Rocco & Lucky newsblog

Winter

2012-01-27T00:35:00.000+02:00

By estonian national calendar, 2 weeks ago the backbone of winter was broken and now every day brings us closer to spring. So it's definately too late to have "merry Christmast" posting up here :o). We don't have very exciting news to tell you, but some things need to be told and so it comes a summary again - of what we have done lately.
Starting with the good news that we finally have the winter outside I was dreaming about since October 1st :o). Dogs don't need to be washed several times every day and all streets are covered with motivation for Lucky - snow :o). There's absolutely no need to put "candies" for dogs to my pocket, Rocco is very obedient anyway and there's no food in the world that would motivate Lucky better then snow balls:o). Not that he's eating them, just chasing :o). I have tested him in the situation where he was out of leach and there were 2 small babe's ( = nice little bitches) walking in front of us. We passed them playing together without him even looking at them :o). And if he run's free and sees something interesting I only need to mention I have a ball and he turns back in a second. So life is easy for me :o)
Then - there's one more very special gift Lucky and I got from elves:

Now I have it on the office wall so Lucky is with me at work too. Biiig thanks to Karin.

What's not so good about winter is that Rocco doesn't much like to join us on our walks. Weather seems to have big impact to his joints and cold or wet weather isn't good for him. So sooner or later I need back-bag to still have him with us on our walks (if any of you have seen such thing, I'm really thinking about it, please let me know too). Additionally Rocco had a strange thing under his skin in the end of last year. We showed it to vet and luckyly it's only a lipoma, nothing bad. I tried to get advantage out of that - told to Rocco, that this is what happens if you steal from puppy's (= Lucky, he always remains puppy in our home :o) ) bowl. But obviously he doesn't care at all :o), if nobody sees, he can't pass Lucky's bowl without emptying it :o). Well, let him enjoy the last opportunities, because in case he want's to travel in back bag in the future, he goes to diet :o). Only carrots and cabbage :o)

And then a good way to entertain your dogs - skiing. I bought ski's year ago - after about 25 years brake . And my trying to learn to ski again is sooooo funny for Lucky. Last weekend we tried to choose the trail with less people getting part of the fun :o) and let Lucky run free. He ran next to me barking all the time, then went to chase daddy and then back to me again. I had my fancy sport watch, and looking Lucky running free, I thought to test it on Lucky too. So next day we took the same route and Lucky weared the watch. Result was, that when I skied 8.5 km with speed 8.65(now you know why Lucky is barking and laughing next to me, I'm snail slow:o) ), Lucky covered 12.13 km and his average speed was 9.67. Lucky's speed maybe isn't very accurate, because we met a friend and of course had to chat, which is no good for statistics. But we can test again and I'll tell you, if we improve our results :o). Here's a photo made last weekend:

And this photo is made year ago, on 25.03. This was definately the best skiing trip I have ever had. Days were warm and sunny but nights very cold. Snow was melting at day time and freezing at night time, so it was strong surface to ski on and skis run very fast. We skied on shore of the river, where it's impossible to access in any other time of year and there was nobody else then us. Well, we didn't see, only the footprints - of wolf. Many times bigger then our Jossu's foot prints. And beavers "building" higher then me. This really was great experience.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T21:45:00.002+02:00

This Christmas has been very different compared to last year. Last year at the same time I was wondering how we get the car out of snow next morning to go to work (well, we didn't, we walked 2 km in snow to main road and borrowed daddy's dad's car :o) ). This year, beeing very optimistic, I can say at least we had kind of white Christmas :

But reason to worry about how we get the car out tomorrow we still have - because of storm today, that has broken the trees to the road. Living in country you really feel the power of the nature :o). Today electricity was disconnected before we woke up in the morning and hasn't come back yet. Wouldn't it be Christmas, I would say the weather has been wonderful today, +9C, full sun. And wind, 35 m/sec that's braking the trees.

But still, Christmas was great, and thank you very much, my dear friends, for wonderful Christmas Cards:

And the sweetest photo I have ever seen - the tricolour of course is Lucky. It's made by Linda, owner of Lucky's sister Foxy and so I post it here with greetings from Linda and Foxy:

Merry Christmas to you and your family

Head vana asta lõppu ja edukat Uut aastat! Kristina & Co

Autumn summary

2011-12-04T22:03:00.445+02:00

It has been quiet autumn in our blog. Mostly because we are living our usual everyday life and I don't have big news to tell you. This year it seems that autumn doesn't want to end. The weather has been warm, but it's dark outside and thinking about bears who can go to winter sleep makes me jealous :o). Last year at the same time it was real winter outside, cold and 45 cm of snow. Rocco seems to sense cold winter coming this year too, considering his appetite :o). Me too :os. Together with him we are like vacuum cleaners, checking all the corners of the house for food every evening :o). But Lucky has summer in his heart all year long and that means no weather can't stop him from wanting to go to walk, to play and so on. Well, to make a compromise - we keep preparing with Rocco :o), but we don't go to winter sleep :o).

But we really have had enough of the autumn now and so I make a summary of it here and hope the snow comes very, very soon.

As pictures tell more then words, I'll contribute to photos again

First a picture with Kelli and dogs and carrots that my mum raised this summer. Also the flowers behind are evidence of my mum's "green fingers". Cosmos flowers seemed really grow to cosmos :o)

One news, probably most important for me this year, about Kelli too - Kelli went to school!

I had vacation in beginning of September when we walked Kelli to school in the morning and later came to meet her there to go home together. In the mean time we took a long walk on our beach with dogs. Next photo of Rocco on his birthday. It's funny to think that just a month before this picture was taken, there was as many people on the beach, as sea shells on the photo :o). When we walked there, we meet maybe only couple of people

On the same day - Lucky just being Lucky :o)

Photo made by Karin on our beach on Rocco's birthday walk

And here some pictures taken on our weekend walks at country.

In the end of November it's Kadripäev (St.Catherine's day) in Estonian national calendar. Day before it Kadri beggars go from door to door wishing good luck and asking candies. Obviously there are different traditions on Shetland, so please excuse the dogs for looking vary to our visitors :o).

We got one more very interesting visitor, on weekend, at our country home. An hunting dog came to take a break on hunting :o). He was very kind and if we first put a leash to keep him until we called on the number on his jacket, later he played with Lucky until his owner arrived and didn't want to leave even then :o)

And last one - photo of our walk last weekend.

There's one very special friend on this photo I haven't wrote about much here - Riki. Riki and Jossu are both living with daddy's parents. And both were stray dogs as a puppy. Riki we found more then 10 years ago on our walk. He was settled under a tree and we thought his owner is somewhere near. When we walked same route week later, he was still there. We took him food there several weeks hoping he finds his way back home or his owner finds him. But he was so loyal to the place under the tree, never left from there. As it was about same time of the year as now and same weather, getting colder and colder, daddy's parents agreed to take him. And Riki has been loyal. Their garden isn't fenced, but Riki knows the border and hasn't ever crossed it allone. Riki is first dog Rocco met, when he came to us, as Riki was for sure kind and patient. And now he is kind and patient with Lucky. Riki was so much asking to come with us last weekend, that we just couldn't say no to him. And we took the route we used to walk when he and Jossu were young and Rally with us. And later Rocco, who still thinks Riki and Jossu are sheep and he is their sheepdog :o). 3 old friends were walkig nicely with us and only Lucky flied around like they used to 10 years back. It was sweet to be in same places again, and to think back on "old" times. Wonder, if they remembered their younger years too

Elves

2011-11-27T23:51:00.000+02:00

We got wonderful early Christmas gift:

Biiiiiiig thanks to Lucky's daughter Peppi and Kati, her ovner

Rocco's birthday vol 2

2011-11-19T19:39:00.001+02:00

10 years is respectable age, so don't be surprised about one more birhtday posting.

On wednesday we celebrated Rocco's 10 years birthday with his breeder, Inna Tolli.

Thank you, Inna, for this amazing dog, thank you for beeing our friend and shareing your experience for last 10 years.

Lucky HD/ED tested

2011-09-28T22:21:00.006+03:00

We got Lucky's HD/ED test results today - AA/00. It's just as it had to be, but soooo good to know.

Rocco is 10 years old

2011-09-15T18:29:00.003+03:00

It's Rocco's 10 years birthday today!!!

Link to birthday photos

In most of postings here Lucky is main character, so this will be Rocco's. There's a lot of sweet memories considering our long history together, so it's going to be long one :o).

I start with a sweet habbit he has, that goes back to his second day with us. It was Friday, so we went to our country home after work. Weather was cold and so was the house so when it was time to go to sleep, I didn't dare to leave him on the floor, but took to the bed with us and under the blanket.

He slept all night as my teddy bear. Next weekends we repeated the same procedure and since

that time it has been his tradition every night. No matter what time I go to sleep, he comes with

me and cuddles under the blanket beeing the most calming teddy bear in the world. He can't stay long

because of his long coat, but he hasn't skipped a day.

Next thing that definately needs to be told is his kind help raising Kelli :o). When Kelli was born, I had 0 experience with children before, so often even his heart-warming presence was a big support for me. Kelli was wonderful baby from her first day and slept all night long. But few nights we stayed awake because gas pain and it was scary then to think that everybody else in the house are sleeping but my baby doesn't feel good and nothing I can do can help her. It was much easier then, if little furry friend stayed with us, curled on my toes and helped me watch her. And boy was he worried when Kelli started to cry. Kelli was always in good mood and only reason she cried as a baby was when she got hungry .It always happened very suddenly and then she had to complain loud. Then it was always a big fuss, baby to my arms and again it was peace in our world :o) But not that Rocco could ignore the crying. He too had to act very quickly and usually ended up somewhere next to us, as close to me as possible. So I think he newer knew that baby was saying she is hungry by crying, he tought the reason was him beeing in wrong place :o). And what ever he was doing or where he was, until Kelli told she's hungry by crying, came Rocco as fast as he could and setteled as close to me as possible, beeing happy for solving his little friends problems so skillfully :o) Later they two became good playmates (poor neighbours :o) ) who were always ready to stand up for each other. Like when "no's" of a 2 years old got beyond my patience level and I tried to fix the situation by nagging on Kelli, Rocco was immidiately there, so very worried and quilty, trying to climb in my arms and apologize, so that I had to make a pause in nagging to comfort Rocco's tender soul, after what it was hard to get in nagging mood again :o) and when I tried to spray a very unpopular medicine under Rocco's paw and Rocco of course struggled to save his paw from me, his little friend helped him by starting to cry, so I had to release Rocco and comfort my little girl :o)

One thing that's unusual for a dog is Rocco's playing.

He did play with toys a little as a puppy but later had almost no interest in them. He got (still gets) happy, no, crazy and thrilled when somebody takes water from well:o). And when car wipers are working. Later he learned to enjoy retrieving game with his friend Jossu - Jossu retrieved the toy and Rocco herded him by bouncing on his way and barking. With clicker I teached him to like toys too, you should hear his crowl when tugging, very impressive :o). One toy he has always liked, it's Kong stuff-a-ball. This game started years ago, when, wanting to know what Rocco does at home, when we are at work, I hided some dog bisquites for him. Obviously he wondered around the appartement - he found them all. So we continued hiding food for him and he just loved it. It was hard to catch him for his daily "I go to work, be a good boy" lecture :o), he was so focused on going to search his "candies". Later we started to hide food with Kong ball, so he should work more to get it. And from that he created new tradition. Told him to find the ball and bring it to me for filling in the mornings. Now I don't even have to tell him any more, he goes himself after he has eaten his breakfest. When Lucky came, second Kong ball came too and he found and brought them both. In the beginning Lucky only watched him doing it, but soon he got the point and now it's competition who get's first. And as they get revard for bringing the ball, they try to cheat a little too :o) Rocco some days comes a toy or hair donuts or what ever he can find in his mouth. Some days I get quite big collection of thing he has found :o). But little about Lucky too - he has different strategy to earn candies - he brings the ball and put's it on the floor. I give him candy and he quicky grabs ball and escapes with it :o), to come back with it soon again :o). And there's no sad dogs in our home if we go to work, on the contrary, daddy takes them out for 2 minutes last thing before we leave, (just in case they forgot to do something during our morning walk,) they rush back home and sit and wait for us to leave, so they could get their filled balls :o).

Then a topic very important for Rocco - eating ;o). He was very picky eater as a puppy. Dry food in his bowl was ignored all day long, only late in the evening he went and eate it. Well, at some moment, when Kelli made her first steps, it was so interesting for her to go to kitchen, take one kibble, take it to Rocco who was in other room with us and then go to next one. This kind of attention Rocco appreciated and eate all that Kelli brought to him :o). His attitude to try food (all food)
changed totally when Lucky came to us. Lucky had very good appetite, finished his bowl first and usually tried to help Rocco. At some point they changed their roles, now Rocco is like vacuum cleaner - just breathes in all that's in his bowl. He is just always hungry. He is over motivated for food in training and if I give him a tiny piece from my hand he usually takes 2 fingers too :o). With my mom and dad he has his own agreement. After breakfast he gets a piece of cheese from my dad.
He is so silent under the table and appears when he thinks it's cheese time :o). If dad tells him it's too early, he goes back and tries again after a little while :o). And when we are cleaning table he goes to my mom, saying "hi" to her so happily like he wouldn't have seen her for ages. And next to praising and petting usually gets something good too :o)

I think thanks to the genes he got from his father he was born a winners class obedience dog :o). Quoting to a colleaque of mine, he is smarter then some people :o). He has never really needed the leash to control him, he just understands everything I tell him. Something even without the words. This last one - whitout the words - has sometimes been disadvantage :o). He senced me beeing nervous on our first dogshows and obedience competitions and made his conclusions out of it. My last nerves died on our first agility

competition and after that, I think, I have behaved better and better :o), but Rocco hasn't changed his mind during the years :o)

Every dog has something that makes him unforgettable for his family. Those were the sweet and funny sides of Rocco I never forget. And of course his kindness and loyalty to me.

So happy birthday my dear little friend.

I wish strong health to you and many many happy years more with us.

Summerfun with friends

2011-09-13T11:02:00.004+03:00

Summer is time to do a lot of fun and meet friends to collect warm memories for cold winter. Same comes to dogs and here are some photos of Lucky and Rocco and their friends having summerfun

First a walk with Kaire and her Cavaliers Winston and Morris. We definately have to take it one more time, the real 30 C summer wasn't arrived then yet and because of rain we had to hide our cameras and don't have much photoevidence to show you :o)

Look at little Morris flying

Then a beautiful sunny day with Karin and Inna and 7 Shelties.

Here's the slideshow of photos made by Karin

and bigger pictures you can see here

Then a wonderful day with Free Soul Dachhounds Lotte and Annu (Luna was left home this time) and their family

We didn't get 4 dogs on the same picture this time, because it's very cruel to waste huntingdog's time with your camera if the world if full of smells :o). But here are Lotte and Annu before they escaped to chace mices and other prey animals fields and forests are full of :o)

And we managed to catch Annu for one more picture

But a proper Dachhound has more hobbies then hunting, here's Lotte, doing her 10 points diving

And should you blame my innocent Shelties - no, it's not because she's escaping Lucky and Rocco :o)

Then, visiting Helle and Uno and Cheddarhill Welsh Springer Spaniels in their wonderful summer home, photos are taken in the bog near to it

Next to Lucky and me is witches broom :o)

And now we are back in town.

I have wonderful pictures to show you of our walk with Karin and Fancy and Pippi on our beach, look at this link.

But here one photo made by Kelli on the alley next to our city home

We very much miss a day with Kristina, Kendzi and Joker, but summer isn't over yet, hopefully we have time to fix this.

Celebrities ;o)

2011-08-28T18:02:00.004+03:00

I have reason to be happy and proud again: first of all for Karin and Fancy, because Karin's photo of Fancy is on the cover of America's next year Sheltie calendar!!!

And Lucky and Rocco are in too!!! Pictures are taken by Karin on our last summer Sheltiephotoday. I'm sure you recognize Lucky (well, just in case - he's the tricolour with sweetest face in the world) and Rocco is the one standing tall in the lake.
Real celebrities, aren't they ?

:o)

Lucky’s I litter 1 year old

2011-08-03T18:35:00.006+03:00

Lucky's puppies get 1 year old today, 27.08
Happy birthday Essi, Indy, Peppi, Ari, Inna, Mandi and Potter

This litter turned out very good – all puppies are beautiful and all have wonderful characters.

Already in this young age they have quite a lot good show results:
WCL Inkpepper “Essi” has 1 x Jun CAC in Estonia
WCL Blue Avatar “Peppi” has 2x BOB Puppy, 2xCAC in Finland
WCL Blackpepper "Mandy" 1x CAC in Finland
WCL Blue Aragon “Ari” is German Jun CH, Ausburg JunW (in only 4 shows!)

I collect all the pictures I get to their album
and here are the links to their own pages
Essi and Indy can be followed on www.whitecoastal.net.
Essi’s page http://www.whitecoastal.net/index.php?act=art&lk=283 and
Indy’s page http://www.whitecoastal.net/index.php?act=art&lk=284

Peppi’s blog: http://shetup-shetup.blogspot.com/ and
homepage: http://www.shetup.net/peppi.htm and
albums: https://picasaweb.google.com/katriina.kauhaniemi/Porvoo3072011#

Ari’s page http://www.sheltiezucht.ch/

Inna’s (WCL Black Bonsai, kennel New Spices) page: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/niussa/koirat/index.htm

Mandi’s (WCL Blackpepper, kennel Rosebridges) page: http://www.sunpoint.net/~rosebridge/nartut/mandi2.html

WCL Blue Potter is living in Estonia, I hope some day we’ll meet him and then I can share more information about him with you.

Lucky and Fancy the “cover kids”

2011-08-03T18:03:00.002+03:00

I’m so proud - Lucky and Fancy are on the cover of Netherland Sheltie club magazine! I’m proud of my beautiful little Lucky and his beautiful little friend Fancy and my talented friend Karin who made this photo. Miracles just come out from Karin’s camera one after another, it's great that we have had possibilities to be part of them.

Preparations for winter :o)

2011-08-03T17:08:00.006+03:00

There's no better time to prepare for the winter then the hot summer :o) Well, skipping the weather aspect - I found contacts of a lady who makes yarn of the dog's hair. And even better - she knits from this yarn too. I have carefully collected all the hair Rocco and Lucky have donated and we are very well prepared for the winter now:

All our winter collection on the photos is ~80 % made of Rocco's and Lucky's undercoat, it's warm, it's soft and I love the colour. I'm very sure, that not only arms and head stay warm on winter, but heart too!!!
BIIIIIG thanks to Airi and if you wan't to see her angora's (white colour in our winter collection comes from Airi’s white bunny) and handicraft, here's the link to her blog: http://airiangoora.blogspot.com/

And to stay honest to Lucky and you I have to come back to his hair donation. Because Lucky doesn't agree here. By his opinion his every single hair in my dog-hair-foundation has been violently robbed from him :o). He hates my grooming bag and escapes even if he suspects I'll plan to groom him :o).

We are back again

2011-07-29T17:35:00.008+03:00

Greetings from Lucky and Rocco after the long brake in our blog. It seems I'm very capable to keep myself very busy and as I definately won't steal time from my daughter and dogs there's just computer left to steal that time from :o). But all my big projects are over for now, so I hope there will be more life here again in the future.
To write here all the things we have done in between would make this posting too long, so I'll try to make it short:
Starting last autumn - we started agility trainings with Lucky.
Our trainer is Kristina, my friend and ovner of Lucky's friend Joker and Rocco's friend Kendzi. Years ago, when we run agility with Rocco, I admired cooperation between Kristina and Kendzi and Kristina's handler skills. Though Kendzi is retired now, they still are my favourite agility couple and probably always will be. Thank you, Kristina, for teaching us!!! And I just have to mention that Kendzi is Estonia's first International Agility Champion and this far the only one . Talking about our training - Lucky loves agility. He loves all the training, but running he loves even more then treats and toys I offer him on the agility field. We competed up to highest class with Rocco, before he had to retire because of his arthritis, but with Lucky I feel like I hadn't ever run agility before - Lucky is just so fast. But he is fast in everything, even barking 10 x faster then Rocco :o). And Rocco is agility tourist now, waiting in the crate and eating candies for that. Here's couple of pictures and I'll keep you updated with our progress

About winter there is a few postings already, but just to summarize : it was wonderful . With so much snow, that most roads to our beloved walkingplaces stayed closed almost until the middle of April and everywhere else you could think about walking the dogs were skiing trails and walking and dogs were prohibited. Well, still I hope that Rocco & Lucky don't have reason to complain, here's some photo evidence for you. Starting from the most beautiful I have - here is a slide show of photos made by Karin Põiklägu and bigger pictures you can see here.

Then a new experience for me - driving on the ice road. I'm not sure if dogs appreciated the new experience, but it was interesting for us. And dogs got a walk on island.

Then spring. Again I have many beautiful pictures made by Karin to show to you

And now it's summer. The weather has been amazing, sunny and very, very hot . Dogs enjoy their summer freedom at our country home. At the evening, when I get home they greet me well rested and waiting for me to entertain them :o). Lucky has most sweetest "back-molar-hi" for me :o) It means he jumps up on me and if I give him my hand to lean on (because he want's to be taller to say hi properly) he'll chew my hand and kiss me alternately :o) . There's so many things he would like to do (all those things include speed :o). ) and he is confused to choose which one to ask. Rocco, just the opposite, knows exactly what he would like - to go swimming. He is real Shetland beaver - first one to go to water and last one to come out. Swimming 30 minutes without resting is no problem for him and considering it's good for his joints + it makes him happy, I haven't really limited him. Lucky doesn't see any point in just swimming, he complains when we go in and only sometimes joins us, if it seems to him we have too much fun without him. BUT... he could chase water splaches endlessly. If I stop the splach-game and turn my attention on something else, he'll look my leg in water for some time, beeing very concentrated and then scrapes me very pollitely to remind about discontinued game:o). And if we go out of the water too early (well, it's always too early for him) he just stands there and won't go out :o). He can go swimming too if we throw something valuable there - like wooden stick :o), but then he still first tries to walk on water :o). I haven't understood why retrieving from water is so fun for him. He very seldom retrieves on land. His favourite game at home is football. Me and Kelli play with his soft ball and he chases it back and forth and barks all the time :o).
Now, link to summer album and that's all for summary. If I have forgotten something important , I'll tell about it later and I'll post some "new" news too and try to keep the track in future ;o)

It's Lucky's 2 years birthday today!

2011-03-11T00:14:00.004+02:00

My dear Lucky is 2 years old. No, young :o). Still our happy, active, fun, sweet, little puppy, bringing joy to every single day.

Happy birthday dear little friend, happy birthday Foxy, Isac, Max and Shadow.

Here are pictures of Lucky's birthday parties with friends:

Walk with Kendzi and Joker And puppy birthday for Lucky and Fancy, pictures by Karin Põiklägu

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T14:12:00.009+02:00

I hope you had wonderful Christmas. We had. With a Christmas tree that we has grown big and beautiful on our land, Christmas traditions (on the pictures below), cooking and eating. But most important, with real Christmas feeling living in our home - our little daughter. And most wonderful winter outside. There's sooooo much snow and snowing more and more. We are blocked at our country home :o) We definately can't get our car out of here before snow plough comes and opens the road, also trains are very out of chedule and I have to be at work on 8:00 on monday. But I'll worry about it tomorrow and it's still wonderful in this snowstorm. Wonderful, wonderful winter, just like when I was small :o)

Here's some pictures of our Christmas:

Taking hay and carrots and apples for wild animals.

Christmas criminal Pätu sleeping to rest and start again playing with Christmastree decorations :o)

Full moon has made nights so bright

And here are Christmas cards from our friends:

On this card is Lucky's daughter White Coastal Little Blue Avatar "Peppi" who is living in Shet Up kennel in Finland

Winter wonderland

2010-12-12T23:00:00.004+02:00

It's amazing how wonderful winter we have. Soooooo much snow outside. Just like last winter, only this year the snow came earlier. And there's a lot of it. And snowing more and more every day. A lot of snow seems to create a lot of problems - to those who have to clean it. We don't, we enjoy it very much. As extra bonus to everything you can do when it's so wonderful snow outside, dogs stay clean and they can't escape, only walk on road with us :o)

It was easy to promise, that I take winter pictures for you, in reality it's not so easy to get good photos when it's snowing. But at least you get the idea what we have here:

Summer summary (better late then never :o) )

2010-10-24T12:04:00.018+03:00

Shame on me, it's veeerrrry late to post summer news. But life sometimes has it's own plans for us. For me it was a week in hospital and 2 weeks recovering at home in July :o(. Don't worry, this blog hasn't turned to medical one :o), but there's one thing I would tell you anyway - there isn't any better medication, then 2 wonderful furry friends (and family of course and country home, but it's Sheltie blog here). I felt good again on the minute I was back at home with them.
Now to the summary.

To start from beginning, we were seriously attacked at our country home at spring - by snails :o). There was so many of them, that for help we turned to real professionals:

Well, later it turned out, that professionals are a bit lazy in their job, but it was a lot of fun with them on summer. Rocco changed his "Cats eating" soap opera to reality show performed by ducks:

And Lucky was happy to get 4 new playmates to play "herding dog and duck's" game
with

Don't worry, it was fair play, time to time roles changed and duck's were herding Lucky. And Lucky was sooo happy for the attention he got :o)

And as I was talking about Lucky's friends, here's some more of them
Tiger the cat you know already from last year. Do you believe me if I tell that Lucky is singing lullaby to his friend :o) ?

Tiger too thinks he needs a walk on evenings. At least he joins us every time he sees us going to walk. Walks with us all the way, if we stop he lies down and follows if we continue.

Pätu is Tigers son and almost same age as Lucky. And as crazy as Lucky. The picture below is not posed, just a catched moment. They are involved with science I think, entomology :o)

Jossu you know too. He isn't actually thrilled of babysitting, but Lucky doesn't take no for answer :o)

And here a little 6 months old dachshund Annu is playing fox hunt with Lucky :o)

Luna, Annu and Lucky just happy about running free

But back to the summary.Here are the dogs with rat tulips. Rat tulips is real sign that it's summer soon. We didn't plant them and they are not the flowers that grow in our wild nature. So probably they started to grow from rat's underground kitchen and now there's more and more of them every spring.

Then a picture from a walk we had with Karin and Inna and their dog's on rainy day. All the good pictures made by Karin you have seen already. Here's one of my dear fun flying Lucky

Then I already told you about this, but still once again - my dear good boy Rocco with his winners class win awards

Our Sheltie-photo-day with Karin and her Shelties

Field on cotton-grass in forest, it was first time for me to see it, so we had to go back many times with camera to save what I saw

Living just one week without me was possible to smell from Rocco's coat (swimming every evening without drying later). Here's his payback time :o) - little sheepdog catchers washing him.

Lucky I washed myself, not that he too would have enjoyed swimming too much, but as I had heard that it would speed up change of coat. (Well, Lucky has his own plans. Maybe now he is shedding a little, but not remarkably.) Here are the pictures of my clean and groomed dogs

Then a beautiful evening on a beautiful place on west coast of Estonia

And our this years trip, to South Estonia only. Summer ended so unexpectedly, that we had to use the last chance and it came out a great trip. With our bus again. Must say, that's it bigger then it looks - wonderful travelhome for 3 people and 3 dogs :o). This year we improved our equipment by a gas stove and, as sun was not allowed for me, when Kelli and daddy were playing on the beach and swimming, I was sitting under the trees and cooking pancakes . And mushrooms we found as a supper.

Here on the picture is Kelli with dogs and bear we built, hope you see him :o)

I hope the dogs enjoyed the view too, as it's quite a good training to carry dogs up to observation tower :o)

It was a wonderful summer this year. + 30 C every day in July and half of August. Water was so warm, so we went swimming at every possibility. Lucky is suspicious about swimming but if we all go, he can't trust us having fun without him. He still hopes, that if he jumps, he can walk on the water :o)
And it's almost all. Summer definitely is too short. Just a few more pictures where signs of autumn are already possible to see.

And now it's winter outside. -24 is the coldest night this far and there's sooo much snow. It has been snowing and snowing every day, just wonderful. I have only night time pictures this far, but if the snow stays until weekend, I'll promise I make day time pictures too and post them here for you.

Puppies leaving to new homes already

2010-10-20T22:40:00.002+03:00

Lucky's puppies are moving to their new homes already. Time goes so quick, too quick I would say. We have visited them weekly and seen them growing and now they are gone :o(

We wish them loving homes and the best of luck in the future . And should any of their new ovners read our blog, I would love to keep contact and hear how the puppy is growing.

Here's 2 wonderful pictures Karin has made and more you can see in puppy album

First snow

2010-10-19T21:32:00.002+03:00

More autumn photos

2010-10-03T22:47:00.003+03:00

And here- With a Little Help from My Friends, working in garden :o).

Weekend photos

2010-09-22T20:55:00.005+03:00

Seems that weather gods have decided that working people have to sleep and rest on weekend - it's raining from Friday to Monday :o). But this weekend we managed to catch a dry moment and took a walk with dogs. And as it's exactly what my small camears underwater mode is ment for, her's some pictures I got:

It's Rocco's 9 years birthday today

2010-09-15T22:24:00.006+03:00

My dear Rocco is 9 years old now. So wonderful, wonderful friend, all and everything in him is about kindness. It's raining outside, so we don't have birthday pictures to show to you. But until I get chance to make new, 9-years picture, here's some sweet moments of his history:

Happy birthday dear little friend! I wish so much that you would be healthy and happy for many many years more. And happy birthday to brother Nikke in Finland.

Puppies at 1 week

2010-09-07T20:24:00.004+03:00

Pictures are taken last Thursday when puppies were almost 1 week old.

Together with mom:

Boys
Tricolour girls:

Blue girls

And Kelli with a puppy.

More pictures on White Coastal's page: http://www.whitecoastal.net/index.php?act=art&lk=278&p=1

Puppy pictures

2010-08-29T20:42:00.008+03:00

Here's first pictures of Cassy's and Lucky's puppies, all pictures made by Cassy's (and Rocco's :o) ) breeder Inna Tolli

The little blue girl didn't survive no matter Inna tried very hard with her, but the little blue boy is doing very well. And all the other puppies too.

Here's blue girl 1

Blue girl 2
Blue boy 1Blue boy 2 - the little blue boy
Tri girl 1
Tri girl 2

Tri girl 3

Here's link to Cassy's and Lucky's puppy news page on White Coastal kennel homepage:
http://www.whitecoastal.net/index.php?act=art&lk=278

Lucky's first litter

2010-08-27T22:48:00.003+03:00

Lucky has big new for you - he became proud father of 8 puppies today. Puppies were born from 3 o'clock tonight until 9 o'clock in the morning and it's a wonderful litter of 2 blue boys, 3 blue girls and 3 tri girls. 1 boy and 1 girl are very small, let's send all our good hopes for them. And big thanks to Lucky and Cassie, the mother, for great timing, as I get a year older today :o). Isn't it nice birthday present.

I'll post pictures here and give you the details as soon as I get them.

(And shame on me for not posting news here for so long time, I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.)

Sheltie-photo-day with friends

2010-06-16T22:34:00.005+03:00

We had wonderful day today with Karin and her Shelties. And our cameras ;o)
And no diversionists interfereing us of takeing out all the fun of Shelties and cameras and wonderful weather and beautiful scenary combination ;o). Don't get me wrong. My little daughter is cooperating very well, if I want to go somewhere and take some pictures, but her patience has limits. And daddy too can spend a few minutes to take very very few photos of my dogs- well, on his kindest days :o). But that's definately not the same as to go out with a real Sheltie photographer for full day.
We started early in the morning, sun was shining and there was nobody else in many kilometers radius, so the "puppies" could run just as they wanted. We only stopped them to take pictures. My ambition was to learn from Karin, how to really use the possibilities my camera has (not only auto modes). Well, I have to think and try hard, maybe I'll manage some day ;o). We got a lot of beautiful pictures, I'll load them to our album and put the link here for you. But here's some samples for you. I even managed not to distroy links for bigger pictures this time, so click on the picture to see bigger picture.

First a picture of all our dogs: Lucky, Fancy (Bridemoors Blue Fantasy), Pippi (Kuukivi Pippike), Kiku (Kuukivi Kallike) and Rocco

Here's a sample of what we learned on winter nights :o)

What do you think, to whom are they talking to? :o)

Such a good boys

Isn't he gorgeous?
Lucky with his friend Fancy, I'll link to Karin's album when she has pictures ready so you could see more pictures of her
Look how sincere face, I'm sure, when looking at next 2 pictures, you don't believe me, if I tell he can have very selective hearing and he consistently steals from cat bowl every time he has the opportunity :o)

Rocco couldn't resist water and had to perform trick for us

2 more pictures of my good boy Rocco.

I don't know correct name for the plant behind Lucky and Rocco, could it be cotton grass. Usually it grows in swamp, but this picture is made in our forest after the State Forest Management Centre (RMK) converted all the trees to kronas :o). It was amazing - all white field, I haven't seen this ever before.

The real star of our day was Kiku, Karin's oldest Sheltie. She is 13 years old and suffers heart problems. But she is sooooooo optimistic. We carried her when we went off the road to make our walk easier for her. But she for sure would have followed the "candies" we had for them to the end of the world. Karin told she was the last to go to sleep when back at home and first to wake up in the morning. Such a wonderful old lady.

Link to Karin's album

Rocco got 1 grade, 1 place on obedience competition yesterday!!!

2010-05-21T16:37:00.005+03:00

We participated on obedience competition in Narva yesterday with Rocco. And as already told in header, got very good results - 1 grade and 1 place (out of 2 dogs in winners class). It really was great competition for me - because Rocco worked with high energy all time and was happy and active. As opposite to his normal, "oh no, how did we get here, let's escape quickly" attitude - which I teached him by beeing nervous myself already on first competitions :o) I thought Rocco will retire after this competition, but his behaviour yesterday totally changed my mind. We need just one more 1 grade to get to highest class. At least we go for it.

It's long drive to Narva, but it's an advantage in good company - thank you Sveta and Winnie, and Narva club has the best training field we have competed on

and very nice and supportive people

and no killer dogs ;o).

Walk with friends today

2010-05-12T22:43:00.001+03:00

April news

2010-05-12T00:17:00.005+03:00

Sorry for not posting any news here for so long time. It's not that we haven't done anything, just it's so beautiful spring outside. But here comes a small update of what we have done.

We have played with old friends and made some new friends:

Picture above is made by Karin. On 3/5 we selebrated the 13 years birthday of her oldest Sheltie - Fancy's grandmother - Kiku (Kuukivi Kallike).
We wish you a lot of strenght and good health and many many more happy days dear Kiku.

On the picture above, Luna's little halfsister Annu (Free Soul Angel)

On the picture above, Rocco's old friend Delli and Lucky's new friends Happy, Milli and Petsi, kennel Ingfel.

We have participated 2 shows. After the show in Rakvere, 4 pictures by Karin Põiklägu - thank you so much, Karin, for those wonderful picutres:

The big animal on the picture with Kelli and Lucky is symbol of Rakvere city.

Waiting for our ring in Sillamäe:

And after the show, exploring Sillamäe:
On the north coast on our way back home from show:

And just enjoying beautiful spring:

Behind us Estonian nature wonder - Tuhala Witches well And I have vacation next 2 weeks!!! Hope to have more time for computer too, our homepage desperately needs reneval.

Happy easter!

2010-04-03T21:29:00.003+03:00

Energiser vol 2.

2010-03-25T22:35:00.003+02:00

If you remember, I wrote about Energiser in November. It was an activity in internet, where we could log all the physical activity and it was calculated to points that took us further on virtual journey from Oslo to Hammerfest. It was not about "swet and tears", just to promote healthy livingstyle and daily physical activity. Well, our walks every morning and evening gave us enough points to get to the finish - Hammerfest. Even more, we got 31 place of about 6600 people. The journey ended already in December, but today I surprisingly got a mail that I had won a lottery prize. Such a nice surprise! So soon I'll have new running clothes, what is, considering the calories I have stored on my body during winter, exactly what I needed :o). And dogs too get part of award, as of course we go running together.

We got wonderful new pictures! Thank you, Karin!

2010-03-17T08:17:00.003+02:00

All pictures taken by Karin Põiklägu:

Bigger pictures you can see here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Rocco.sheltie/March2010#

It's Lucky's 1 year birthday!!!

2010-03-11T22:13:00.003+02:00

Lucky is 11 months old !!!

2010-02-11T23:34:00.006+02:00

Happy birthday Isac, Foxy, Max and Shadow!!!

Lucky's height is ~37 cm

It's winter wonderland outside

2010-01-17T23:18:00.003+02:00

It's the winter I have been dreaming about outside. We have a lot of snow and trees are frosted over. Nature really has made wonders.

Here's some pictures of our weekend walk.

Playing with Luna

2010-01-17T23:14:00.001+02:00

I'm not sure if anyone will take Lucky to herding shool if I publich pictures like this, but still: Luna and Lucky playing with sheep - or whats left of it:o)

Walk with Fancy 12/1

2010-01-17T23:06:00.003+02:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Karin, for wonderful pictures!

More pictures you can see on Karin's album : http://picasaweb.google.com/kuukivishelties/2010January#

Lucky is 10 months old

2010-01-11T22:06:00.005+02:00

Happy birthday, Foxy, Isac, Max and Shadow!!!

Lucky height is about 37 cm and as he is very very not at all interested of his food, he hasn't gained a single gram in weight :o(

We have most wonderful winter outside! Walking possibilities are very limited with small dogs like Shelties, if they go off the track the snow is over their heads :o). But it's soooo beautiful outside, the real winter fairytale!!!

Christmas pictures

2009-12-27T22:38:00.004+02:00

It has been a while since the last news here. December has been a busy month and very cold too - we had about -12...-20C for 10 days, brrrr.
But to catch up with latest news, here's the slide show of Rocco's and Lucky's Christmas:

We got surprisingly many pictures I would like to show you, so the list would have been too long if I had put them all here.
On the pictures you can see snow lion we built with Kelli. Rocco and Lucky with their gifts from Santa. Lucky enjoying the snow. Today we took hay and carrots to Bambies and bunnys. And on the evening today there was so beautiful light outside, we took camera and went for a walk and captured very beautiful colours on the pictures. And last the picture of our dear old country home and sauna.
If you would like to see the pictures one by one they are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Rocco.sheltie/Christmas2009#

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T23:19:00.008+02:00

Here are Christmas cards from our friends:

Waiting for Christmas

2009-12-06T21:54:00.003+02:00

Elna and Isac sent us wonderful pictures of Isac and his first snow last Wednesday. We too took camera with us when we went for a walk yesterday. And today. I got a small automatic camera as birthday present, and I'm not very familiar with it yet. But one thing I learned this weekend. It has many different modes of takeing pictures, one of them beeing underwater mode. I always wondered what it's for, but now I know - it's for taking pictures in our climate :o). It's hard to believe Christmas is coming soon, it's warm and wet outside and at our country home, an anemone will soon start to bloom in flowerbed.

Here is our underwater-mode picture :o)

And 2 made with auto-mode today. Underwater has much better colours, don't you agree :o)?

But hopefully winter gets here too soon and we all have beautiful white Christmas. In the mean time, lets train new tricks with dogs, because, I'm sure, there's gifts for all good dogs in Santas bag. And wouldn't it be embarrassing for a decent Sheltie if he/she wouldn't have fancy trick to show.

I have so very much work to do, that I leave Kelli and dogs with my parents for next week and work very long days. But after that the year end should be much easier for me and I promise I'll write ansvers to your e-mails.

Sheltiefun again

2009-11-24T21:09:00.007+02:00

This Sunday was big Sheltie funday again - Kristina and Kendzi and Joker came to visit us. It's one thing to meet on the evening in town, when it's dark and not many good possibilities to let the dogs run free. And another at daytime on country, where dogs can run free as they want.

Puppies started playing on the moment they met, they were running happily chasing each other. Later we took a long walk in forest. The nature there was really wild and so were dogs :o). It came out, that teenage is contagious. At least was Kendzi as eager to go hunting as Lucky. And so they had to walk on leach. But they had opportunities to run free too, enough, that at home, after puppies playing some more, all dogs slept nicely. And sleeping sheepdog, as we all know, is a good sheepdog :o) (just a joke, they are very, very good all time).

Here's some pictures of our walk

Joker looking video of himself and Lucky playing :o)

And here's the link to video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdK0XyVp4kA

Teenage...

2009-11-18T22:02:00.003+02:00

... has hit our Lucky :o). Very hard :o)

When walking in forests at weekends, I have looked for opportunities to hide from him - so he would know it's his problem not to get lost. And it has worked very well - he really is concerned if he thinks he has lost me. Well - was. Now the company of his hormones seems to be quite enough for him :o).

On weekend he found a track of deer and went to trace it. He seemed so excited by what he was doing, that I was afraid he would go too far before he would even notice he had lost us. So instead of hiding, I tried every way to get him coming back. The best arguments (like steady-ready- Rocco let's escape :o) or calling his friend kitty), that always work, just got him bark, but not return. Well, finally of course he did return. But considering that about a month ago we saw a deer in about 50 m distance and he didn't go after it, this was not a nice surprise.

Similar case was on monday evening, when we went for a walk to our beach and as Kelli was with us, ended up on childrens play ground. There's a lot of different attractions and usually I'll be somewhere near and train some tricks with dogs. But as there wasn't anybody else then us, we joined Kelli. Climbing and sliding on chute was fun, but next to that, there's so many opportunities to use the attractions for dog training too. Like sandbox border as agility dog walk and with the help of clicker Lucky learned climbing on stepladder. He was cooperating so well, but then a dog appeared and gone he was. And only way to get him coming back was to catch him. So in future, he can enjoy only very limited freedom.

And I would very much appreciate, if you would tell me your suggestions how to get his attention back.

Steady, ready, GO!!!

2009-11-17T22:50:00.002+02:00

I just wanted to share a trick that has been very useful for us - steady, ready, GO! I first found it out years ago with Rocco, when we were going to swim. He just loves swimming and to make it even more fun we made this competition - with both of us looking at direction of lake, I held him back with my arms and told him with excited voice - steady-ready and on GO we both raced to water. He learned to love it very fast. Later we used it for our agility-games and in what ever situation - steady-ready gets him alert and quick. Now, with Lucky, I found out that our trainer uses the same method. So now Lucky too knows the meaning of it. And it works so well. Steady-ready-come is the best way to get him coming very-very fast. Steady-ready-sit/down don't work so well yet, as he starts barking and doesn't listen for the real command, but usually tries to quess what I want form him next :o).

And another trick that's very useful in everyday life, is running around different obstacles. We use it with Lucky for our forest-agility :o). There's not very many opportunities for him to run fast, if he doesn't have another puppy to play with (I'm snail-slow compared to him:o) ). So we pick a group of 4-5 trees with enough distance from each-other to be our agility-obstacles and run 8-s and rounds between them. As Lucky just loves action, he learned very fast to go to direction I show him and he is fast and barking happily :o).

I'm not sure if my english is good enough to explain what I ment, so I'll try to have someone to take a clip of it if I have camera and trees and light and someone at the same time :o)

New "era" in obedience training :o)

2009-11-17T22:12:00.005+02:00

For 2 weeks now, our obedience trainings have been held indoors. It probably sounds like nothing special for readers abroad, but here dog sports is not so popular. It's a little better with agility, but for obedience we haven't been able to afford this before.

It's sooooo good we are not depending of weather any more. And fingers are not frozen after the training.

Changes in blog settings...

2009-11-17T22:07:00.003+02:00

... I removed the demand of logging in with google account to post the comment in our blog. So please, write your comments. We looooove letters and it's more interesting for other readers too.

Lucky is 8 months old

2009-11-11T22:53:00.006+02:00

Lucky's weight is 5,5 kg and height somewhere between 36-37 cm.

From the most wonderful puppy he has grown to most wonderful, wild and free teenager. So positive and soooo energetic.

To celebrate his birthday we took a walk with friends and Lucky was happy to play and run in snow. It was too dark outside to take the pictures, so back at home, I tried to agree with Lucky that we would make the birthday card for his sister and brothers and he was supposed to pose for me with flower :o)

Lucky of course if always happy to get a new toy and instead of posing with it, game of tug seemed much nicer to him. Or eating it :-). So we tried and tried, but as there's not much vitamines in this kind of flower...

... we finally had to ask Rocco for help in handing over the flower:

Happy birthday, Foxy, Isac, Max and Shadow!

Energiser

2009-11-09T22:42:00.003+02:00

I work for a company very much related to Norway. This autumn, interesting activity was presented to promote healty livingstyle - a virtual journey from Oslo to Hammerfest. We can log any physical activity and then it's calculated to points, that take us further on our route. So I am now registrating our walks with Rocco and Lucky and it's very interesting to see where we would be when we would have been walking on Lucky's home country.

We are quite far - we have walked from Oslo trough Stavanger, Bergen, Kristiansund to Stjordal, even a little bit further, and not directly, but visiting some locations on sea too :o). As there's about month to go, we have good chance to get to Hammerfest by that time.

It's not about hard sport for us. Lucky is still very young, we don't walk very long distances yet. And as my dear little daughter is with us very often, we can't walk very fast then too. We just go out to play and walk and run and train some tricks - just have fun. And that all gives a lot of positive energy for sure!

But it's time to go for new energy in 5 hours, so we all go to sleep now:

Lucky's first snow

2009-11-08T22:18:00.005+02:00

It started snowing on Friday!!! First real snow this autumn!!! Snowing started on the morning and it was real torture to look from office window, how it got more and more beautiful outside. But every workingday ends finally and on the evening we went to our country home. Although it was dark already, it was the real winter wonderland outside, even the trees were covered with snow. Lucky was not so surprised about the white thing on the ground, but sure found it to be fun. We took a walk as usual and it was really-really beautiful. The moon was behind the clouds but still there was enough light outside even to walk in forest. On the morning instead of winter wonderland it was childrens wonderland outside. The snow was melting and then of course there's only one option how to spend the day if you ask from a 5-years old :o) :

We built our snow house, which later turned to snowdog and played snow-war until all our clothes were wet. And on the evening took a walk in forest again. Today it was still a little snow left so we could honour our daddy on fathers day with a snow-war :o) (not only, he got a gift and cake too of course) and had another walk :o). Tomorrow morning it will probably be hard to find any wonders from the mud instead the snow outside, but we'll try :o)

Hi Linda and Foxy!

2009-11-03T23:50:00.003+02:00

We got a great surprise some days ago - a mail from Lucky's sister Foxy and her ovner Linda! I'm so glad to hear news of Lucky's sister and brothers. As we live so far from them, at least we can be friends via internet. Linda tells that Foxy is loving, playful and easy learning - just as our Lucky. And that she is a little lady. I hope I can soon add a picture of them too and we wish all the best to Linda and Foxy in all their plans.

Sunny Sunday

2009-11-03T22:56:00.005+02:00

After for about a month of rain it was sun outside this weekend! I was already afraid I have to buy underwater camera to be able to take pictures outside :o) but fortunately rain did stop at last. Well, as it comes to pictures, still all I have to present is some snapshots. I had a plan to try to take some well posed photos, but dogs were running around so happily, that looking at them the was bigger joy then would have been having pictures of well behaving dogs. I try to find opportunities for Lucky to run off leach every day, but was it the sun, or place or having his all family out with him; he was running around us just out of pure joy of running. Even Rocco, who usually cooperates very well, showed in every possible way he doesn't have time for posing :o)

All souls' day

2009-11-02T22:25:00.002+02:00

Today it's All souls' day in Estonian national calendar. It's the day, where on windows of most homes candles are lit to honour the dear ones who are not with us any more.

At our home, next to candle lit for the dear people we miss, one candle is lit for the furry friends, who have played important role in our lives.

Here's a picture of Rally, my first dog. Still miss you, dear little friend.

It's Lucky's 7 months birthday!!!

2009-10-11T21:59:00.004+03:00

Best wishes from Lucky to his sister and brothers!

Lucky's weight is 5,8 kg and his height about 36 cm.

Our camera refused to cooperate today, so we don't have any fresh evidence, how beautiful the birtday boy is. Until we fix that mistake, here's a picture from last weekend :

It's just a catched moment, I wanted to try again today, with better posing, but unfortunately we had to postpond this plan until next weekend. I hope the scenary stays the same. This wasn't the only weekend plan, that turned out different. First was the friday night walk at country, which is obligatory if I don't want to wake up at 6 on Saturday morning :o). As our country home is quite far from civilisation, dogs can run free there. I just put a blinky on Lucky, so I could see where he is. This time we surprisingly got company on our walk - we heard a barking-like noise from the forest just some meters behind us. I'm not sure who it was, but my good imagination automatically created a picture in my mind of 2 foxes arguing which will get which of my dogs as a dinner :o). Lucky of course senced great fun and wanted to join it, the whole world seems nice to him. But I managed to catch him and as Rocco did some "serious watchdog" barking instead of his "I love to bark"barking, Lucky too got serious and helped him :o). After that of course we went home as fast as we could and next time I'll try to hire Jossu to be a securitydog for us :o).

Sheltie fun again...

2009-10-07T23:16:00.006+03:00

... even bigger, as there was 6 Shelties involved today.

„Light Wanders in Kadriorg”

2009-10-06T21:54:00.003+03:00

Today it was concert night in candle and torch light in Kadriorg.

With dogs we listened the music from distance, but the park was so beautiful in the light of thousands of candles and torches. Dogs probably would have enjoyed a walk in forest more, but a little bit of culture never hurts :o)

Weekend pictures

2009-10-04T23:05:00.004+03:00

I was afraid it will happen some day, and now it has - it's autumn outside :o). It's raining almost every day and it's cold and dark on mornings and evenings. But if it's not raining, it very beautiful outside. Friday night it was big full moon outside when I went for a walk with dogs at country. The birds too used the light of the moon for their travel to the south. It would have been so easy to stay at home and watch TV, I'm so happy I have dogs who won't let me miss beautiful moments like that.

On Saturday the weather forecast said the big storm is coming, so we took the camera and went to catch some autumn photos.

Here's the picture how hard Lucky is trying to ask Rocco to play with him:

And here's the ansver, if he is too unmodest:

But Lucky is happy about any attention. Rocco's "strong words" just make him run big rounds around Rocco :o)

Lucky got new friend today...

2009-09-29T22:31:00.009+03:00

... a beautiful blue merle Sheltie girl Fancy. Fancy is just in same age and size as Lucky and they had wonderful time playing together. Here's the evidence:

All photos are taken by Karin Põiklägu. I'm sure many of you have seen her pictures before, Karin is absolutely the best Sheltie photographer in Estonia. Here's link to her photo album http://picasaweb.google.com/kuukivishelties/ and here's some more photos of our walk http://picasaweb.google.com/kuukivishelties/2009Sugis#. There was no light conditions at all outside, Karin really made wonders to get so many beautiful pictures.

Sportive weekend 26.9

2009-09-29T21:24:00.005+03:00

Near to our country home is sports center. This weekend bicyckle marathon took place there. Our friends participated in long distance, but our little daughter was participating too, on childrens marathon. She is in the middle on the photo below (photo taken by T.Paesüld)And of course Rocco and Lucky belonged to her fan-club too :o) Here's how Lucky and another little fan had fun together.

Shocking story in newspaper today

2009-09-23T11:13:00.005+03:00

There was a shocking story in newspaper today. Here's the link to original article http://www.postimees.ee/?id=167033 . And as it's only in estonian: it's written as a dog had sent a letter. And the letter tells how his ovner hurt him very bad. He tells how he loved his ovner, and how he thinks he didn't do anything bad. How he thought that she wants to play with him, when she grabbed him, as she had been nice to him, when he was a puppy, held him in arms and scratched his ear and sometimes took for a walk. But this time she took scissors and cut him. To both of his ears and then tried to cut off his testicles. He tells how he cried from pain and how somebody walking by heard it and came to help. And how police came and how he was taken to vet. And now he is in Võru shelter http://voru.varjupaik.ee/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album272&id=September_09_066.
The punishments for cruelty against animals are ridiculous in Estonia. Maybe she will be denied to have animals in future. But if not, maybe she will even get this poor dog back. I really hope this will never happen. And that what goes around comes around - 1000x to this person.
Probably this dog was looking at his ovner with the same loyal, loving, shining eyes as our dogs look at us when we interact with them, hoping something nice will happen. HOW can someone deliberately do something like that to a dog??? Unfortunately stories like this are not rare in Estonia.

Just a picture...

2009-09-22T22:16:00.002+03:00

... of Rocco's and Lucky's kennel :o)

It's Roccos 8 years birthday today!!!

2009-09-15T22:19:00.003+03:00

Happy birthday, dear little friend!!!

Autumn pictures

2009-09-13T00:45:00.015+03:00

Here's some pictures I promised to take.

And if you scroll, there's an "old news" added too.

There is a lot of everything in forest this year:
Rocco with a big muchroom we found:
(Providing it was somebody's home (worm's for example) we left it there:o) )
Lucky with lingonberries - there was more of them, but Lucky choosed to sit on them :o)

Rocco and Lucky with cranberries:

And I usually try to leave the choice of posting or not posting her photos in internet to Kelli, (when she is older) but this one I just couldn't resist to put here - Kelli with cranberry jewels :o)

And 2 pictures of why I sometimes feel ashamed to be a human:

Nature recovering of forest fire on June 2006, 664 ha of forest was destroyed because of human negligence:

And I hope economic recession reaches off-road people too. Soon. I'm sure nobody misses them on nature reserve:

Lucky is 6 months old

2009-09-11T23:01:00.005+03:00

It's Lucky's 6 months birthday today! Happy birthday, Foxy, Isac, Max and Shadow!!!

Luckys weight is 5,5 kg and height about 35 cm.

Here's one picture we took today, little birthday boy walking with his weekend- family (only daddy is behind the camera) :

On our walk we saw glow-worms! They usually "light their lamps" on midsummer, seeing them at autumn again was nice surprise.

I'll try to catch up with old news during the weekend. We are back in city again from beginning of September, and Lucky has time to collect a lot of energy for me during the day. At the evenings we play and play and play.

Trip to Lithuania 26-29.8

2009-09-08T22:45:00.011+03:00

We had a wonderful end to wonderful summer - a trip to Lithuania. Our destination was Curonian Spit. We were there few years ago with Rocco and our friends and the beach and sand dunes were so beautiful, that we wanted to show them to our daughter too. And as our dogs have no illusions that home should stay in place, car and bus do just fine :o), they of course travelled with us.

It's quite long and boring drive to get there, one very interesting place we found next to road -Šiauliai's Hill of Crosses:

On Curonian Spit we first visited Sea museum and dolphinarium.

This is sea lion Pirate:I was so impressed how well trained he was. The tricks were really complex and he was soooo good. Clicker training for dogs is based on training of dolphines, and I really got confirmed, that it has no limits.

As amazing was the show of dolphines. Look at one of them playing basket ball:

And this trick was most impressing for me, 2 dolphins lifting their trainer to throw the ball to basket:

And seal and sea lion kissing :

Amazing, amazing, amazing.

Dogs had to wait for us in bus, so that they would also get the chance to see the dolphine, we bought them one :o) :

Next stop was on Grey dune. Kelli was impressed with all the sand around and was playing by herself so I tried to take pictures of dogs. Our good old Rocco of course cooperated as usual:

But, after long drive, our little fun Lucky had everything else to do then to pose for me :o)

Well, I still managed to capture one moment he was standing still :o) :

Next we went to the sea. Sun was just setting and we took a walk on the beach. Daddy went swimming too. Dogs wanted to follow him, but first wave made them all wet, so they stayed on shore with me and Kelli and complained.

And then we sat on back door of our bus and looked at beautiful August sky and celebrated my birthday. It was really different this year and very wonderful.

Next morning we went to the beach and did all the important things you have to do on beach :o). Builded sand castles, :

collected seashells and amber, and of course went swimming:

The waves were big and water was salty, very much different then at home. We stayed there half a day, but as it was end of August already and we just couldn't keep our daughter out of water, to avoid her getting cold, we had to continue our trip. We went to see white dune:

and the living area of cormorants:

And then took direction toward home again. Here's a picture of our travelhome:

I could point out a few :o) differences with caravans parking next to us when we spent night at parking slot next to sea but it's perfectly OK for our needs. And it's possible to keep it warm during night on winter too, so let's see if we can think out something to use this possibility :o)

Puppy school 24.08

2009-08-24T23:06:00.002+03:00

Todays topic was safety in dark. On the picture below Effer is demonstrating reflecting safety jacket to other puppies :o)

Then we started to learn distance control - sit and down when dogs are moving or few steps away from ovner. It's amazing how quickly puppies got the idea.

First Lucky looked at me like he never heard the word "sit" before, but when he got the idea, then by the end of lesson he could already down and spin at few meters distance from me. Providing there was nothing more interesting happening somewhere near of course :o)

Hi, Isac and Elna!

2009-08-23T23:08:00.004+03:00

Internet is just wonderful, we got acquainted with Lucky's brother Isac and his ovner Elna! Isac had his show debut on same day as Lucky did and he won his class!
Elna & Isac, we wish you a lot of success on shows and competition and a lot of fun and good time training together!

Puppy school 17.08

2009-08-20T23:12:00.006+03:00

This time our trainer Sveta spoke about different toys. I was glad to hear Kong toys are her favourites too and that she suggested to leave stuff-a-ball to dog if he has to be left home allone. That's how we have done with Rocco for years. We hide his Kong stuff-a-ball for him, and he just can't wait until we leave and he can go to search for it. Lucky has his puppy stuff-a-ball too and he knows very well how to get the food from it.

Here's the picture of collection we had opportunity to try with our dogs. Well, we have almost the same collection at home, and Lucky loves to play, but to all the toys there he preferred my sleeve or to run with his little friend Kessu.

Here's what we have started practising at home - the "heel" position by Silvia Trkman's method:

Now's the place I just have to tell you how much I like Silvia Trkman's page . If you haven't seen her page before, it's really worth to spend some time reading it and looking at her videos. She is a "superstar" in agility and most of the page is on this topic. But even if you are not interested in agility at all, you'll find a lot usful there. Learning tricks is what makes Rocco happy and Lucky is really eager to learn too - and I have got a lot of inspiration from her page as it comes to new tricks.

Here's 2 direct links for you:

Silvia Trkman's puppy school video

and Tani's heeling video

And here is a quote from her page that I recently found and that made me really happy (I explain later why). Silvia Trkman:" I was very surprised to see some people were surprised that I take my puppy on the walk together with other dogs, asking me if I'm not concerned that will influence our bond. Of course, I'm not worried at all. I don't want my puppy to bond with me because I'm the only living being to bond with available. I want my puppy to bond with me because she thinks I'm the most fun of all hundreds of living beings we're meeting per week. "

Before Lucky came to us, I asked experience from other people who are training their dogs and who's oppinion matters to me, and all of them told they had kept their puppies separately from their old dogs in beginning and walked them separately. Mornings and evenings are so limited, if you work from 8 to 17, I just couldn't imagine leaving one dog home until I'm out with the other, what's the fun of having 2 dogs then? Lucky's breeders were the only who told me I won't have any problems, if I keep them together all the time. And they have been together. Silvia Trkman's explanation seems sooo true to me, I couldn't agree more with it. So we do everything together in future too and time will tell if it's good idea or not. So what if they never become world winners, they are already winners or my world anyway!

Lucky was BOB Baby Puppy in Väimela 15.08

2009-08-17T22:47:00.008+03:00

Our little Lucky participated on his first show! I wanted his first show experience to be very positive and this show seemed perfect for that - small, outdoors and the judge, Beata Betkevica, is known for her kind attitude to dogs. The show was everything I expected. And Lucky was brave and curious just like always. Lucky was the only in baby puppy class. He did very well in ring, got very good show critique (very promising!!!) and a kiss on the nose from judge :o) There was suprisingly many Shelties registered in total - 10 :o). We were there 7 years ago with Rocco, and I think he was the only Sheltie registered then :o). Sad thing was, that Lucky's first show was probably Rocco's last - he didn't get any result this time, because he was limping. There is one more important news from this show - our daughter Kelli participated and child and dog contest with Rocco and got III place. She has to practice a lot, but important thing is that she liked it!

After the show we spent wonderful weekend at South-Estonia with friends. On the picture Lucky is digging the sand at Piusa caves with children. This sand should have curative impact at least so the guide told us :o).

And some posing with Rocco:

Lucky is 5 months old - 11.08

2009-08-12T00:33:00.004+03:00

Again I'm some minutes late with my posting, but still:

Happy birthday Foxy, Shadow, Max and Isac!

Should you read this, we would love to know how you are doing (e-mail is in my profile or you can write comments to the blog).

Lucky is almost 34 cm and 5 kg.

Puppy school 10.08

2009-08-12T00:01:00.003+03:00

Mondays are full day training days for Lucky. And Rocco. They have had free life at country with our daughter and my parents, but soon we have to move back to city. And so we take dogs with us on Monday morning and they'll spend the day by getting used to living in our city home. I'll only stop by at lunch to walk them and feed Lucky. And on evening it's school time. First socializing with public transportation - o boy are we popular :o). Then 1 hour training for Rocco together with our trainer Sveta and her border collie Winnie. And then puppy school! It's so very positive event. We have wonderful trainer and "classmates." This time we learned coming when called, walking on lead without pulling (well, Lucky doesn't need to learn that, he knew it from beginning), standing still, and examining teeth, paws, ears. And some baby-agility - tunnel and hoop. On first schoolday, when Lucky saw the tunnel, he didn't like it very much. So I took Rocco's Royal Canine award set (thank you, Eve) out at home and Rocco showed him what to do with tunnel. And Lucky tried too. We really don't plan to train agility, we even don't think of it before Lucky is a year old. But running tunnels just for fun seems quite innocent for me and Lucky likes it. So tunnel was already familiar for Lucky. The hoop was totally new, but look how well he understood the use of it:

And of course the puppies had opportunity to play. As Rocco don't know how to really play with other dogs - he thinks playing is barking and herding - it's Lucky's good chance to play with friends. Lucky's favourites are Jack Russel Terrier sisters Kessu and Clara. I'm sure, when they grow up, they have no worry with hunting test after playing fox-hunt with Lucky every Monday :o)

Weekend in Pärnu

2009-08-11T23:13:00.005+03:00

Well, you all know I have 2 dogs. But daddy can't perform worse then me - he has new friend too - 4-wheeled :o) and biiig. A bus. And Toyota of course :o). And as he needed to test it, he took out the last seats, builded a "sleepingroom" instead and we had a wonderful travelling weekend to Estonian summer capital Pärnu. As pictures tell more then 100 words:

Fountains were really to gladden our daughter - water is just wonderful babysitter for a 5 years old, so after taking pictures of her having fun, I still had time to entertain my dogs too - who, as you can see, didn't like the idea very much :o)

Rocco loves the water and Lucky loves chasing Rocco...

...and they both love chasing me...

... and although Lucky doesn't count swimming appropriate for a decent Sheltie, he couldn't trust us all to go to water and have fun without him - Lucky's second time of swimming:And to follow the old tradition - we haven't visited Pärnu if we haven't walked on Rüütli street:

Bus was just great for 3 people and 3 dogs, (oops, I just found out, that our weekend-dog Jossu and the bus didn't get to any picture, we have to go back and correct that mistake:o) ) so I hope to share more travel pictures here with you soon :o)

Dogs in theatre :o)

2009-08-06T01:56:00.005+03:00

Rocco and Lucky are watching soap-opera "Cats eating". The episode actors are performing is almost the same evening after evening, but dogs won't get bored. Specially Rocco can stay there watching cats for very long time.

Picking berries

2009-08-06T01:51:00.003+03:00

Well, red currants are too sour for them, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries are very tasty.

Puppy school 03.08

2009-08-06T01:21:00.008+03:00

Lucky on the "minefield". There was several different temptations on the field (food, toys) and our goal was to ignore them all. Lucky did excellent. Just like Rocco, he can't even look at food on the ground if he has been told not to take it, he walks away and pretends he doesn't know :o)

Lucky and Rocco teatching me the trick "give us candy":Lucky relaxing
Below you can see a clip of our training. We wasn't prepared for filming, just that Lucky can't wait his turn and offers his little tricks when trainer is working with others. And of course you can't ever ignore the dog during training session. By the time of this video we had done sit and down 100 x and just to keep him busy I tried to teach him backing up. His willingness to work is what I really would like you to look (and comment) in this clip. Look at him when his little friend Kessu comes to invite him to play with her - he still would work with me -sooooo sweet.

Rocco & Lucky playing

2009-08-06T01:10:00.004+03:00

01.08 Sheltie fun day vol 2.

2009-08-06T00:55:00.003+03:00

We had wonderful day with Kristina and her Shelties again.

On the picture Kristina with Joker & Kendzi and my daughter Kelli with Lucky & Rocco

Weather was not so nice this time and I didn't get as much evidence of how happy the dogs were as I would liked to. But what I got is here:

Obedience competition in Võru, 19.07

2009-08-06T00:51:00.004+03:00

Dog school "Tubli" on obedience competition in Võru. Rocco's result was III rank, 1 place in winners class.

More summerpictures

2009-07-12T23:04:00.001+03:00

11.07 Lucky is 4 months old

2009-07-12T00:09:00.005+03:00

Happy birthday Foxy, Shadow, Max and Isac!

Lucky is 31,5 cm and 4,2 kg.

New soft crate

2009-07-08T23:56:00.003+03:00

If you plan to buy a soft crate we recommend to look at this site too:

http://www.miligedo.de/_py_Hundebox-faltbar-N2-Serie/c-27-0-0-0-0-0.html

We just got one and are very happy about it. It's strong (look at the framing), it's easy to build, it's light weighted, and can be opened from 3 different sides.

05.07 on Kõrvemaa

2009-07-08T23:47:00.003+03:00

26.06 on north coast

2009-07-08T23:34:00.005+03:00

Sheltie fun day

2009-06-25T23:15:00.005+03:00

Rocco and Lucky are sleeping next to me right now, and probably dreaming about the great day they had today. We had Kristina visiting us with her 2 Shelties - Kendzi and Joker.

Rocco and Kendzi are old friends - for about 6 years, and they share same hobby - barking :o). But Lucky and Joker met first time. You can see from pictures below how much they enjoyed each others company.

Bigger one has bigger bowl, smaller one smaller bowl :o)

We tried to take some "proper" photos of the puppies, but they were too busy for that, here's some best shots we got.

Rocco has learned to love the camera. He had no interest of posing before Lucky came, but now he is always somewhere very near, if I have camera with me and of course the dear old friend has to get to the picture too:

It's wonderful summer outside, Rocco just loves swimming, Kendzi knows how to swim too, and Joker learned it today. But Lucky only agreed to put his 2 first paws to water and preferred to tell his oppinion from safe distance :o)

And here some more posing by puppies:

Rocco and Winnie on Kõrvemaa

2009-06-25T22:58:00.001+03:00

Midsummer

2009-06-25T22:53:00.001+03:00

2009-06-17T22:41:00.002+03:00

Lucky met cow today. He was very suspicious and had a lot to say to her,

and cow seemed to like the company of little herding dog, as she came as close as she could to look at him

It was fun to see Lucky and cow getting acquainted, it remembered me when Rocco first saw the cows, he sneaked near to them and just lied there and watched them for quite a long time.

Today he was watching us, wondering what's the big fuss about a cow :o)

2009-06-13T22:58:00.006+03:00

Rocco hasn't been posing much lately, and that's mostly because he has "enjoyed his life too much". For example last weekend when we went for a walk to a bog, before we even got to the boardwalk, he had a bathing in ditch. The bog ditch of course has a lot of bog peat in water and so Rocco didn't look very blue merle after coming out. And that's not exactly desirable in order to get a good sheltie-photo. The usual mud comes out of his coat easily, just let him dry a little and it's possible to plant a flower to the place he was just sleeping but dog is clean again :o). But the peat was still in his coat today, so I found he had deserved a very comprehensive grooming. Lucky was very helpful :o) steeling my tools to save his friend:
But still Rocco donated a lot of hair to my dog-hair-jacket-to-be foundation :o) and looked very good after that:
Even Lucky cooperated for a second - with the help of dryfood pieces between his legs.
But we need new picture for homepage and it's impossible to take it in one second. So I asked daddy to catch Lucky and bring him back. Result was, that both Shelties escaped from Sheepdog-catcher and daddy brought me the only he could catch:o) :

It's Lucky's 3 months birthday today!!!

2009-06-11T23:13:00.003+03:00

Happy birthday to Foxy, Shadow, Max and Isac! Lucky & co.

Lucky is 27 cm and 3,3 kg.

Lucky at 12 weeks

2009-06-07T23:09:00.007+03:00

2009-06-03T23:24:00.003+03:00

Here is my "catch" after chasing Lucky for a week with camera to get some good 12 weeks pictures :o).

2009-05-27T23:21:00.001+03:00

Lucky is 11 weeks old now. His weight is about 2.6 kg.

2009-05-27T22:26:00.005+03:00

Life is so easy with Rocco, all you have to do is to call him, ask him to come two steps, then a little to left, then one step back, then sit. And lift the ears. And take a photo. All in 1 minute (I'll try without the shadows on weekend). But our aim was to finally get some good baby photos of Lucky, as he is growing so fast. And that was not easy at all. Quess if Lucky has time to wait until I focus camera on him. No, of course. Absolutely everythig was more interesting for him then posing for me. And those few times I got his attention - before I got the picture he was kissing the cameras lens :o).

2009-05-26T00:20:00.005+03:00

24.05 Obedience competition in Pärnu.

Rocco heeling x 3

Stop on heel:
Here dog has to sit on command on heeling and stay :

Stop on recall:

Retrieve of metal dumbbell:

Little fan in pink beeing happy about our win, how good to have so great support:

After the comptetition:

Our dog-school "Tubli". Aet and dalmatian dog Marii I rank, 1 place in open class, our trainer Sveta and her 1 year old bordercollie Winnie on his first competition, 1 rank, 1 place in beginners class and Rocco and me, 1 rank, 1 place in winners class

Our daughter Kelli beeing proud about his friends good result:

"Afterparty" for other participants on beach of Pärnu.

Look, Lucky is flying:

It was very windy, but the wind was warm.

Lucky is wondering how Rocco and Jossu want to touch this wet thing with their paws.

2009-05-25T23:59:00.002+03:00

22.05 walk at Kakerdaja bog (almost, with the help of Photoshop:o) and my very little experience with it)

2009-05-25T23:52:00.003+03:00

21.05 Lucky meeting "Kissing students" in Tartu

Sandstones at beach of Peipsi lake

Sunset at Aa beach

2009-05-20T22:37:00.004+03:00

Lucky helping us with planting flowers :o)

First you have to put some food between puppys paws and the capture the moment he has finished it. As easy as that :o) :

Rocco just has to carry his tail high, otherwise little black mouse will bite it off :o)

2009-05-18T22:07:00.004+03:00

2009-05-15T21:40:00.001+03:00

2009-05-14T01:16:00.006+03:00

Couldn't remember how hard it is to take a good picture of a puppy. I have followed him with camera for 6 days now but he's sooo quick. Most of the pictures are like pieces of puzzle - a tail on one, another part of body on another :o). But I'll try hard and you come back again time to time to check if I have succeeded :o)

Rocco is introducing his friend Tiger the cat.

07.05.2009 Norway

2009-05-11T20:04:00.006+03:00

Aud Jorun, Lucky's sister Foxy with her new ovner and Helge

Lucky with his mom Beauty and step-mom (his little paw just had to stay on mom's head)

Lucky with his mom and other step-mom

Lucky saying good-bye to his mom and step-mom's.

Lucky with Leeland shelties. Left from Lucky his grand father Paris, on the right from him Beanie (12y) and Lucky's father Flynn

Dream come true - Leeland Inkpower, Lucky

Paris and Beanie, 2 of 3 wonderful Leeland Shelties

Saying good-bye to Aud Jorun and Helge

Flying home