The End of April

This is the last day of April. Not the last day of the April of our family, just the end of the month that has her name. April will not leave us just because the month with her name is over.

Australia Won in Cricket

So, the Cricket World Cup is finished, and I still am not sure what cricket is about. Australia won for the third time in a row. This means Auntie Linni is glad, since her father is from Australia, but she is another one who does not really know what cricket is about. Well, I guess no one on Earth is meant to know everything, not even a Shiba Inu.

Ice Hockey World Championship

The annual World Ice Hockey Championship has started. Sweden's first game was against Italy, a country not as good as Sweden at the sport. It did not start well, Italy got the first goal. Sweden came back, however, and won by 7-1. The experts say Sweden cannot defend its gold from last year and a game against Italy does not tell you much about the strength of the team. We will have to see what will happen.

Barbecue

We had a barbecue today. Paula bought a grill, and we tried it out at once. The food was marvelous.

April's Birthday

April turns one year old today, my young and a bit inexperienced friend. We celebrated on waffles and had chips (or French fries, as Mum and April says) in our food. It was a great party. We are ending this terrific evening with chewing bones.

Earth Like Planet

European astronomers have found a new planet, revolving a star about 20.5 light years from the Sun and Earth, that is the most similar to Earth yet found. It has about five times the mass of Earth, so it would be difficult for us Earthlings to live there, but its orbit is on such a distance from its star that it can hold liquid water. As far as we know, liquid water is a necessary ingredient for Earth like life. I wonder if there is intelligent life on that planet, life similar in intelligence to dogs and humans. Maybe my great great great great grandpuppies will know.

Is Hell Like This?

I wonder if there is a part of dog Hell that is a pet shop. April and I got to come with Paula and Daniel into a pet shop today. There are toys and candy everywhere. Anywhere you turn to, there are new exciting things to smell, watch and try to chew at. However, you are never allowed to take or even test chew anything. This is a subtle form of torture. It is not really painful, but I imagine that one of the upper levels of dog Hell is like this. Just imagine having all these fun and tasty things around you constantly, but never able to try anything. In this life, we got to leave the pet shop and Paula bought some dog treats to take home, a much longer time there would really, really be frustrating.

Sweetie

We have been worried sick over one of Mum's dear friends from America, Sweetie. Sweetie lives at Taichung, where both Mum and April where born. However, she managed to get ofer the fence to the yard yesterday and ran away. Nobodycould find her for a day and a half. Then, finally, she got back, tired and hungry. She hasn't told her humans where she has been and what she has done. We dogs never do that when we run away, just ask my Dad. Sunni says she is certain Sweetie has had an adventure that she may not want to relive, but will certainly not regret. We are all glad it worked out fine.

Another Dog Show

Till alla läsare som svarat anonymt/påstått att jag Paula har skrivit detta inlägg den 21 april där den hund som vann certet före mina flickor skrevs att ha "ett mer fult huvud" än April:

För det första: Till uppfödaren av den hund/samt ägaren som slog mina: jag ber om ursäkt om kommentaren som blogskribenten skrev sårade. Förlåt! Givetvis var det inte blogskribentens intention! Resten tar jag, Paula, med dig privat och utan mellanled när vi ses nästa gång.

För der andra: Varför gömmer ni er bakom anonyma "nicknames"?

För det tredje: Jag är väldigt förvånad och besviken på er anonyma kommentatorer som inte vågar stå för era åsikter/påståenden. Ni hade kunnat kommentera detta på ett smidigare sätt. Ni har säkerligen sett mig/hejat på mig på ngn utställning efter den 21 april 2007, vad vet jag???

För det fjärde: inlägget får stå kvar som det var skrivet i original exklusive kommentaren i fråga. Den är omformulerad.

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April and I went with Paula to a dog show today. Jiro was there, it is always fun to meet any of my brothers. The Shiba Inu judge was not very good. He did give Jiro CC and made him Best of Opposite Sex, but he put a bitch before April in Junior Class. I think April should have won. In the final competition for best bitch, I was fifth and April fourth. There were many Shiba Inus on the show, this is an acceptable result. It will hopefully be even better next time.

We Stayed at Home on a Birthday

Paula and Daniel went to Paula's parents this evening to celebrate the birthday of Paula's father Nils Olov. They did not bring any dog. I would have liked to be there and celebrate Nils Olov, he is a dear friend of mine. It is not that I dislike staying at home, and Paula and Daniel has the final say. Paula and Daniel gave Nils Olov birthday greetings from me and the other dogs. However, it would have been fun to be there and show my appreciation of Nils Olov in person. On the other hand, I guess I am the only one writing a blog post saying: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NILS OLOV!

Rain

Rain has been falling on and off today. It is the first day with rain in some time. It is not comfortable, especially not when you get inside and have to endure being dried off with a towel. On the other hand, it is good because it fills the reservoirs, not least our own well. We have our own well with private instead of communal water. A well filled well is a good thing to have.

Watching the Grass Grow

The headline of this blog post may make you think this is another dull day in my life. This is not the case. It is not like I am sitting idle while watching the grass grow. However, I can see the progress every day. All the plants in our garden grow. We can see that there are more and more grass in the dog yard, even where we run a lot. Daniel is a bit surprised, he did not think any grass could grow in the places where we run, jump, and turn at high speed the most. Our play does affect the grass, but it is there, growing. Daniel will soon have to buy a lawn mower, which he will have to use in the dog yard as well as on the rest of our estate.

Day by Day

Another day go by, but today, I haven't got anything to say. I cannot think of anything out of the ordinary that has happened today. Some days are like that. These days does not have to be dull, they just are, if you know what I mean. I hope there will be some more exciting events in my life tomorrow, to make my blog a better read.

Killing Spree

At least twenty people have been murdered by a madman shooting around at a university campus in Virginia, USA. This seems insane. From what I have read, there were at least no dogs injuried. I am glad shootings like this are not common even in America, after all, I have a lot of relatives there on Mum's side of the family.

Changing Tyres

We watched the Bahrain formula 1 Grand Prix this afternoon. Felipe Massa won before Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Räikkönen. Afterwards, Daniel took all of us Shiba Inus in the car to Paula's parents, where Nils Olov helped him change the winter tyres into summer tyres. Since they were two at the job, they were finished rather quickly. It was not at all in the pace of the mechanic's crews in formula 1, though. Well, you cannot ask too much. The formula 1 cars are constructed for quick changes of tyres, there is two men for each tyre and they have electric machines to make it go quicker. On the other hand, a formula 1 car is so small you cannot bring your dog. I would not want to change our car for a formula 1 car.

Thailand

Paula's sister Mia has been on vacation to Thailand, a country halfway around the world and closer to Japan than to Sweden. April and I got to go with Paula and Daniel tonight to visit Mia at her home. Paula and Daniel got presents. I did not, but I thought it was enough to get to see my friend Kesshi. Kesshi did not go to Thailand, he has spent the time at Mia's and Paula's parents, but he was just as glad. He would not like the heat in tropical Thailand anyway, he said. While he felt very good to be home and have Mia at home, he had a good time when she was away too. It is easy to be satisfied with your life, if you are a Shiba Inu.

Cake!

Daniel's co-workers did not eat all of the cake, he brought a lot of it back home. We like Daniel again!

Baking a Cake

Daniel is baking a cake tonight. He is not going to give anything of it to either of us dogs, nor to Paula. This is cruel. The reason is that they have a rule on Daniel's work that someone on the department will always bring a cake on Friday. This Friday, it was Daniel's turn to bake for the others. Daniel should honour the cake rule on his work, of course. However, I think he could have baked another cake for us who stay at home tomorrow while he was at it, at least a little one.

Cricket

There's a World Cup going on in Guyana and the West Indies. They play an English sport called cricket. I have asked Auntie Linni what this sport is about. Her father's home country Australia is the only country represented in our international household that participates in the Cricket World Cup. However, Linni could not explain much. Mum said that cricket had a few similarities with the American sport baseball, but was much more boring. I am not sure I should believe Mum, she often says things are boring just because they are not American. There are no cricket games on TV to watch and learn from. I have not become wiser, but perhaps I will know what cricket is about in the far future. In that case, I may write another blog entry about it.

Killer Tomato?

Dogs are carnivores. We eat meat. However, I have a Pharao Hound friend who got up on his hind paws in the kitchen recently and stole and ate sliced tomato. Maybe he thought it was a tomato from the movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! I am not sure whether the killers in the guise of tomatoes in that movie where made of meat, I have never seen it, but living things killing other living things usually are. I would not make any effort to eat tomatoes, nevertheless.

By the way, most of the snow has melted again today.

Snow Again

We thought winter was over. We thought spring was here, with the hope of a warm summer. Then snow fell again today. This evening, the temperature outside is close to the freezing point. I hope it will get warmer again soon, I am tired of winter weather.

Puppy Plans

Since I have healthy hips, I will have puppies in the near future. I have spent this evening discussing names of my future puppies with Paula and Daniel. Paula is very enthusiastic. It feels good that she is, but I prefer to take it a bit slower. Puppy names are important, I want my pups to have names that are just as great as my name is. They will get the same prefix, Aangenaam, of course. We have a lot of ideas for themes of the names of all the puppies in the same litter, but we will not say anything about it until the pups are born. Stay tuned the coming year, and you will get to know.

Hips

It is important to be of good health and have good genes, if you are to get pups in the future. Shiba Inus in Sweden must have their hips examined by x-ray. That was what Jiro and I did last Thursday. We got the results today and we both passed the test. This is great news, not only for us, but also for Mum and Dad who gave us their genes. Dad has had four of his pups examined so far, all of them has passed. That is a great result. Of course, I was never worried myself, I have never felt that my hips would be anything but healthy.

Upcoming Easter

It will be Easter in a few days. I have assured April Easter does not hurt. She said she had not had any thoughts it would, but I reminded her that she asked whether Christmas hurt last December and I just wanted to make sure she did not think the same about Easter. You cannot be too sure about young, inexperienced dogs.

The thing I like the most about Easter is that it is the candy holiday of the year. There is no other time the Swedish people buy and eat so much candy. I wish a happy Easter with a lot of candy for every human and dog out there!

My Joke

I did an April Fool's Day joke in my blog entry yesterday. There are, of course, no wild wombats in Sweden, neither in Brunnsparken in Örebro, nor anywhere else. The wombat is a marsupial from Australia. I would like to see one, though.

A Walk in the Spring Sun and an Odd Sight

April, Paula, Daniel and I went to Paula's grandparents and took a walk in the warm sun of this spring day. Paula's Mother and Aunt were there to. It is always nice to do something different.

After this walk, Paula and Daniel took me and April by the grocery store. While Paula went in to buy groceries, Daniel, April, and I took a short walk through Brunnsparken, a fine park which is not yet so nice as it can be in the summer.

We saw an unusual wild animal in the park, a wombat. This is a little, brown, furry mammal about one metre long. It is always interesting to spot wild animals, especially those that are not common. If you are in the Örebro area, try to get to Brunnsparken in Adolfsberg, you may get to see the wombat.