Last Day of April

Today, a lot of Swedes celebrate spring by bonfires and eat great food. Paula is working at the hospital and gets extra pay because tomorrow is a holiday. The rest of us celebrate at home. We had a great meal, Daniel made pancakes and all of us got to taste a little.

A downside to this day is that some people fire crackers. This is a noise we do not like. It is not that anyone of us are afraid, but we cannot understand the point of making noise like this. A long time ago, crackers were used to scare evil daemons away, but who believe in daemons these days?

Success for Paula

Paula was at the university today to defend her final thesis for the nurse's exam. She was quite nervous in the morning, but all of us tried to cheer her up and said we were certain she would make it. We have all read the thesis, so we know it is good. Now we know she made it. There were just minor things she would adjust, of no importance to the overall document. We have got a better reason than usually to celebrate tonight.

My Little Sister

My little sister turns two weeks tomorrow. She is about to open up her eyes. As you can see, she is very cute - about as cute as my pups.

We have got warm weather, but thankfully, we also have popsicles to cool ourselves with. Popsicles are good.

Latvia Beat Sweden

In Team Sweden's second game of the Ice Hockey World Championships, they played Latvia. Normally, this is an opponent Sweden is supposed to beat easily. However, modern world championships in ice hockey are close, you cannot be sure to win any game. While Sweden beat Austria comfortably in the first game, Latvia won by 3-2 on penalties. Daniel does not like this. He is a patriot and always want Sweden to win. I find it interesting that teams that are normally considered less good can beat one of the top teams like Team Sweden. It would be fun, and a nice boost for the sport, if Latvia could win more games against tougher opponents, preferably scoring a medal. It is not fun if the me dals of the world championship tournaments always go to the same few teams, like they use to. Go Latvia!

A Little Bit of Rain

There has been no rain for many days. It is not that it is very dry on the ground, there was relatively large amounts of snow that melted down and watered the earth, but we do think there is time for rain anyway. We do not want it to be a drought. This afternoon, some rain started to fall, but it ended just as quickly and did not even account for half a millimetre of rain. It would be nice with a heavy rainfall late tonight, when we are all indoors and supposed to sleep. The sound of rain may be comforting late at night when being indoors.

Barbecue

We had a little barbecue tonight, in the lovely, sunny spring weather. Paula put some hamburgers on the grill, and there were enough meat for all of us dogs. It was really tasty. We also got some bread with the meat, not great like the meat, but quite good. I hope there will be many more beautiful days like this throughout the warm part of the year, so we can have more nice meals like this.

The only downside to this great meal was, we had so much meat and bread to eat, that Paula decided there would be no regular dog food today. This was a disappointment. Sure, I rather have meat than dog food, but the best thing would be to have both.

Nice Surprise on the Morning Walk

This morning started just like any morning. Daniel took us out on a morning walk, and we walked the usual way, in the usual pace, with the usual stops and gos. Then, all of a sudden, at the intersection between Bergavägen and Elof Ljunggrens väg, we ran into Paula's parents Gertrud and Nils Olov. This was a nice surprise. They were out on a morning walk, despite not having any dogs; they were not even dog sitters for Kesshi and out walking him. Anyway, we stopped and chatted for a while, and both Nils Olov and Gertrud petted us dogs. It was fun. I wish there would be more nice, sudden surprises like this in life.

Tree Upon Tree

There is a meadow behind our house, and not far away there is a forest. There is not much to see in the forest, though. As Dad puts it: it is just tree upon tree. Sure, the occasional deer live there, but they always run away when we show up. There are a few small cottages there, some of which are used as summer houses and are fairly well kept, others that are always empty and seem to be left to fall apart. Nothing much of interest can be seen by these houses. We know that there have been dogs at one cottage occasionally, but we have never seen these dogs when walking on the small road through the forest. Paula and Daniel do not know any of the humans living there either, in part because the cottages are not very close and in part because they are uninhabited most of the time. In a few years, the meadow may be divided into lots and sold to people who want to build houses on their own. I wonder what will happen to the cottages in the forest at that time.

Japan Joins the Fight

Navies in the world join forces to fight an increasing threat of piracy off the coast of Somalia. Now a bill has passed in the Lower House of the Japanese parliament, which will allow the Japanese navy to take a more active part in the fight. While I do understand the concerns of post World War Two Japanese that this is a step away from the pacifist foreign policy of Japan, I believe it is for a good cause. Pirates are enemies of all humans, thus also of all dogs. Piracy is actually one of very few recognized Crimes Against Humanity, thus punishable by any court of law in any country. Pirates must be fought. I am glad Japan joins the fight, but I wonder when Sweden will.

CSI - The Movie

There may be a film made from the US TV show CSI - Crime Scene Investigation. This has been confirmed by William Petersen, executive producer and former actor in the show, where he played dr Gil Grissom. This is good news for all CSI fans, myself included. The downside is, the fil will probably be shown in cinemas first. They never let dogs in to watch films on cinemas.

It is also revealed that Grissom may return to the show eventually. This is good. We have seen just one episode without him in Sweden, but we already miss him.

Disappointed

I am quite disappointed tonight. Paula and Daniel went to Paula's parents to celebrate her father's birthday; they brought April, but I did not get to go. I hate to be left behind at home. It does not matter that the rest of the dogs were at home as well, hanging out with them is not as fun as going to a birthday party for a person you know and like.

Spring

It is spring time. This may affect hormones in the male dogs in our house more than is comfortable. I may be in heat again, this is quite soon after my puppy litter, but not unreasonably soon. So far, I am not in the mood for the attention the boys give me. When I will get in the mood for it, I will not be able to do anything about it. You are supposed to wait until the second heat after a litter before having any more pups.

Something About Pain

Paula is almost finished with her thesis for her nurse exam. She has written about pain and pain relief. I offered to give her some input, I thought I had something to tell her, not least since both of my pups were born with birch births. She declined the offer, however. When reading the almost finished thesis, I can understand why. Paula did not write on pain and pain relief on dogs, but merely on humans. This makes input on pain of a dog fairly useless. The thesis is a really good one, nevertheless.

1111

This is my 1,111th blog entry. The number 1,111 is not quite a round figure, but it is nice in its own way, since it consists of four 1's.

Sometimes, I find it a bit hard to believe how many blog entries I have written. However, I guess that if your goal is to write an entry a day, even a short one, you will eventually reach a high number of blog entries. I do not quite live up to a daily schedule, but I try, and the result is this many blog entries up to now. It is something I am a little proud of. I hope you like it too, and want to keep reading my blog. I appreciate all of my readers.

Australia

Auntie Linni and I got to go with Paula and Daniel to Kesshi, Mia, and Emil this evening. We watched the feature movie Australia. Linni was pleased to see a movie focusing on the country of birth of her father. We thought it was a sad movie, though - the only dog with a prominent role in the movie was killed. In addition to this, the scene was Australia of the Second World War, thus Australia was attacked by Japanese, who were enemies of all the main characters of the movie. This never feels nice, when you are a Shiba Inu with your roots in Japan.

Licence to Grill

We decided to celebrate the arrival of my sister with a big barbeque. Paula and Daniel invited Mia to join us in the festivities. I helped Daniel, the grill master with the chicken filet. I have to say that he passed his licence to grill superb.

Little Sister

I have gotten a little sister. She came to this world this afternoon, a healthy little sesame pup. I am interested in getting to know her better, when she gets older. When I do, I will write more about her in my blog. Stay tuned!

Castaway Dog Returned Home

A pet Australian Cattle Dog who was washed overboard and believed drowned has been found alive four months later. Washed overboard in harsh weather off the coast of Queensland, she had managed to swim ashore on a remote island. There she survived on the food she could find, probably mainly baby goats. She was recently found on the island by visiting rangers. Now she has returned to her humans. While the rangers had a hard time capturing her, she was quick to adapt to civilisation once she met her own humans and got back home with them.

This is an amazing, true story about the survival skill that domesticated dogs can show. Do not think for a moment that most dogs would not survive in the wild. It is just that life is easier and thus happier in the civilized surroundings of our humans. Most humans feel the same, so who do I have to convince, anyway?

New First Dog

In the United States, the President's wife is usually called First Lady. Consequently, the President's dog is usually called First Dog. There is a new First Dog in the White House now, since President Obama's daughters have got a Portugese Waterdog puppy. It is a male dog who will have the nick-name Bo. I have not yet seen the dog's official name, but I am sure it is to be found somewhere on the Internet. It must be something for this dog's breeders to talk about.

Becoming Housebroken

Shiba Inus have a reputation of becoming housebroken early. Indeed, me and my brothers were housebroken before my brothers left us for their new families at an age of eight weeks, so were my own pups. I have no first hand experience of children, but I always assumed that it would not take that much longer time for humans to become housebroken. A dog's year is about seven human years, so I assumed the ratio would have been about the same (two months - fourteen months). Then I read this article about a human child, housebroken at the "early" age of one-and-a-half years. Well, I guess there are always new things to learn about our world.

Celebrating Easter

We are celebrating Easter today. I am busy eating candy. Stay tuned for longer blog entries in the days to come.

Easter

Easter is here. It is a time of candy, but also a time of holiness and thoughts on the good and evil in the world. On Good Friday, Jesus was executed, but on Easter Day, he rose again from the dead. This is a fantastic story. I believe candy is a good thing for the celebrations at Easter. The resurection of Jesus Christ is supposed to have been the most good event ever, while candy is the most good thing you can get to eat. In this way, the great taste of the Easter candy may be a metaphor for the greatness of Christ's victory over death and all the good things that have come out of this. Thus, I suggest we all eat a lot of Easter candy.

Piracy

French forces have freed a couple of French citizens, held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Two pirates were killed and three captured. One of the hostages were also killed. It bothers me that the French citizens were repeatedly warned of going into the waters off Somalia, because there are pirates there. Why did they go there, despite repeated warnings? They even had a child with them, who made it, fortunately. It did not get a really happy ending either, considering that one of the hostages died.

I believe any country should protect its citizens from enemies of humanity, such as pirates, but to what extent is it reasonable to count upon the military power of your country or its allies? I would never have gone into an area were there were pirates, if I had been warned, especially not together with any of my pups. Occasionally, I have doubts on the intelligence of some humans.

Spring Is Definitely Here

Now we know that spring is finally here. After a couple of sunny days, the sky opened up this afternoon. No snow fell, however. Instead, it rained for a couple of hours. When you get rain instead of snow, you know that spring has definitely arrived.

Why We Scratch Ourselves

American scientists have discovered what it is that make scratching relieve an itch. The research is done on primates, but I believe the same thing goes for dogs and other mammals. This is progress. I am glad humans are so good at discovering things like this, it will make life easier for dogs as well as for humans.

Broken Glass

Our refrigerator is broken. It is not that it cannot keep the food cool, but we have had glass shelves in it, and suddenly this evening, the top glass shelf broke and everything fell down to the bottom of the refrigerator, breaking the other shelves in the process. We had to throw some food away that had been sprayed with glass debris. The worst thing to throw away was a package of meatballs that was almost full, but open, so glass went into it.

We have discussed what to do about this problem. There should be spare parts to buy, but any spare parts has to have the exact measurements of the interior of our refrigerator. I would like to have metal shelves, glass is too fragile. If any of you, my dear readers, have a good idea, please say so!

The Future Is Not a Sleepy Kitten

A headline caught my attention today: "The Future Is a Sleepy Kitten". My first thought was: why not a puppy? Why would a kitten be the future, rather than a puppy? I may be biased, but I am convinced dogs are better than cats, and thus, that puppies are better than kittens. However, when I read the article with the headline, it turned out to be just an article about an April Fool's Day joke. Essentially, it did not have much to do about kittens, nor the future. It was just one of those articles about something less interesting, that you can often find among the more interesting news articles. I am glad it was.

Spring

There has been a couple of warm days in a row, and we all believe spring is here to stay. This is good, I am tired of the cold weather and the dirty, old snow. Now my hopes are for a good summer.

Actions and Consequences

First, let me just say that the news I wrote about yesterday was just my April Fool's Joke of this year.

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A couple of weeks ago, Sweden played Israel in Davis Cup. The game was played in Malmo, but no audience was allowed, the local politicias forbade it, officially because they were afraid of riots. I believe the real reason was antipathy against Israel, especially after the war between Israel and Hamas earlier this winter.

The decision not to allow any audience has now resulted in a decision by the International Tennis Federation. Malmo will not be allowed to host another Davis Cup game for five years, and the Swedish Tennis Federation will have to pay 15 000 dollars - an ordinary fee for the audiences - and a fine of 25 000 dollars. The total amount roughly equals 330 000 Swedish crowns.

I believe it is fair that the International Tennis Federation receives a monetary compensation. It may refrain others from doing what Malmo's politicians did. In my opinion, I believe the City of Malmo should pay the Swedish Tennis Federation damages to the amount of the fee and the fine, compensating the Tennis Federation for its extra costs. They may not do it voluntarily. I am not a lawyer, but I believe that if the Swedish Tennis Federation would sue the city for damages, the city might be ordered to pay. This would be the just thing, in my mind.

A Space Age Factory

Trees have been cut down in the city owned field behind and beside our house this winter. We have now learned why. The field is to be sold to an industrialist who will build a factory there. The factory will produce certain parts to a European space shuttle that will be built within the next decade. While both Daniel and I find it exciting that a new space shuttle will be constructed and parts of it manufactured in our home city, we are not so happy that the factory will be erected behind our house. I just hope they will not be noisy, because I hate noise and sometimes bark at it, and Paula and Daniel do not like it when I bark.