The Norwegian Shiba Specialty

Our results from the Norwegian Shiba Specialty the last weekend is now published on our website, just follow the link news 2007-05-29.

Rainy day

Home from vacation. It is raining "cats and dogs". Boring but nice at the same time. We will take it easy a couple of days.

Here is some pictures of me, taken this past weekend when I was at the Norwegian Akita Special in Hunderfossen, Norway. Judge was mr. Per Svarstad from Sweden. Im quite pleased with the result though it was a very stiff competition.

Aangenaam Lunar Eclips: 1 ukl 2 ukkl Ck Not placed in Best female.

My best friend April did even better than me when she was shown at the Norwegian American Akita Specialty the next day, at the same location. Judge was mrs. Britt Nyberg from Norway.

Taichung Spring Affair: 1 jkl 1 jkkl Ck 4th Best Female

Sweet April went all the way to be placed in best Female, winning the junior class. I'm very happy for her and me too of course.

An Apology and About Anonymous Answers

I have reason to make an apology to Anna, the breeder of a dog I commented in my blog on the 21st of April this year. It has since come to my knowledge that Anna was more upset by my comment than I had reason to believe at the time.

I have to admit that sometimes you win at a dog show, sometimes you lose.

It is human for blog writers to make mistakes sometimes, writing more harsh words than he/she intended to.

It is interesting to note that there were so many anonymous comments to the blog entry of the 21st of April. I normally only get one or two comments a week, from my friend Grus and from blog writer Daniel (a.k.a. Daily-Hailey). As many others, I do not think anonymous comments are of much significance, since if you have something to say in a free society you normally state your name. Anna was the only straight forward person who commented with her name. Therefore, I take Anna's comment to heart and sincerely apologise to her. Unfortunately, all of the anonymous comments came after her and made me lose focus. This is why I lost track of the apology that should have been stated right away to Anna.

I have made a decision to close the posibility to comment on Daily-Hailey, because there is no function from my blog host to reject anonymous comments. From now on, I will keep Daily-Hailey as a very non-personal reflection on what is going on in life.

(Daniel Granqvist)

Ja vad skall man säga?

Till alla läsare som svarat anonymt/påstått att jag Paula har skrivit ett 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???

There Will Be an Interruption

We are going to Norway tomorrow and will not be back until Monday. During these days, I will not write anything in my blog. You just have to wait until then to read my comments about Norway and the Norwegian Shiba Inu Specialty. I hope you will make it without my daily blog entries until Monday. Have a nice Pentecost!

Birthday

We celebrated Daniel's birthday today. One of the things Daniel got as birthday presents were chairs and a table for outdoor use. He also got some books he thought were interesting and a lawn mover a couple of days ago. Late at night, Paula gave us dogs cheese doodles to celebrate. Birthdays are fun.

Majestic Visitors

Their Imperial Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan are currently visiting Sweden. They are here to celebrate that it is 300 years ago the world famous Swedish botanist Carl von Linné was born. The Emperor has a special interest in this, since he is also a botanist. It is nice to know that Their Imperial Majesties are interested in Sweden, especially for us Shiba Inus who may be Swedish dogs but are of a Japanese breed. I wish I could go to see the Emperor and Empress, but as I wrote in my blog yesterday, I have other commitments this weekend that I have to prepare for. We all make our own efforts to show the bonds of friendship between Sweden and Japan.

Time to Plan for the Next Trip

We are back home, but are already planning for the next journey. There is another dog show next weekend, the Norwegian Shiba Inu Speciality which takes place in Lillehammer in central Norway. The whole family will come along this time. This requires a lot of planning, to make sure we bring all the essential things, but nothing unnecessary. We will borrow a larger car, but it will still be a little crowded.

There will be a long ride by car to Lillehammer and two show days. I am looking forward to it, in part because it will be my first journey abroad. Both Mum and Dad sometimes say that we are all living abroad, but while Mum is abroad in Norway as well, Dad says he is going home. Dad is, as you may know, from the famous Norwegian Shiba Inu breeder Enerhagen in Bergen. He is looking forward to seeing his breeder with friends, who will also come to Lillehammer. Dad says Norway is the most beautiful land in the world, I am curious to see if that is true. No matter what, I think I will like Norway if there is good food and nice company there. A nice result in the show ring would also be something.

Huh?

I got excellent critique and was second best bitch in the spitz hound specialty dog show today. This is good, I am definitely not dissatisfied with the result. However, the judge was not really good at Shiba Inus, he called me a black sesame, instead of a black and tan. If Paula has paid a lot of money to show me, one could at least expect the judge to know how to separate between the colours of Shiba Inus. This is why we, when reading the critique, sat like question marks: Huh?

More Good News

On the dog show today, I was second best bitch and got another CC. The best bitch was already a champion, that is why I got the CC. The Japanese judge thought the only flaw with me was that my eagle (the white mark on the chest) was not as well defined as he would have wanted.

April won the Junior Class.

Success

I got a CC and a CACIB today and was Best of Opposite Sex, on the first dog show day in Hässleholm. Paula was very happy and said that we could almost go back home immediately, having reached the goal of getting me a CC and a CACIB. April was not shown today.

There is no risk that we will go back home right away. We will stay to the dog show tomorrow, when there is a Japanese judge judging the Shiba Inus. We are very interested in seeing what he will say about April and me. Perhaps we will give up the spitz hound specialty on Sunday, though.

Time Flies

It was not long ago we were on a dog show, but April, Paula, and I are already on our way to another one. There are a lot of them this time of the year, time seems to fly between them. I like that, dog shows are fun. There will be three days of shows this time, I hope I will be very successful on at least one of those days. It is in Hässleholm, were I did great one of the two days last year. I will try something new this weekend and will log on to my blog though I am not at home. Modern technology gives a lot of posibilities, so stay tuned throughout the weekend.

The Euro Zone Will Be Bigger

It seems like Cyprus and Malta will soon join the common currency Euro that is part of the monetary cooperation of the European Union. Sweden has still not joined, which Daniel think is annoying, since we still have to change money when we are going to countries like Finland and Germany. My American Mum, on the other hand, says it would be better if Sweden would exchange its own currency for the really hard currency of the world, the US Dollar. Mum's love of America never fails.

Dandelions

Daniel swears over the large amount of dandelions ("maskros" in Swedish, which litterally translates into "worm rose") in our garden. He uses an iron tool to dig them out, root and all. He says it is a weed that must be exterminated from our land. It takes a lot of time and there seem to grow more and more in our garden each day. Daniel is really mad at them. Neither of the rest of us care much.

Busy Week?

If this week will continue the way it started today, it will feel very busy. Paula went to work at seven in the morning, then Daniel left at 8.30. While Paula came back home in the early afternoon, Daniel stayed at work until almost five o'clock. Paula went back to work tonight, from nine to seven tomorrow morning. By that time, Daniel will always have left home to spend the working day in Stockholm, he will also attend to a meeting in the evening after coming back home to Örebro.

There is a holiday on Thursday, Daniel will stay home from work Thursday and Friday. On the other hand, Paula, I, and some of the other dogs will leave for this year's dog show in Hässleholm. As always, and especially after the last few disappointing results, I try to keep my hopes at a moderate level. On the other hand, I did well last year in Hässleholm, maybe the site brings me some kind of luck. We will have to see by the end of this week.

A Little Disappointed

There are a lot of causes for feeling down right now. Sweden lost the semi finals of the World Championship in ice hockey yesterday and the game for bronze today. Sweden also got such a bad result in the Eurovison Song Contest that we are not directly qualified to the contest next year. April and I had no particular luck at the dog show yesterday. Over all a rather blue weekend. The rainy weather today adds to this feeling, even though Daniel says it is good to get a lot of rain when we have a well of our own. Well, I guess he is right about that. There were also a few golden rays of sunshine coming through an opening in the clouds late in the afternoon.

More News Later

Paula, her sister Mia, April, and I will go to a dog show in Österbybruk tomorrow. We will leave early in the morning and everything will be very exciting. This is one of the most important shows this year, since the dog winning Best of Breed gets the title Swedish Winner '07. There will be news about our results in the show the day after tomorrow. I will not have time to write anything in my blog until then, but stay tuned.

Eurovision Song Contest

We started to see the qualification round to the Eurovision Song Contest this Saturday. The songs were, however, generally so bad that we left to do other things. I hope the quality of the songs on Saturday are better.

Break

Sometimes, I just don't feel like sriting in my blog. Over the last few days, that has been the case. Daniel has not been at home since Monday morning, which made me a bit sad and less inclined to writing in the blog, but he is back now. It is not fun when Daniel or Paula is away, we don't feel really calm. Things are more like they should be now, when Daniel is back. You will have to see if I get back to daily blog entries now, I believe I will.

Yet Another Dog Show

Paula and I went to another dog show today. Unfortunately, I did not get a good result. The judge was very harsh, he did not give many CC's or any good prizes at all, for that matter. I got a first prize in quality and an honourary prize. Well, shows would not be very exciting if you won all the time.

Correction

I forgot to write anything about my dear Pharao Hound friend Primus yesterday, despite the fact that it was his birthday. I am sorry for this, I just took his birthday for granted.

Shiba Park

If I were to visit Tokyo, I would like to visit Shiba Park. Shiba is the Japanese word for small, inu means dog, so Shiba Inu means small dog. In Swedish, the Shiba Inu is commonly known just as a Shiba, but this is obviously wrong. Thus, the Japanese word Shiba in the name Shiba Park does not mean the same as the two words Shiba Inu. Still, it would be fitting for a Shiba Inu to visit a park with that name.

Mia's Birthday

It is Paula's sister Mia's birthday today, but she will celebrate it tomorrow evening. I cannot understand why you would want to postpone your birthday celebration. Perhaps it is just a way of prolonging the celebration, Mia might be celebrating herself or with others today as well. That would be a good idea.

Putting a Room into Order

Our house has two bedrooms, but we only use one of them. The other is called the spare room. Ever since we moved in here in November it has so far been filled with this and that in no particular order. Paula has now vowed to put it in order before the end of this week. The other dogs and I have helped her with this project today and we surprised Daniel with a good result when he came home from work this evening. The room is far from finished, but we are definitely on our way. I bet we will make it.

Expensive Concert

The American singer Barbra Streisand will perform on concerts in Britain this summer. The tickets will cost up to £ 500, about 7000 Swedish Crowns, the cheapest one about 2 000 Crowns. If you want to go, you will also have to pay for the journey there. I would suggest a much cheaper and more interesting entertainment this summer: anyone of all the official Swedish Kennel Club dog shows. I will perform myself on some of them. I hope to see you there!