Calm Day

It was raining more or less the whole day today. While Paula was at work, the rest of us took it easy. We cleaned the house yesterday, after coming home, so there were not much that desperately needed to be done. There are upsides with rainy days. Staying indoors taking it easy is one such upside.

In the evening, the clouds finally gave up. This meant we could see the full moon. This is the second full moon in July this year, a so called blue moon. I always enjoy the full moon and its light at night.

There Is No Place Like Home

Daniel, Polly, and I came home from our short trip to Småland and the weat coast. There is no place like home! I like to be home.

We did have a great time visiting Daniel's mother's forrest in Småland and his parents' summer house on the west coast of Sweden, in Halland. Still, I do not quite like long journeys like this, when they do not involve any dog show. I love dog ahows. If there is no dog show, I might often just stay at home. This last journey was fun, as an exception to the rule that just dog show journeys are fun. Still, a dog show would have made it even better. I do love Daniel's parents and his sister Linda, whom we met, though.

Forrest

Polly and I came along with Daniel today and went with his mother to her forrest in Småland in the south of Sweden. Later on, we took a long walk in the neighbourhood of the summer house in Halland. It was a good day for a dog.

A Cake Which Is Easy to Bake

I found a recipie for a cake on the Internet, which only has three ingredients, cream cheese, eggs, and white chocomate. It looks tasty. The origin of this cake is Japanese, which makes me even more.interested in it. I would like to try it, so I guess I would have to convince Paula or Daniel to bake it.

Junior European Winners

The Swedish Ladies' national football team for ladies up to 19 years of age won the European Championships for ladies of that age tonight. The Swedes beat Spain 3-1 in the final.

I would say this is as big as a Swedish dog winning a Junior European Winner title, if you want to put it in perspective.

A junior title is never as big an achievement as the title for adults. Still, it is proof that there is a new, promising generation coming. With the faliure in the FIFA Women's World Cup earlier this year, this is extra good news for fans of Swedish football. The next generation of football players may play for gold in the adult championships as well. I am looking forward to this.

Lazy Day

We had a quite calm Sunday today. Nothing special really happened. It is nice to have days like this once in a while, to rest from the stress of your average working day. This is especially true, since the weather was cold and damp for the season, with a little, annoying rainfall. When rain is falling, it is nice to stay indoors. We did, today.

Knights of Sidonia

Yesterday, Daniel and I watched the first episode of a Japanese animated TV series, Knights of Sidonia. It is about humans fighting aliens in the far future.

I like it, because it is in Japanese with subtitles. However, I dislike it, because there are no dogs in it. I believe that dogs are an essential part of human civilisation, and that wherever humans will go in the future, dogs will go too.

If there are no dogs in a story about the future, I believe the author have missed something. I do not like that. Science fiction can make for great stories, but the stories should be believeable. Can you believe a acenario of the future, if there are no dogs around?

Sunny Weather

It has been a day of sunny weather today, which is rare this summer. We have had a few good days, but not many. There have been more rainy days. We do not like to go out in the rain, even though we have to. It is nice to have dry grass in the yard, for a change.

Sunny weather makes me think of Mum. She was called Sunni, and her love was as warm as that of the sun on a hot summer day. It has been a year now, since she passed away. Not a single day go by, that we do not miss her. Perhaps I miss her the most. I still try to make her proud of me. She was, I know, but she could be more proud than that. I believe she would be.

Manuscripts

We happened to switch on a documentary on TV about Medieval English manuscripts. These were the hand written books that were the only books there was, before Johann Gutenberg developed the printer. Many of them were beautiful, but it took years to finish them and was thus only something for the very rich. The printer was a good invention.

One of the pictures shown from a manuscript intrigued me. It showed the nobleman Lord Talbot, with his family symbol: the dog. I like that! What can be better to show your nobility, than a fine dog?

Going to Stockholm

Paula has a holiday this week. She went with her mother and sister to Stockholm today. When she came home in the evening, she told us she had had great fun. I would not have liked to go along on that trip, however, they did not go to a dog show. If you do not go to a dog show, I believe you are better off staying home. I am glad Paula was happy when coming home, though.

Preserving Armstrong's Moon Suit

The space suit that Neil Armstrong wore, when he was the first man to walk the Moon, is deteriorating. The owners NASA will now try a crowd funding to get money to put the suit in a preserving environment, while still being on display for people to see.

(No dog has yet walked the Moon. The Fox terrier Milou from the adventures of Tintin did, but this was in a comic book.)

I hope the suit will be preserved. It is a valuable historical item.

Kissing

As a dog, I find some human behaviour a bit odd. The way they kiss, for example. New research reveals why humans kiss. It is actually a way of sniffing out a good partner.

Female humans are more attracted to males who are not closely related to them. This makes sense, it is a good breeding strategy. Humans have much lesser sense of smell than dogs have, but they have some. By coming really close, they can sense the smell, and are close enough to kiss.

Interestingly enough, couples of all human societies do not kiss each other on the mouth. This seem to be a cultural thing, rather than a genetic trait. Not even half of humans do this.

Ot os always interesting to learn new things about humans.

Window Frame

Some of the window frames on our house are tattered. They have been exposed to the weather for a long time and need some new paint. In his summer holiday, Daniel have used a couple of hours to wash and paint the window frame of the bathroom window. This was the frame that looked the worst. It looks much better now. There is a constant job in taking care of a house and a garden, but when you do, you see good results. We are glad the window is fine again.

Best Veteran

Today in Köping, I became Best Veteran among the Shibas again. I was also second best bitch. There were no males competing for Best of Breed, so if I would have won best bitch, I would also have been Best of Breed. The Champion bitch who won was worth the victory, but I would have wanted to win. Well, I am sure I will get more chances.

Another Show!

This summer is fantastic! I am going to yet another dog show tomorrow. This time, the show is in Köping, which is rather close to us. This is good, it means we can go there just for the day, will not have to rise up so early in the morning, and can get home fast when it is over.

On another note, Kenny is feeling fine. He was on antibiotics for an infection in the early summer, and was back for another check up with the veterinarian today. The vet said that since he was happy and did not seem to have any pain, and there was nothing else that suggested the infection was still in his body, he was certainly healthy. He will not need any more medicine. This is good. I am happy for Kenny for being free from his infection.

Village on the Moon

The European Space Agency, where Sweden is a member, are figuring on building a village on the Moon. This is great. I just wonder when dogs will go there. When will the first Lunar dog show be arranged?

Upcoming Show

Hello, Orange here!

I will go to a dog show. This will be my first dog show. Many of the other dogs here at home have gone to dog shows before. Indeed, Hailey, the owner of this blog, gladly go to dog shows as often as she can. Still, I am not sure what to expect. I am told it is fun, that there are many dogs and humans there, and you get candy. I guess it is something to look forward to. I just have to wait and see. There are a couple of weeks left. It will be in Askersund, which is not far away from here, as I have been told. If Hailey says it is fun, I am sure it is. She is usually right.

Blowing the Coat

My body does not coöperate with my mind. It has started to blow my coat at the peak of the dog show season. How can this happen to me? Where is the justice in this? There are so many Shibas who are not fond of going to dog shows, many of whom live with me. They may blow their coats in the middle of the season. I, however, love to go to dog shows, and still my body starts to blow my coat. Sometimes, life is unfair.

Today was the last day for entries to the Askersund dog show. This is the annual official dog ahow arranged by our regional kennel club, so it is home turf for us. Since I have started to blow my coat, I could not be entered. Daniel entered Orange instead. She is up for a treat. I envy her, but I will also give her advice, as she will be the one flying the flag of Aangenaam Shibas.

Good luck in Askersund, Orange!

Breeders Group

This Sunday was the very first that an all black and tan breeders group of Shibas was shown at a dog show in Sweden. It was at the Shiba specialty show of 2015. I was the oldest one, the others were offspring of me in one way or the other. We won an honourary price and was second among four groups. It is a great thing for kennel Aangenaam, as well as all of the other breeders and dogs who are behind the four of us dogs who was there in the show ring. We wish to thank all of those who made this possible!

Waiting for the Show

We arrived early at the dog show ground in Tvååker. I borrowed a little kennel to take a nap before the show starts. Daniel took a picture of it.

Early Into Bed for an Early Morning

We will get up really early tomorrow morning to go to a dog show. Thus, we have prepared everything and gone to bed early. I normally do not like very early mornings, but when the purpose is going to a dog show, it is for a good cause, so I like it.

Of course I can sleep in the car, while we are travelling to the show. Paula or Daniel needs to drive. There are good things coming with the fact that I do not have a driving licence.

Now it is time to sleep.

Cars Are Expensive

We have two cars, a small BMW that we usually use and a large Chrysler where more of us can travel att the same time and which we usually use to go to dog shows. We need the large car for the dog shows. Most car rental agencies would not accept that dogs travel in their vans. Going to dog shows is an essential part of our breeding. Still, it is expensive having a large car. It uses a lot of petrol, it has a high vehicle tax rate, and the service is not cheap. We had it in the garage for service today and how the money just seemed to get washed down the drain. At least, the loan that we took to be able to buy this car is paid off, so we will not have this expense every month any more. We hope it will work nicely for a long time after the service it got today. It is a nice, comfortable car, so we would like to keep it for a long time. Could we get a better, newer car without spending even more money? I would not think so. We will keep the Chrysler for a while.

Typo

When I am finished with a blog entry, I usually proof read it before publishing it. There are the odd misspelled word or something like that, that I correct.

Once in a while, however, I discover faults a couple of days later. I can correct them as soon as I see them, of course, but it is not the same thing. I always have this feeling that people have read the text, observed the fault, and become annoyed with it. This was the case today. I discovered that I had made an error in the headline of a blogpost the other day. These faults are all the more annoying, as the permanent link to the blog post in question has the original headline in the address. The link will not be changed, even though I change the headline.

The others here at home sometimea believe I take faults like this too serious. After all, this blog is just a hobby of mine, they say. They have also said my readers must be impressed enough with a Swedish dog writing in English. This may be so, but I take this hobby seriously, anyway.

I have corrected the typo in the headline. If you know what headline it was, you may leave a comment about it. Comments about other things are welcome too, as always.

Fire Place

We have plans on rebuilding the fire place in our living room. It is old and worn, and needs to be upgraded. The chimney needs some work as well.

We do not use the fire place in the summertime, so this is the right time for the renovation. It will be nice to have a new fire place when winter comes. When it is done, we can even look forward to winter. It will be warm.

Late Morning

this was the first day of the summer, when both Daniel and Paula had holiday. We slept until very late in the morning. There was no alarm clock waking us up. It was so sweet.

For the first time in many days, we had rain. It rained all morning. It feels better than usual to be able to sleep late, when the rain is falling outside. You know you do not have to go outside, when you hear the rain on the roof or the window, and you feel lucky you are in a comfortable, dry house. I love it.

The late morning had one unintended consequence. It took us more time than usual to get to the morning news. The USA won the World Cup final against Japan. Well, I rooted for Japan, so perhaps it was just as well I did not know of the result very soon.

Late Final

The final.of the World.Cup starts at 01:00 in the middle of the night, Swedish time. I would like to write a blog entry about Japan winning gold, but it will have to wait.

Deep Economic Plunge in China

The Chinese stock market in Shanghai has fallen steeply over the last weeks. The shares have been over priced and many people have lost money now.

I do not want to gloat, but I still feel it might be beneficial in some ways that the Chinese economy takes a blow. China has an agressive foreign policy in the seas where it borders Japan and other countries. If there are economic troubles at home, perhaps the Chinese government turns its attention to domestic problems. This would make the tension of the South China Sea to ease. It would be beneficial to everyone, the Chinese as well as the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries.

I hope this will be the result, but I cannot be sure. Auntie Linni points out that domestic problems sometimes cause governments to give more attention to foreign aggressions, to make the people divert its attention from the domestic problems. She is right, of course, but I hope this will not be the case here. The South China Sea does not need more international tension. We will have to see what happens.

Crossword Puzzles

Our local newspaper usually comes with big crossword puzzles for the summer and other big holidays. We got two big crossword puzzles on different days in the early summer. Daniel and I have finished both of them today. They take some time, it is fun passtime when you do not have any other things to do. Still, I wonder what we will do now. Will the smaller, weekly crossword puzzles do? We will have to see - unless we come up with some other relaxing passtime.

Japan Reached the Final

In the women's FIFA football world cup, Japan played England in the semi final yesterday night (early this morning Swedish time, since the cup is played in Canada). Japan won and will have a chance at the goal later this week.

The victory was not really one to be very proud of, since it was the result of an English own goal in the last minutes of the game. We can celebrate the victory, but it would have been sweeter, had the winning goal been that of Japanese players.

Most of us will hope Japan wins the gold. Calvin says, however, he hopes for the other team in the final, that of the USA. I can understand this, since he was born in the USA. My Mum would have said the same, had she still been with us. For the rest of us, we think of the Japanese origin of our breed, thus, we root for Japan.

Holiday

Daniel has summer holidays, and we sleep in and get to bed late with him. There is but one downside with this: I went to bed so late last night, the clock had passed midnight and there was no Daily Hailey blog entry. I have to get a grip and keep better track of the time.

In every other aspect, these days are nice and restful. We can sense that Daniel is winding down, he is less stressed and this makes him happier. When he is happier, so are we. You are always affected by the mood of the dogs and humans around you. Now we just want Paula to finish her last days of work so we all can have some free time together.