Welcome Madeira

I have more puppy news for you – different kind this time – we have little baby puppy at home. Actually you already know this puppy – from previous postings here. SHE is Lucky’s daughter from his litter with Marvitholl Passionata “Smilla”. And yes, it’s she not he this time :-). I-never-become-a-breeder person is still alive inside me, but … well, it’s a long story.  Starting with the fact, that in this litter there was only 1 boy. I was very brave for couple of weeks to think I can’t take a puppy (OK, OK 4 days :-) if I read our conversation history with Lidia, their breeder) and then, to calm down, asked, if the boy has potential owner. But finding out he did – I just couldn’t let the idea of taking puppy exactly from that litter go.  I just can't imagine there could ever be combination better then this  for me - because next to being very very beautiful, Smilla is very very sporty, healthy and smart and that is even more important for me... and of course the fact that there's 50% of my dear Lucky in all of them <3. So, as Madeira was much smaller then others, and due to that not potential breeding dog, I asked for her as a second option. But when I saw them, my “second option”  totally melted my heart by jumping on me and giving so many kisses and waving her tail for almost all the time I was there. Other puppies were friendly too, but not as excited as Madeira. So, that’s the end of this long story, she chose me <3. And now she is with us. Such a very sweet and happy little girl. Huge thanks to her breeder Lidia Beljaeva for trusting this little darling to me!!!

Madeira's babyphotos below by Lidia Beljaeva, Vera Feodorova

Lucky's first litter

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.)

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

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).

Lucky is 6 months old

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.

Puppy school 24.08

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)

Puppy school 17.08

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

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

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

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)

11.07 Lucky is 4 months old

Happy birthday Foxy, Shadow, Max and Isac!

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

Sheltie fun day

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:

Learning to know the world

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)

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

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

Lucky is 27 cm and 3,3 kg.

Lucky at 12 weeks

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