Tax Freedom Day

Today is the "tax freedom day" in Sweden this year. Daniel tells me that this means that if all of his income would be delivered to the government each year until all his taxes were paid, this day would be the first when he would keep his income, and the rest of the days of the year he would still keep the income. I cannot quite see the meaning of calculating a tax freedom day, but Daniel says it is an effective tool to describe the total amount of taxes paid by an average citizen in a country a certain year. The tax freedom day of Sweden this year is easy to compare with tax freedom days of other countries or of other years. This makes it easier to see who pays the most taxes in the world each year.

For me, the most important thing is that Daniel has enough money to pay for dog food. I guess he has got more money for dog food the less taxes he pays.

Pharao Pups

Our Pharao hound friend Primus has become an uncle today. His sister Dyrka has given birth to a litter of Pharao pups. While there is no use seeing the pups yet, I would like to meet them before they go to their new families. It is always fun to play with pups.

As far as I am informed, there may still be some pups from this litter who are not sold or spoken for. If you are keen on getting a Pharao Hound, do not hesitate to contact Kennel Spisi's in Örebro. The pups have a great pedigree. I can tell you out of my own experience that Pharao Hounds are friendly and loyal companions as well as excellent runners. They also tend to do well on dog shows, especially with a heritage like these pups have.

Lawn Mowing

Daniel mowed the lawn today. He has waited longer than usual because of the draught. This has kept parts of the grass green instead of turning it yellow or even brown, but it also meant the grass and other plants grew tall on other parts of our yard. In parts of the dog yard, the grass has been very tall. Daniel believes a well mowed lawn looks much better. I believe that the greatest downside with tall grass is that there are higher risks of being hit by ticks when you walk across the lawn. This risk is now reduced, which we all should be grateful for. It takes Daniel a couple of hours to mow the entire lawn, because we have a big lawn and a lot of trees and bushes which stops any lawn mower from just going up and down the lawn. I would not want to do the job instead of him.

Barbecue

Paula and Daniel went over to Paula's parents this evening for a barbecue. All of us dogs stayed at home. One of our duties is being watch dogs, and this is most important when neither Paula nor Daniel is at home. If we would have come along to the barbecue, who would have watched the house? A few of us might have had the opportunity to come, but it simply did not happen tonight.

Mum always rather stay at home, and I guess I am a little like her in that regard. It is not that I have moved around as much as Mum, who have lived in both Washington state and Texas before she moved to Sweden, but I felt when I was at Daniel's job the other day that I would rather be at home. It is fun to see the world once in a while, but staying at home is more restful. There is no place like home. We sent our greetings with Paula and Daniel.

Colours

Hi, Polly here again!

I have found out that it is possible to change the colours of the letters in Mummy's blog. I was experimenting with this feature when writing this blog entry. I asked Mummy why she never changes the colours of the letters in her blog entries. She said she did not want to, and she had three reasons for this. The first reason was that it takes the attention away from the actual message she is writing. She has got a point there. The second reason was that dogs have a very limited ability to see different colours anyway, and that the colour scheme was adapted for human eyes. This is also a valid point. The third reason was that she thinks it makes the blog less attractive to the eye. She even went so far that she claimed this blog entry was ugly. I was sorry to hear this. Although I did not agree, I did turn the colour differences down a bit, having mostly the same colour for whole sentences. Are not mothers supposed to encourage their pups and make them happy with what they achieve? Well, Mummy is often like that, but I know she takes care of her blog almost as if it was a pup itself. I can understand that, she has been working at this blog for a long time, making it what it is today. Who am I to change too much of that? Nevertheless, I believe I will keep change the colours sometimes, anyway, when it is my turn to make a blog entry.

Password

I got angry with Blogger today. The Blogger blog service is normally a great free blog service, but today, it claimed that I had forgotten my password. I had to go through a number of steps to renew my password, and then it turned out that it is now necessary to have a password with at least eight letters or digits. So far, my password has had seven, but now I had to choose another password. I cannot understand why the Blogger people could not just have written that you would have to change the password to a longer one for higher safety, or whatever reason there is. Claiming that I would have forgotten my password is an outright lie. Nevertheless, it all turned out well in the end.

I went with Daniel to his work today. It was rather boring, Daniel just sat by his desk all day. This is what it is like to have a job at an office. I am glad there was a dog bed where I could lie while I took breaks from helping Daniel with his duties.

Injustice

Polly here again, writing a blog entry.

I am in the process of exchanging my primary teeth for permanent teeth. Paula was very happy today, when she discovered that one of my canines had fallen off. Mummy has said that Paula is always a little worried that the primary teeth will be left too long, compromising the positions of the permanent teeth. Now, there is no need to worry about that canine. However, later Paula discovered that I had bitten on one of the book shelves in the living room. They are made of wood, and thus perfect to chew upon. Now, Paula was angry with me. Daniel was, too. Do they not understand that I need to chew, in order to make my bite better?

Well, Mummy said to me there are always other things than the furniture to chew upon. Come to think of it, so have Paula and Daniel told me many times. Perhaps there is reason for them to be angry? I do not know. Sometimes, I just cannot help myself, but must chew on the closest wooden thing there is. We all have our vices, don't we?

World Cup Trivia

This is my last World Cup blog entry for a while, but Daniel helped me gather some rather cool trivia.

Flags
There is red in all of the flags of European World Cup winners, but in none of the flags of South American World Cup winners.

Gold Medals
There are now as many gold medals won by Spanish speaking countries (Uruguay '30 and '50, Argentina '78 and '86, Spain '10) as Portugese speaking countries (Brazil '58, '62, '70, '94, '02).

Spain is, so far, the only football World Cup gold medalist of the 21st century not to have won gold in the 20th century too.

Four countries have won gold in the World Cup before winning any other medals: Uruguay ('30 - first ever World Cup), Italy ('34), England ('66), and Spain ('10).

All the three countries which have won gold but no other kind of medal has fourth as next best result: Spain in '50, Uruguay in '54, '70, and '10, England in '90.

Silver Medals
The Netherlands is alone on top of the list of "number of World Cup finals of countries which has been there but never won gold": three: the Netherlands ('74, '78, '10), two: Czechoslovakia ('34, '62) and Hungary ('38, '54), one: Sweden ('58).

The Netherlands is the country which has lost the most games for World Cup medals without having won any: three finals ('74, '78, and '10) and one bronze game ('98). Germany has lost four finals ('66, '82, '86, and '02) and one bronze game ('58), but has won as well.

Four countries have won silver before winning any other medals: Argentina ('30), Czechoslovakia ('34), Hungary ('38), and the Netherlands ('74).

Sweden is the only country to have won both silver ('58) and bronze ('50 and '94) without ever winning gold.

Many Different Medalists
Out of all the nineteen World Cups played so far, there are only seven when all the medalists have taken medals before: '70, '78, '82, '86, '90, '94, and '06.

The World Cup 2010 was the seventh where medals have only been awarded European countries, the others being '34, '54, '66, '74, '82, and '06. There has been no World Cup with only South American medalists.

Out of all the nineteen medalists, there are as many as seven that has not won more than 1 bronze each.

The USA (bronze '30) is the only medalist not to come from the football associations of either Europe nor South America.

Top Scorers
The 2010 World Cup was the third where more than one player has won the list of top scorers, the others were '62 and '94.

Fans
Some people living in Africa can say that they live in the country winning the first World Cup played in Africa: inhabitants of the Spanish towns of Ceuta and Melilla and of the Canary Islands.

While Brazil is the only South American country to have won gold when the World Cup was played in Europe ('58), other South Americans can also say their home country won the World Cup when it was played in Europe: inhabitants of French Guyana, since France won in '98.

Forbidden Dogs?

One of the members of the Swedish Cabinet, Christian Democrat Mats Odell, has said that he would consider enacting a law against certain breeds of dogs. I do not understand why, but perhaps he does not either, when he says such a thing. The problem is actually not certain breeds of dogs, but what individual dogs are brought up to be. Any dog who is not taught to control her or his aggressions may be an aggressive dog. If you start to outlaw some breeds, the humans who want dangerous dogs will just look for dogs from other breeds, and raise these to become dangerous. Would these breeds then be outlawed as well? Will it end up with a total ban of all dogs? I hope not, but by forbidding some dog breeds, you have taken the first step.

A friend of ours suggested politicians would be outlawed instead of some dog breeds. While I agree that a reckless suggestion as this by Mats Odell does give you thoughts of the kind, outlawing all politicians might be going a bit too far. Perhaps it would be enough if you would open up a route for citizens to go to a court of law to urge the dismissal of a named politician?

Dog is man's best friend, they say, but all men are definitely not dog's best friend.

Thunder

It has been some very warm and sunny days, so when the clouds came this evening, it was no surprise there was some thunder. We did not see any lightning, and there was very little thunder and just a little rain. I am somewhat surprised that it was not more thunder and rain.

In formula 1 at Silverstone, Australian Mark Webber won. Auntie Linni's father was from Australia, so she was happy, and so were we.

In the World Cup final, the Netherlands played Spain. Paula hoped for a Spanish victory. So did Dad, he said he has no connections to the Netherlands, but the woman who came up with his official name on behalf of his breeder is from Spain. Since Paula and Dad hoped for Spain, so did I. Daniel said he initially hoped for the Netherlands, but they played so dirty that he was disappointed with them. Thus, all of us were more or less happy Spain won.

Saved by the Dog

In the small village of Hällefors, not so far north of our home city, a house caught fire tonight. The couple who lived in the house could save themselves, because their dog pushed on the woman until she woke up, and then she woke her husband. They were also able to save another man who lived in their house.

The house burned to the ground. It is yet not known what caused the fire. It is clear, though, that without the dog waking up the woman, the three humans in the house could not have survived. This is yet another example of how important dogs are to humans.

I would be surprised if this dog would not get generous amounts of hugging, petting, and candy today. The dog is surely the hero of the day in the whole village.

Mia on a Visit

Paula's sister Mia was here this evening. It was fun meeting her, as always. She came along with Paula, as Paula came home from work about half past nine, after working late.

All of us dogs had already eaten when Mia and Paula came. The humans had a light meal, just some toast and then some candy and pop corn. They shared some of it with us dogs, but I thought I would have deserved to get more. It was not that I was hungry, but candy is always candy.

After supper, we checked the TV to see if anything good was on. It was not. We have a lot of channels, yet there are often moments when you can and want to watch TV, but cannot find anything that is exciting enough to watch. Well, it did not matter much this evening, when we had a nice visitor whom we talked to all evening.

Ownership of Hospitals

I do not care much about human politics. Perhaps I should, Daniel is very interested, but I do not think much of the politics of humans concern me. It happens once in a while, though, that some political news make me think.

Today, the centre-left opposition parties in Sweden has gone out with the promise for the upcoming election this autumn, that they do not want large, publicly owned hospitals in Sweden to be sold to private interests. If they win the election to the national parliament, they will enact a law against this. The reason is that these parties think that hospital care is so important that it has to be cared for by the authorities. The centre-right coalition who rule Sweden do not think the selling of hospitals as such is wrong.

My thought is that if hospitals are so important for the centre-left, and they think the right ownership is public, why do they not mention animal hospitals? All the animal hospitals that I know of are privately owned. In my opinion, animal hospitals, especially those who are specialized in the care of dogs, are as important as hospitals for humans. I do not know whether private or public ownership is the best for animal hospitals, but I believe they must be regarded as equally important as hospitals for humans and thus mentioned when politicians talk about hospitals in general. However, the centre-left do not mention animal hospitals at all, when they talk about the importance of hospitals being publicly owned. I do not like that.

Semi Finals

There are never semi finals at dog shows. We have group finals instead, the winners there go to the Best in Show final. In puppy class, there are seldom group finals either, because there are not pups competing from every breed. When I won my Best in Show puppy title, there was no group final. This makes it all the harder to win the final, because you have more competitors to beat, even though you have not had to convince a group final judge you are the best in the group.

In the FIFA football World Cup, there are two semi finals, the first of which was played today between the Netherlands and Uruguay. The Netherlands was the better team and won fairly, but not with more than 3-2. Uruguay gave the Dutch a good fight and we all hope Uruguay will win the bronze game this Saturday.

Crazy

This is outrageous: a family on vacation in the north of Sweden left their dog in the car in the sunlight and were gone for four hours. When they came back, the dog was dead. No surprise, except for them. They are now suspected of animal abuse.

Sadly, I am not surprised about this news article. You hear about tragedies like this every year. I cannot understand why humans do not learn. We dogs always trust our humans, why do so many humans fail to live up to that trust?

I hope the adults of the family are put in prison for a considerable time, but I doubt it.

The Third and Fourth Quarter Final

Germany beat Argentina and Spain beat Paraguay. This was yesterday, and just the results that Daniel said he wished for. I did not mention it in my blog then, though, because for me, Mum's success in the show ring was greater.

Out of four countries in the semi finals, three are European. This is the best result possible, given that only three could go on to the quarter finals, as the six European countries in the final 16 had to play each other. There is no crisis for European football, even though neither Italy (four times World Champion) and France (one time World Champion) made it to the final 16 and fewer European teams did than usual. Daniel believes Germany will be World Champion this time, for the fourth time.

The only non-European country in the semi finals is Uruguay, and while this country is a two time World Champion, it was in 1930 and 1950. It is Uruguay's first time in the semi finals since 1970. It is not likely Uruguay will win the whole World Cup this year, but they may very well be medalists. Daniel hope so, he hopes Spain will not get any medals, because then only classical football countries will get medals, by which he mean countries which have previously taken medals. However, he says that among countries never to have taken medals that he would not mind much becoming classical football countries by taking a medal, Spain is one of four. The others are Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

I write a lot about this, but it is because Daniel talks about it a lot. I hope my readers like it.

Mum Won!

Mum went with Paula to a dog show in Borås today. April was also there, competing in champion class, while Mum was competing in veterans' class. The judge loved Mum and could not believe how old she was, so Mum went on to beat a lot of other Shiba Inus and became Best of Breed! This was a splendid result by my Mum at her age. If I can be half as good at that age, I have to be happy.

Mum later participated in the Veterans' final, but the winner was a much younger dog, barely eight years old. She also competed in the Group 5 final, but it is very rare that any Shiba Inu makes any success there, and neither did Mum. Being Best of Breed at her age is still more than could be expected.

April finished fourth best bitch. This was not a bad result among all of these Shiba Inus, but April is not of the same lines as Mum and I.

Quarter Finals

The quarter finals of the World Cup started today. I am not really interested anymore, since the teams I was hoping for are all out in previous rounds. Daniel is interested, nevertheless. He says that you can always have a favourite in any game.

Today, Daniel hoped that the Netherlands would beat Brazil. This was in part because it would mean a European country in semi final, in part because he never hopes Brazil will make it. In football, Daniel believes it is silly to have a tradition like Brazil, where the players never use their real names, but nick names. He also thinks it is better if European teams would be more dominant than the South Ameican football giant Brazil, which is the contry that has won the most gold medals of the World Cups. Fortunately for Daniel, the Netherlands won by 2-1.

Daniel also hoped that Uruguay would beat Ghana. Uruguay is his favourite among South American classical football teams, because they were once great, winning gold in 1930 and 1950, but has been an underdog the last couple of decades. Normally, Daniel want previous medalists to take all medals, he says previous World Cup medalists are the only true classical teams and they deserve to win more medals, and since there are already many teams that has taken at least one medal, there need not be any more. Ghana is not a previous medalist, as Uruguay. This game went on to penalties, where Uruguay finally won.

I am happy for Daniel. He may have some points, too, but I actually do not care much. I just write a lot about this because the TV has shown football and Daniel has talked football. Well, perhaps there will be equally much to say about the other quarter finals, which are played tomorrow.

A Movie I Would Like to See

Polly is here again, writing a blog entry. I just heard about a movie I would like to see: Along Came Polly. I have been told it is a romantic comedy where the heroine is called Polly. This suits me fine, I believe Polly is the perfect name for a heroine. We will have to look for this movie, if it will be shown on TV sometime. If not, I have to persuade Paula and Daniel to rent it. I will come back with a report in case I see it.

Dad's Birthday

It is Dad's birthday today, and we have celebrated him. We all got treats, but Dad got a whole cheeseburger as an extra treat. This was one of those moments when I wished it was my birthday. It is not that I do not like that Dad got a cheeseburger, he deserved it, but I would have wanted one for myself as well.