most effective way to end your life....!  However, Siberian Huskies are almost "waterproof", and if they have a chance to roll in dry powder snow, they can quickly dry themselves off.... In summer, "water sports" is a great way to exercise despite the hot weather.. Phoebe enjoys swimming around when we go on a quick canoe trip on our local lake. Ahhhh - summer....

Oh....hard summer life...

The past week has been HOT! Everyone - four-legged and two-legged  seem to seek the shade or other ways of cooling down....like spending time in and on the lake!!  Next door we have a beautiful lake and since Phoebe has always enjoyed swimming, we decided to buy her a swim-vest so that she can be more comfortable in the water...

She also enjoys sitting in the canoe and watching life float by...literally :-)

On the home front, our chubby boy Nexus has decided he needs to sweat off some of the kitten-fat.... ;-)
He has simply found a perfect spot to rest his chin.... In the safety of daylight and before he has his dinner, we let him out a couple of times per week so that he can run around on the lawn and explore the neighborhood.... It doesn't seem he goes very far, but he clearly enjoys his wider horizons :-)

On the mushing front, we are in R&R mode.  The dogs spending lazy days on the top of dog houses, and us humans enjoying the hot summer weather with a barbeque amongst friends!

Winter seems faaaaar away.....

Puppies....

As you may have noticed, there have been no further news about Phoebe and her planned mating to Vargteam's Zordo.... This is simply because nothing happened!  When she arrived at Ole Dag's kennel, she was probably not fully into her cycle yet, and arriving amongst a bunch of hormone-pumped rather domninant bitches probably made her shut down the cycle....!  Phoebe is a happy-go-lucky girl, but she is not very dominant (whatever we mean by that....another dicussion altogether).  After scouting around we cane across a couple of alternative litters, both of which seem to be excellent!  Ulf and Kari Hope at Snørokk Kennel have a beautiful bunch of puppies after two of their main dogs: http://snorokk.wordpress.com/.  On the other hand, Trond and Siv have a litter of puppies (http://www.sh-hundespann.com/tuvas_valper_2010.htm), from which Johanne will pick a male... She gave us a tip, that ONE male was left - we talked to them and went down in the car yesterday (they live 1 hour away).... Forgot the camera at home, but I have stolen Johanne Sundby's photo and show it here below..  After seeing the mother and father as well as the puppies crawling all over, we have decided to get a puppy from the litter....!  It will be fun to have a small one running around at home... It will be up to Uncle Nexus to teach him how to hunt birds.....or not!?  Nexus has made the progression into a (partly) outdoors cat - on Saturday he spent the entire day running around chasing birds without success... It is fun to watch him stalking, and it seems his instincts are strong.... :-)