Rocco posting this time. And a little bit skiing too :-)

It was easy to keep blog alive when Lucky was puppy and growing and changing all the time. Now it’s much harder to find interesting news to share with you. How many times you want to hear we had wonderful sunny weekend with wonderful long ski hiking to wonderful places :o). Because we did. Again :o). I love this kind of weekends and Lucky even more and the rest of my family too, so probably that’s what is going to happen next weekend too...and next, and next...as long as there is snow :o).   At least I have couple of new photos, made with my soap-box camera, big improvement I would say :o).  And that’s better then season summaries, right ;o)

Let’s see how I manage in the future, but for this posting I have material – my dear old friend Rocco hasn't been mentioned very often lately, so I'll write a little about him.
I have told you Rocco  is suffering joint problems. It was scary to think that this will happen some day, but now it has - he walks with Lucky and me on the mornings but on the evenings we only take small tour around the house and leave him home when I go walking with Lucky. Good thing is Rocco looooves food :-)  He is very worried looking at our preparations to go out – but because he thinks I could maybe forget to give him candy :-). His good appetite is really an advantage, as long as there is possibility to earn (or very politely blackmail  :-) ) candies, he is really really happy. Smile on the face and tail waving. He has agreed the candy tradition with my parents, at the end of every breakfast he goes to my dad and pat him with his paw asking for cheese. They always have the same conversation too. And if my dad is not home, then Kelli or my brothers son replaces him and tradition is the same (including the conversation :-) ). After the breakfast he goes to my mum telling her "hi" so happily like they hadn't met for years :-). And of course get's candy.
He has very sweet way of reminding me it's dinnertime. When I watch TV he comes and lays down in front of TV and looks at me until he gets eye contact. If I then ask him what does he want, he jumps up, waving his tail and trying to tell me. Describing what he wants is usually a long talk :-) so I ask him to show me instead and he does, very clearly, by going to kitchen and showing his food bag (or watching nose up should we have something better on the stove)  :-). He is such a good conversation partner  :-). "Rocco what do you want" topic is his favorite, on his younger years there was many answers, now it's mostly candies :-) . But there's one more conversation we have with him - our Friday conversation. On Friday , when I come home from work and we go out, I ask him if he knows what day it is. And Rocco tail starts to wave. If I ask several times he answers too, in doggy language of course. Then I ask him if really today is already Friday and he answers in more words, tail waving even stronger. Next question is  Where does Rocco go on Fridays? And as an answer I get loong talk already :-) and tail waving so hard, that almost touching his nose. Next is my turn to be surprised that Rocco goes to country :-) and so it goes on with questions like who is waiting for him on the country and so on. I'm not sure how much he really understands me, probably as much as I understand him, but he is so happy, really waving tail so strong and wriggling so that tail touches the nose :-).
Lucky takes part of our conversations too. He still has language barrier :-) but just in case he first wants everything too... but later.... well, a man can always change his mind, right. When I'm cooking, Rocco sleeps on kitchen floor hoping I'll drop something when jumping over him :o), but for Lucky cooking is booooooring, he sees no hope I could play with him at same time and goes to another room. Instead of calling him (then he would first think if he wants to come or not) I whisper very quietly to Rocco "let's not tell to the puppy we are ... (f.e eating candy)" and Lucky is back in a second :-). If there's something we don't tell to him, he must know it for sure..

Rocco is very very kind dog, not at all dominant but in our pack he is still big boss. Lucky just so much admires and respects his bravery .... in battle with vacuum cleaner :-). I guess vacuum cleaner has stolen some dry food kibbles Rocco has left on the floor or something else valuable, because Rocco just has to keep eye on it during all the cleaning process and bark and at the end bite the tube :-). And Lucky is so impressed :-) ... He's much smaller and therefore very vary, as he's not sure that vacuum cleaner won't eat him :-) But he is learning to fight with it too :-).

One more sweet thing that needs to be told about Rocco's and Lucky's cooperation. When Rocco was young, his favorite job at country was to help bringing water. We have old type well and drinking water we bring in pail. Rocco anticipates when the pail is empty and very much wants to help to bring new water. It's hard to describe his "helping", so here's a video for you. You can also see there, that there's a little bit of Sheltie in every dog or then barking is contagious :-) . 

As this help consist barking and jumping mostly, then to save his paws we try to manage without him. Here comes Lucky to "help". He too thinks bringing water is very fun, but because of Rocco's contribution. If he sees the empty pail and Rocco is not there, he comes to find him to tell him what is going on. When Rocco is left inside the house he jumps up on the door so he can see in from the window and tell to Rocco what his happening :o).

Adding here, that he has his rat-TV; we built stairs for him, so he still could climb to the bed :-) and he can always join us when we go by car, then even Rocco isn’t glad to be left out from all our activities, his eyes are still shining and tail waveing and he is happy with his life.

Photo by Karin Põiklägu, made on Fancy's & Lucky's birthday party