Strange Saturday

This Saturday has felt a bit odd. Daniel was away all the afternoon, Paula is away the whole evening. It feels almost like a work day. I wish they stay at home more tomorrow.

Work, Work, Work

Today, both Daniel and Paula were away to work for several hours during the day. Paula usually work at night, but they needed people to work in the day today at her workplace. This meant we dogs were alone at home for several hours.

If none of your humans is at home, you have no pet duties to fulfill. However, it is more important to fulfill your watch dog duties. Dogs are always working, one way or the other. We are important to our humans, just like they are important to them. It feels good to be important.

A Trip with Jiro

Paula and I went on a trip by car today. We picked up my brother Jiro and his human Mayvor in Köping on the way and went on to a little place just north of Stockholm. It was a long time ago since I saw Jiro and it was really fun to meet him.

We came home late in the evening, but it was a nice trip.

Lost Game

Sweden played Northern Ireland in the Euro 2008 Qualifications (to the European Championships in football - or soccer, as Americans call it). Sweden is supposed to have a better team, but Northern Ireland has been a surprise before in the qualification group and won tonight. Thus, Northern Ireland took over the lead in the qualification group from Sweden, though they have played one game more than Sweden. Daniel watched the whole game on TV and was disappointed, he said the Swedish team did not play well, especially not the back line. I don't know much about Northern Ireland. I have never met a dog from there and I cannot think of a dog breed with Northern Irish origin. They seem to be good footballers, at least. I hope Sweden will qualify for the Euro 2008 despite this setback.

Missing Paula

Paula went away this morning and will come back late in the evening. She went to Gothenburg with her father to attend to the funeral of an old relative. It is nice to pay respect to the family that way. Daniel has taken a day off from work and has been at home, but I still miss Paula. I love Daniel just as much as Paula, but it feels strange when Daniel is the one who is at home on a work day.

Visiting Japan

From the 25th to the 29th of March, the Swedish King and Queen make an official vsit to the Emperor and Empress of Japan. They are lucky, I wish I would get to meet the Imperial Couple of Japan. I hope there is someone in the Swedish delegation who knows something about the Japanese dog breeds in Sweden. In my mind, this is the most important bilateral interest between Japan and Sweden, though I know not many humans would say the same. Humans have somewhat strange priorities sometimes.

Daylight Savings Time

There is time for this silly thing called daylight savings time again. We lose one hour of official time in the spring and get it back in the autumn, in order to move the hours people are awake backwards and thus get more hours of daylight in the evenings. As I wrote one year ago, this is silly. It is a great deception of the people. What is the difference between getting up one hour earlier by the clock and one hour earlier because you have turned the arms of the clock back one hour?

I guess the people want to be deceived. Just because of this deception, even dogs will be forced to get up one hour earlier Monday morning, to go on morning walks before their humans go to work. What other animals use daylight savings time? None! Humans claim to be the smartest animal on the planet. If this is so, the smartness behind daylight savings time is so beyond my capacities to understand, that I really do not believe there is any smartness behind it at all. Humans are lucky all the dogs on the planet love them so much that they like them despite silly things like getting up one hour earlier all the work days until autumn.

Movie Night

Paula rented three movies, she and Daniel are having a movie night tonight. They gave each of us dogs a chewing bone, thinking that we like to chew bones more than we like to watch movies. They are right. I cannot understand how a movie can be better than a chewing bone.

Snow

There was a centimetre of snow on the ground again this morning. Most of it melted away until the afternoon, though. It is spring most of the time, but sometimes, winter makes a quick guest appearance. If there is going to be snow again, I would like to have more. One centimetre is not enough to play in.

Birthday

First a note to yesterday's blog post. Japan is also the host of the world curling championships this year.

Today is the birthday of Paula's grandfather. He was born in 1918, so he turned 89 today. It is amazing that humans can get so old. Paula and Daniel went to him and celebrated, they also gave him a flower from all of us. May he live even longer!

Competing in Beauty

I have written about last Sunday's dog show three days in a row now. I will not write about it today too. One of my goals with each blog post is to write something different from the previous days, that is why I try to shift focus from my own life, to that of my family and friends, to domestic news, on to international news, and back.

Japan is in focus when it comes to more than one winter sport world championships this year. The Japanese hosted the World Championships in Cross Country Skiing earlier this year, now the World Figure Skating Championships have started in Tokyo. There are differencs i opinions whether figure skating is a sport, since it is a competition in how to skate beautifully. Figure skating is actually more of a beauty contest than dog shows are. (Despite what some people think, dog shows is not about beauty but about results of breeding and also some training of the dogs.) Nevertheless, you have to be skilled and very well trained to participate. It is rather fun to look at on TV, so it is definitely entertainment. The competition part adds to the thrill of the entertainment and makes the participants more eager to perform at their best. I like it.

Equal to Aunt Linni

Due to my victory this weekend, I am equal to Auntie Linni when it comes to dog show victories. Linni has told me she has also become Best of Opposite Sex and received CC and CACIB at an international dog show. This was before she decided to retire from her show career. I am happy to hear this, since I have looked up to Auntie Linni my whole life. She is my idol in a way Mum can never be. Even though Auntie Linni has retired, she says she supports me when I will continue to be shown and work toward becoming a champion. I cannot and will not make her disappointed.

The Day After

The day after a dog show always feels a bit odd. You return to your everyday life, perhaps a victory richer, but in the ordinary duties as a pet the victories do not count for much. I am glad for yesterday's victory and it feels good to be home, but I still long for the next time in the show ring. I hope it will come fast. Stay tuned, and I will tell.

A Sense of Victory

I became best bitch among the Shiba Inus at the dog show today. April came in third among the bitches. A male became best of breed. The important thing was that I got a certificate and a CACIB, my first. These are the first steps towards becoming a dog show champion.

Mum is a champion. Dad aims to become one this year, he does not need much to become one. My brother Jiro already have enough certificates that he need only one more after he turns two years old. I wonder if I can beat Dad and Jiro to it.

The successful day ended in a bit of sadness. Paula picked out two fine trophy cups for me and April and put them in a bag. This bag was stolen when she focused on other things for a little while. Fortunately, there were only the trophies and our copies of the judge's critique from the show. The trophies do not have such a high economic value and we can get copies of the critique from the Kennel Club that organized the show. We still got our badges showing what we won, and the results will be registered with the Swedish Kennel Club. Nevertheless, it is not fun to lose the trophies. I only hope the thief was very disappointed at what he found in the bag.

Grus in the News

Grus, the Welsh Springer Spaniel whom I know from Daniel's former workplace, is in the news paper Nerikes Allehanda today, together with his human Ylva. It is nice to see someone you know in the paper.

Tomorrow is the start of this year's formula 1 season with Australia's Grand Prix in Melbourne. You can see it live on Swedish TV, channel 6, but the race starts at 4 a.m. Central European Time due to the time difference. I will not be home, Paula, April, and I travel to a dog show that is in Malmoe tomorrow. However, I guess Daniel will wake up early to watch the race. Linni may have an extra interest, since her father comes from Australia, but I doubt she will want to get up that early just to see the race. I will sleep to prepare for the dog show.

Going to Kesshi's

Paula went to her sister Mia and my Shiba Inu friend Kesshi this evening. She did not bring any of us dogs, even though I love to see Kesshi. The reason was that she only went there to bring back some things she had borrowed from Mia, which is not a bad reason, but hardly an excuse. I would have wanted to come along anyway. Well, Paula got back home just a little later and we had a pleasant evening. I guess this will be forgotten soon.

Japan and Australia Forms a Pact

Auntie Linni's father is Australian and she is of course, like the rest of us Shiba Inus, of Japanese origin. She was therefore happy to read about the new Australian Japanese Pact and thought I should write something about it. I told her I would. I think it is nice that Japan forms alliances with other countries, it is good for Japan, and what is good for Japan must be good for the national breed Shiba Inu.

Now I have fulfilled my promise to Linni. Follow the link if you want to read more.

By the way, there's some news updates on Aston Martin for those of you who remember my blog post last Saturday.

Kiko's Hips

My brother Kiko has had his hips x-rayed, as any Shiba Inu should. X-ray examination of the hips is an important part of the health programme for the Shiba Inu breed. Kiko's hips turned out to be good. He is the first one in our litter to have his hips examined, but his result is promissing for me and Jiro. We are all happy for Kiko. Paula says a stone of anxiety has fallen from her heart. This was not the case for me. I am happy for the result, but I have always assumed that the three of us will make it.

Tearing Down and Rebuildning

Our house is a bit old and has not got the best of modern comforts. We have discussed that we will have it teared down in a couple of years and build a new house on the same site. Another option would be to build a new house somewhere else on our big lot and save the present house as a guest house. The present house is, however, certainly located on the best site of the lot. We do not have to decide now what to do and the situation is still up for discussion. April is the only one who has made up her mind. She has decided this house must come down and has actually started to tear up the floor in the kitchen.

Paula was furious with April when she caught April tearing up the floor for the first time last week. One would think April would have been taught a lesson, but she started to tear up the floor again today. Needless to say, Paula got furious again.

April has to learn to wait until decisions affecting us all are finally made. I am not opposed to the idea of tearing this house down, but I would never start doing it on my own before the decision to do this was made. April is still young, I am sure she will learn.

Ants

It is early in spring, but we have seen a couple of ants in our house. There has just been a few of them, but they are annoying. They refuse to pay rent and they are not edible. Daniel has put out some insecticide to try to refrain them from coming here anymore. We hope this will be a success.

Alone

Paula and Daniel left all of us dogs alone at home this afternoon. It is nice to be alone once in a while, but I wonder what they do when they go away like that on a Sunday. They brought some new food back home, so some of the time were spent in a store, but they were gone for several hours and it does not take that long to buy groceries. Well, as long as Paula and Daniel do not tell me what they did this afternoon, I will not tell them what I did. This means I will not write anything about my afternoon in my blog, because I know Paula and Daniel read it. All I will say that my afternoon was nice enough. I may tell you more about the day I have tomorrow in my blog post for tomorrow, stay tuned!

Aston Martin to Compete in Formula 1?

With spring approaching, so is the start of Daniel's favourite sport, Formula 1. When the successful Michael Schumacher is no longer competing and the reigning champion Fernando Alonso drives another car than last year, nobody can be sure who is a favourite to win this years championship. This makes it all the more interesting.

There are rumors that possible new owners of the British sports car manufacturer Aston Martin will compete in Forumla 1 in 2008 under the name Aston Martin. Daniel thinks this would be great, since Aston Martin is a classic car with a lot of history in racing. The possible new owner is the company Prodrive, which is already due to compete in Formula 1 next year. Prodrive is, however, not a classic name and most people would probably rather have an Aston Martin than a car called Prodrive in their garage. It would thus benefit Prodrive to use the name Aston Martin for their Formula 1 cars. Let's hope they do.

Spring Is Coming

The snow is melting, birds are singing (and sometimes teasing our hunter instincts with their mere presence), and the dog area of our garden is turning into mud. There are cherry blossoms blooming in Tokyo. Dog show season is getting closer. Next Sunday, we may go to a dog show in Malmö. I like dog shows, that is one reason why I look forward to the warmer part of the year.

Rain

For the second day in a row, there was a heavy rainfall on our morning walk. I and the other dogs do not mind as much as Daniel does, he buttons up his jacket to keep every raindrop out. The disadvantage with not having rainproof clothes like humans, is that you have to get dried after the walk. Daniel dries us off with a towel, especially on our backs and paws. Dad always growls when he is dried off, he really does not like it. However, he knows just as well as the rest of us that he has to sustain it. We all hope it will not rain tomorrow morning.

Am I Too Full of Energy?

I got to go with Paula to Kesshi tonight. It is always fun to go there. What made me a little thoughtful, though, was Paula's comment to Daniel when she told him she would bring me. She said that this would make the evening calmer for Daniel and the rest of the dogs at home. Am I really so full of energy that the home gets significantly calmer when I am not around? If this is so, is it really bad that I am so full of energy? Well, I like to play. If I get some of the other dogs to play with me, it is because they like it as well, even though I might be the one starting it all. I believe Paula's comment was not intended to degrade me, it was probably just said because Daniel was just home from work and may have been tired. I have no hard feelings and I will not change my way of life.

Walking On the Table

On rare occasions, I persuade Paula or Daniel to pick me up in the lap when they sit at our large table in the kitchen. I like this, but I like it better when I use this as a stepping stone to get upon the table. There are all kinds of interesting things on the table, like plants, books, papers, and the odd piece of candy. Unfortunately, neither Daniel nor Paula likes it when I walk around on the table. It does not matter how careful I am, they still lift me off the table almost as soon as I get there. This is a part of my home as well, but I am not allowed to explore it. Life is a bit hard for dogs sometimes.

Cats and Dogs Finding New Homes

There was a premiere for a new Swedish TV show today, a documentary on a cat and dog shelter and how homeless or neglected cats and dogs got taken care of and got new, loving homes. The subject of the show is very important and I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, though, it was badly directed and produced, and repeated itself in a manner which I have previously only seen on cheap foreign documentaries. In my home, which is fortunately full of love and care, we all agreed that the aim of the show was good, but that it was not produced in a good enough way that we will keep following the series. This is too bad, because if dog lovers like my humans do not want to watch this important show, who will? I can only hope for the best for all of the homeless and neglected dogs out there.

Robbed of Puppies

A family who bred a litter of Yorkshire Terriers got robbed of the pups and pups' mother in their home in the Los Angeles area. I can understand that humans who do not have dogs are desperately trying to get dogs, considering the great rewards of having dogs. This, however, is way out of line. How can they do this? I hope all dogs are soon returned to their humans.

Cursing on TV

Humans use certain words when they are angry, but because these words are used to show anger, some humans get offended by hearing them. You can compare curses with canine growling.

Sometimes, people curse on TV, but in the USA, the broadcasting companies censor the curses out by putting beeping sounds over them on the soundtrack. There is an American TV show where lower class Americans come and fight over lovers et cetera, it is called Jerry Springer after its host. Paula and Daniel watches it occasionally when they have no better things to do. The funny thing is, the dialogue sometimes consist almost entirely of beeps.

I wonder what they would do if a dog came to the show and growled? Would they put beeps over the growling? Dogs watching the show on TV can be offended otherwise. Well, I would rather watch Animal Planet anyway.

The Water Is Back

Daniel turned the water pump off last night. Now, early in the morning as I write this, he has turned the pump on again. There is water in the well again and we have pressure in the water system. We will have to be careful and not use too much water for a while, but the crisis is over. Daniel believe the problem was that the toilet had got stuck flushing, which drained the well many hours later. During the night, water has come back into the well. We are civilized again.

Out of Water

We do not have any tap water in our house this evening. The pressure just disappeared. We have our own well. Daniel looked at the pump, which worked but showed no pressure on the pressure scale. We do not know what the problem is, but have to get a plumber here tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Paula and Daniel have trouble using the bathroom. That is of no concern for the rest of us - as dogs, we just go outside. Sometimes, it is best to keep it simple, like we do.