When I lost Karma, one of the companies that I work for subcontractor's gave me this sign:
That since then has been above my kitchen door, so that you see it when you enter the house.
{Contractor is a model maker, Allan, who's company is AM Model Services, Gandal. Stavanger being the 'oil capital of Norway' he's made models of platform's, templates, models for crane ops, models to train divers and ROV crews, for the company that I work for he's made two different wind turbine generators and towers, he's good, but more importantly he's a good guy.}
Now my house is once more slowly becoming a home! Our relationships are individual with living creatures and inanimate objects... Take the 'humble' cup for instance; most of us have a favourite cup and we would be upset to lose this cup. The cup can easily be replaced, but what the cup represents is memories, and experiences, the cup has been with you since... Now take an animate friend, this person will be responsible for creating some of the memories, not just an observer as the memories are formed around them. Karma can not be replaced, but now Kin is becoming more of a character, and experimenting more with his own limits and his environment. He is developing the charming Newfie swagger... making new memories if you will. Not just being an organic rug that has to be cared for 24 hours per day... okay this new found personality has it's downsides... such as shoe eating. and random, unprovoked attacks; yes he's becoming a terrorist without an agenda by human standards... but that's okay, he's a dog and by his standards, he's growing.
Sunday, I loaded him into the car (which he's getting quite good at). I'd given a lot of thought to taking him to Bråstein, but decided against it as it's a 20 odd minute drive each way, it wouldn't be much of a walk, I'd have to carry him some distance from the car park so that he could meet dogs that were more relaxed... So much as my misgivings are for Åsen, this was on the agenda again on Sunday. Which is how we came to be at Bråstein! Car park was mobbed, but managed to find an 'interesting' parking space (four wheel drive and extra ground clearance comes in handy for things other than sports!). Then carried him a couple of 100 m from the car park and waited.
Now in Stavanger you can go years without seeing a St Bernard's, yet we met a lovely 18 month old bitch on Saturday, and an equally lovely eight month old bitch on Sunday:
Now the cars were parked all the way back to the main road... it was somewhat busy, and there were many folk 'who wanted to take Kin home'!
Being a Newfie, here's a picture of him snoozing in his water bowl:
Later that day, I decided to wash him... not because he needed it, but more to get him used to the idea. Whilst he was still in that rare Newfie condition, dry, I weighed him... he came in at 11 kgs... Ever since he's felt sooooo much heavier, than when I thought he weighed eight kgs!
Now Karma was not a fan of bathing (this is having someone wash him, as opposed to swimming, which he was a hugeeeeeee fan of), and I tried all the tricks that made it tolerable for Karma for Kin. In some ways I wish I hadn't tried him. All the trust built up in the previous week seemed to have been squandered. He was scared senseless, and deeply unhappy. He calmed down after I took him out of the bath.
He also wasn't particularly impressed by the dryer. The sound didn't bother him (as the house shock), but he wasn't a fan of the air stream (which was moving furniture in the back ground). I couldn't get a picture of Kin and the drier in the same frame... so here's the drier:
Fortunately I still had the plethoric of towels that Karma required to (semi) dry him and Kin only has a puppy coat, not the dense double coat he'll acquire in about six months time:
Here he's getting to terms with that age old game of hood cord pulling:
Which of course he'll expect to be able to play when he's fully grown!!!
Monday evening I have a tendency to entomb myself in plastic and get very hot and sweaty... and for those thinking that I was going to start talking about kinks and fetishes, I must apologies and direct you to my other blogs on alternative lifestyles... I'm actually talking about playing kayak polo.
{http://www.stavangerkajakk.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60&Itemid=23}
Monica, had kindly offered to look after Kin while her partner and I went off to the pool to play polo and a great time was had by all. The best part of this was that when we came back, Monica was reading and Kin was sleeping angelically at her feet. Now Karma would never settle anywhere but the back of the (old) car and the house, if Kin can behave like this I get to take him more places, so this was a really great site and I'm very grateful to Monica for looking after the little chap. I did suspect that he had an ulterior motive, like resting so that he would be able to keep me awake all night, but, last night managed to sleep in my own bed for the whole night, only got up once at 05:00 to take the little chap out and I didn't hear a peak out of him all night, despite the fact that he was in the fenced off hallway. Only one pee inside the entire night!
Here's Kin at Tasta Vedern meeting Laia, an 18 month Bernese Mountain bitch who lives about 300 m away from us:
Now I'm waiting for Svein to come around to puppy sit, so I can sneak off to go crawling (again, sorry, not fetish, I'm talking about front crawl in a Tastahallen (local swimming pool {http://www.stavanger.kommune.no/Tilbud-tjenester-og-skjema/Kultur-idrett-og-fritid/Idrett/Svommeanlegg/Tastahallen/})). Here's a vid clip showing Karma, 'helping' Svein up as only a Newfie can!!!:
No comments:
Post a Comment