Helicopter Rescue of Dog

If you want to watch a video with a happy ending, just watch this video of a dog rescued out of a river in California. A helicopter flew in for the rescue. When saving dogs, this is the way to go!

Younger Sister

Hello, Orange here!

My mother has a new pup to take care of, since early in December. I have just seen this pup a couple of times. She is cute, as any pup, bit obviously not cute enough to stay here. Rumour has it, she will move to a new family on Sunday. I think this is good. As the pup is my younger sister, she is a good pup, but there is not room for every pup here. We have to be picky. On Sunday, we will go back to our ordinary lives again, without this pup. I wish her all the luck with her new family!

Laziness

Hello, Karstuhl here!

Sometimes, it feels like the Internet is lazy. You open up a browser or another program which depends on the Internet, but it just stands still, working. As far as you can tell, nothing is really any different from an ordinary day. The Internet is an inani ate object, it does not have thoughts or feelings. Nevertheless, on days like this, it feels like the Internet is lazy. At the very least, it is a nice metaphore.

Surviving Against the Odds

A cat in Florida was so hurt, when hit by a car, that he was presumed dead. A friend of the owner buried the cat. Five days later, the cat was found by a neighbour, hurt but hungry. He has now been taken care of by veterinarians and is getting better. A horrible story with a happy ending. I hope this cat gets to live a good life for many years to come.

A Day of Remembrance

This day is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Seventy years ago today, the Nazi Concentration Camp Auschwitz in Poland was liberated. Auschwitz is the most known of many concentration camps, where the Nazis imprisoned and methodologically killed Jews and other humans of peoples they considered less worth, as well as political opponents. It is horrible to think of. You know the human is the most intelligent species on Earth, it is horrible some humans use this intelligence for such destructive actions. No other species would do anything like this. It is a good thing most humans are good, using their intelligence in much better ways. I hope nothing like the Holocaust will ever occur again.

At the Animal Hospital

i had a small, routine procedure at the animal hospital today. After the sedation, the ladies at the reception desk needed some help, so I volunteered and helped them out. It was interesting. I believe I made a difference.

Newly Discovered Ancient Human?

Fossil remains of what appears to be a so far unknown species of humans have been discovered in East Asia. It is assumed they lived about 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. If this is the case, I can understand why they became extinct. Wolves became partners with humans, and became dogs, about 40,000 years ago. The newly discovered ancient humans could, thus, not have had dogs. Humans and dogs are a formidable partnership, so it is understandable humans without dogs did not survive. Modern day humans are lucky to have survived long enough that they got dogs.

Restaurant

This evening, Paula and Daniel went out to eat at a restaurant. They need to get away on their own once in a while.

Restaurants normally do not allow dogs. I find this policy strange, but as long as they do not, I would not dignify them with my presence anyway.

When Paula and Daniel came back home, the evening was just as nice as Saturday evenings usually are. We had a good time without them, as well, but it is always better when they are around. It was today, too.

Friday

Fridays are good days. You know your humans will normally be home in the weekend.

This Friday night, I got to go with Paula and Gunde to Paula's parents. It was a nice, soft evening.

Hostages

the terrorists of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have taken two Japanese citizens as hostages. They demand a huge ransom. Japanese officials say they do not want to give in to the demands, but want to make contact with the terrorists to talk to them. I hope they will succeed. Nobody deserves to be imprisoned by terrorists.

A Short Trip

Hello, Karstuhl here!

This evening, I was the one who got to go with Daniel in the car to pick Paula up. Mommy or Auntie Linni are the ones who usually get to go. I have always been curious about what it is about, and it was fun to greet Paula prior to any of the other dogs. The rumour that you always take a detour through a McDrive, purchasing a cheeseburger for the accompanying dog, turned out to be false, however. We were nowhere near any hamburger joint, not even talking about it. Well, I got some treats when we came home. It was a nice trip, nevertheless.

Local Celebrity

My daughter Anzu is a local celebrity in Bergen, where she lives. She and her human Mathias were on a photography in the news paper, when they enjoyed sunny weather on the mountains close to the city. It is nice to see that Anzu has such an enjoyable life. She keeps the memory of my father alive, in the city where he was born. I love her, like I love all my pups.

Snow

Hello, Orange here!

We had a snowfall this evening. There is now enough snow for it to be fun to run around in.

I love snow. The only slight downside is the white colour. I would prefer it if it came in my facourite colour: orange.

Reunited After Three Years

A California Shiba disappeared from her family backyard three years ago. She has now been reunited with her family. Nobody can say where she has been, but she was pcked up as a stray dog on the 9th of January, and the shelter identified her thanks to her microchip.

The main lesson of this story, is that it is necessary to have microchips in your pets. A human who disappear can tell other humans who she is. A dog has to trust other means to be identified. The microchip is the best way.

I am really glad for the Shiba and the rest of her family.

Important Things to Do

Hello, Karstuhl here!

There are more or less important things to do in life. Eating, drinking and the like are essential for staying alive. Then there is cuddling, just feeling well close to your humans and fellow dogs. This is also very important. Daniel once said, petting your dog is never a waste of time. I wholeheartedly agree. Pet your dogs every day!

Antarctica

Some people go to Antarctica on holiday. They want to visit this desolate landscape, which is certainly beautiful, judging from the pictures I have seen. The environment there is very delicate and fragile, though. There are so many tourists going there, that voices have been raised on making it illegal for tourists to go there. I would not mind. There are no dog shows and no dog breeders there, so why would you want to go there?

Cheese Crackers

Cheese is good food, really tasty. Tonight, Paula did something she does once in a while, she created cheese crackers. It is really quite simple. You use a cheese grinder and put flat circles of this cheese on a foil in the oven for a while, waiting for it to melt and merge into crackers. These can be as soft or hard as you like them to be, dependent on how long you keep them in the oven heat. Ours were a little soft, which is how I like them. I got half a cheese cracker for myself. It was a great end of the evening.

Something

Hello, Orange here!

Sometimes, I am asked to contribute to this blog. I can write almost anything, but it has to be something. Tonight, I could not think of anything. Then I thought, writing that you have nothing to say, is still something. It might not be anything special, but I have never been asked to write something special, just something. There you go, it is more than nothing, anyway.

Wrapped Candy

Hello, Karstuhl here!

Paula put a bowl of candy on the coffee table in our living room tonight. The problem was, most of the candy was wrapped in plastic wraps. It is hard to unwrap these without fingers.

There should be a universal canine right, that candy would never be served wrapped in paper or plastic.

Startling Socks

Paula usually wear all black socks. Today, however, she was sitting in the sofa in front of the TV, suddenly stretching out a foot from the blanket, which had a pink sock with Mickey Mouse images on. Javier was so startled, he barked at the sock. It was not long before he realised there was no danger, but he still said he did not like being startled in this way. I understand him. Nobody expect us dogs to change the colours of the coats we usually wear, so why would humans do, at least on bodyparts where they usually never change colours.

Going Back

Hello, Karstuhl here!

Sometimes, when surfing the Internet, I want to go back to the page I just left. It is often quick, but once in a while, it has to be completely reloaded. Reloading the page takes time. I do not know why it has to be reloaded, and when this happen, it seems to me like it just occurse now and then. I wonder why. Going back in my own trains of though, I never have to reload anything. Then again, a computer is nothing like a brain, far from it. If I was a computer genius, this is one thing I could work on trying to solve, because I think it is a little annoying to a lot of computer users. On the other hand, I am often content with the fact that brains are so much better than computers on so many things. I guess I would want to keep it that way. My genius is better used for other purposes.

Complicated Life

Hello, Karstuhl here!

Paula has been working most of the day on writing a document about ten pages long. She reads a lot of different books and magazine articles, and processes this into one document. It is all due to her ICU studies. I think this only goes to prove, human life is sometimes just too complicated. Perhaps this is one reason why humans love us dogs so much? We do not make life any more complicated than it has to be. Life can be simple, yet lived and experienced to its fullest extent. By seeing us dogs do this, perhaps humans realise life can be so simple. Still, I think humans have a genetic predisposition not to take life easy, but to explore, discover, rearrange, and construct things, and through making life more complicated, feeling satisfied. I would not want to trade, but I am grateful humans have invented such things as the house, central heating, electric light, and many other things. They all help making the simple life easy. Then our humans go on in the quest to produce more knowledge. I love Paula for this, it helps me having a simple life, made easy.

Puppy Visitors

Our friend Tenn gave birth to a puppy girl almost five weeks ago. The puppy's future family was here today to see her and meet up with the rest of us. They were nice people. It is always a pleasure to give a puppy to nice people, you feel that they can take good care of the little one. In this case, it is not my puppy, not even a puppy of my own lines, but I still feel a responsibility for her. She will have a good life.

Better than Hubble

There is an acronym that may be used more this year: BTH. It stands for Better than Hubble. Hubble is, of course, the space telescope in orbit around the Earth. No matter how good Hubble is, it cannot beat close up images. This year, space probes will reach the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto.

Ceres is the largest object of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the only one large enough to be spherical from its own gravity.

Ceres is not at all as far away as Pluto. Dwarf planets are also called plutoids, after Pluto. This is the dwarf planet that was counted as the outermost planet, in its orbit that is usually farther from the Sun than the orbit of Neptune. However, it was reclassified because there were many other dwarf planets being discovered. Still, Pluto is the biggest of those and has many moons. It will be interesting to get to know more about Pluto.

Some time, in the far off future, humans and dogs may walk on Ceres and Pluto, but I will be long gone by then.

Spring?

Hello, Orange here!

We had heavy rain this morning and temperatures above the freezing point all day. The little snow that fell the other day is gone again. Still, it is the first half of January. I may be rather young, but I have been around before. Spring is not supposed to come this early, is it? I hope there will still be some winter, I love snow.

Je Suis Charlie

Terrorists attacked the office of a magazine in Paris today. They shot and killed people, because the people were utilizing their freedom of expression by making satire.

In my mind, nothing is worth so much, you cannot make fun of it.

As an expression of support for freedom of speech, I am inspired by others and say: Je suis Charlie.

Always remember, Islamic terrorists hate dogs for no real reason. I am a dog, but every bullet they fired today is a reason for me to hate them.

Success for Soya!

My granddaughter Soya is just ten months old, but she really succeeded at the dog show in Gothenburg today. She competed out of junior class, but got better result than many adult bitches. She was second best female, won the CAC, and was qualified for Crufts. This is a wonderful result for a lady of her young age! I could not be more proud of her. She really goes in the paw prints of her ancestors.

Newsroom

Daniel has got a new favourite TV series, the HBO series Newsroom. It is American, of course. My Mum's home country usually do the best TV there is. Tonight, Daniel has watched three episodes. He would not state this in his blog or anything, but I do. The series is quite all right, I suppose, but I do think you need at least one dog to make a really good TV series. Dogs are what is lacking in Newsroom, other than that, I can recommend it.

Am I Being Repetitive?

Am I being overly repetitive, if I am writing, once again, how disappointed I am that Paula goes away to a dog show without me? I have not written about this subject before, this year.

Today, Paula and her sister took my granddaughter Soya to Gothenburg and the great dog show My Dog there. I would have wanted to come. I always want to go to dog shows, I love being showed so much. Sure, I do hope Soya will do well, but this is beside my point. The point is, I want to go to the dog show. I guess I have to wait until spring.

Explosions

There is a tradition to use fireworks and crackers to celebrate the new year. If this just happened at midnight on new year's night, I would not mind much. Some dogs are afraid of the noise (though not in our pack), but if the explosions would be limited to a few minutes around that strike of the clock, it would not be so bad. The main problem are the people who use crackers many days before and after new year. What is the point? We heard some explosions tonight. It is just stupid. I wish humans would do better things with their time and money. Some humans just do not show they are part of the most intelligent species of the planet.

Junior World Championship

We have watched the Junior World Championship in ice hockey. Sweden won its quarter final against Finland. The Swedes will face Russia in the semi final. Russia beat the USA, which we thought was a pity. It was no surprise,  however, even thought there was one journalist on TV who claimed it was.  You can never rule out Russia in ice hockey. After all, Russia is one of the four great ice hockey nations, alongside Sweden, Canada and the Czech republic.  The USA is not. Now we can all hope for a Swedish victory in the tournament as a whole.