Methods of control... - Kin:

Kin's take:

I'm told that Newfie's make good baby sitters... comes naturally to me... and I'm not even five months yet... imagine how good I'll be at it as an adult...

I like sitting here... I have full control... I can see what's going on in the garden and keep an eye on what's going on in the house...

I've noticed that if you take both ends of the lead, you can steer your human much more easily...

I don't know why this works, but if I jump up on the sofa and then up onto this table, I get lots of treats... although when I climb up onto one of the chairs and then try to get onto the dinning room table (normally when my human is eating), I don't get any treats... in fact I'd go as far to say that my human definitely doesn't seem to appreciate my athletic prowess.

Back door step - Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

Karma used to love being on the back door step... Full control...

Kin hasn't yet got quite the finesse that Karma perfected but he's 'working' on it:

Paddling trip - Nurhan

Nurhan:

The only bit of this that has anything to do with Kin is that one of my neighbours, Jan kindly, came and took him out whilst we were paddling.

I used a helmet cam today... it's not a great helmet cam, but as I am not on Facetube, I said that I'd put the vid clip in here, so Atle, Matt, & Pete (who I was paddling with) can see it. We paddled a new rapid today that we've looked at over the years but it's been covered in fishermen... now we are outside the fishing season. Much discussion regarding grade, I'd say it's a big bouncy grade three, but you don't want to swim on this section, so if you are not happy paddling grade four, I'd say that you should give this section a miss.

Now turn your laptops to the side and enjoy the vid clip... which really doesn't give you any real indication of what this paddle/section of river is like, although it does match my recolection... I entered, got bounced around a lot and then exited:

Creek boats are a bit OTT on this, but it's the first (proper) outdoor paddle of  the season, water level is surprisingly high with melt water, which means that the water is cooooooold, and we didn't know what to expect.

(We did also paddle another section of river a short drive away, that's considerably longer than this section but not as challenging).

Paragliding and Newfie's -Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

Believe it or not this is paragliding! Or more specifically we are having a BBQ whilst we wait for the conditions to moderate at Obrestad Havn (coast hang, white horses on the sea). We spent some hours ground handling gliders whilst we waited for the wind to drop. Kin was tied to a fence post whilst we played and waited; here his waiting is rewarded with a hot dog! (May took this picture, from left to right, Me, Kin, {transcended} Espen, & {Master} Lura).

Now recently there has been a lot of waiting for conditions and I seem to have 'perfected' a knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for flying conditions. Yesterday arrived at Gjesdal, to find hangliders conjugating over Vest Veggen (most likely at the altitude limit), and wayyyyyyyy too much wind for paragliders. Relocated to Reve:

(Kin is black b lob slightly above pilot and to left, Pilot is {Master} Lura). Where the wind picked up until even Master Lura packed up, followed shorty thereafter by Espen, & Øystein... my glider left the car, but not it's carry sack!

Think Kin likes these days as there's always folk around. He can keep track of everyone, he has to walk a little to get to these locations, and sometimes folk feed him grill food!!!

Still he does seem to get tired out from keeping an eye on everyone:

Sometimes he can't even make it out of the car!
He's not too keen on being picked up and he's too young to be allowed to jump in and out, fortunately he's extremely good at using Karma's ramp... when he wakes up.

Sadly the above picture is (probably) the last to be taken with my Nikon Coolpix S220 compact camera, as the LCD screen on the back only shows black... this is a pity as the picture quality from this camera is very good. Now I'[m back to (mainly) using an Olympus Mu 770 SW, waterproof, shock proof, crush proof.... and would be perfect if the picture quality was good... this is the second Olympus digital camera that I've owned and the reason that I bought the Nikon camera is because the picture quality from this camera is soooo poor (as was the Olympus before it). I also have a Canon 400 D SLR camera with standard, wide angle, and zoom lenses - this is an awsome camera, with excellent picture quality, but sadly doesn't fit into a pocket so you can carry it all the time without really noticing it until you need it.


Now four folk in the local area have keys to my house and  1 1/2 of these will keep an eye on the little chap when he's in alone, which means I get to go flying, white water paddling, climbing, skiing,... for day trips and know that even if I am delayed getting home he'll be okay.

Food preparation... Kin's:

Kin's take:

Okay, you wouldn't normally associated puppies with food preparation, more a see food diet... see food, eat food... but you'd be surprised at how attentive I am with everything to do with things that can be eaten...

Unfortunately this has led to my human taking steps to prevent my active participation in food preparation...

Fortunately I've discovered that often the 'viewing gallery' has been left open:

Strangely, my human tends to seem angry when I seek to be with him at times like this and when I put my paws and head onto the table when he's eating...

Big boys, baths, work visits, and things that put a smile on my face - Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

Finally we meet some Newfies at Bråstein! These two chaps were 65, and 78 kgs! Both three years old with the most beautiful lush, black coats. Kin looked decidedly small and scruffy by comparison... this wasn't helped by both of them deciding to roll Kin in the mud (yeah, like he really needs help to do that!).

Met them on the beginning of the trip and then met them at the end... they went a lot longer than us. We took an inordinate amount of time to not go very far. Giant breeds you need to be very careful with when they are pups... despite this Kin might have started limping on the way back to the car when we met them again... Now the lass above is one of the committee members of the local Newfoundland club, and if indeed Kin did start to limp, this is a bit like being caught by the head master with a spray can in your hand and a particularly graphic description in wet paint on a wall directly in front of you... I'm by no means certain that Kin was limping, but nothing to be done but heave his 36 kg(ish) up onto my shoulder and carry him back to the car... he's been fine ever since, so if he was limping it was most likely something between the pads of his paws that I dislodged when I checked them.

The amount of exercise for a giant breed is a controversial point. Puppies (all breeds) have lots of energy. The trick is to burn off the energy without damaging the dog. One suggestion is that you should take the pup on trips that last a minute for every week of their lives, so at six months you should be able to walk for twenty six minutes... Another is to let the dog decide... but puppies will try to please their owners, so this can be quite difficult. Kin's breeder came out with at six months I can take him for a thirty minute trip...definitive literature on training is elusive... I can't remember what we did with Karma. With Kin I need to take him out to burn off his energy but also to train him. Short walks, try to have him off the lead as much as possible (he has to want to go with me when he's an adult, so I teach him as a pup to do this). If I do take him 'long' then the next few days are very short walks... The idea is not to walk him until he limps and back off, but to keep him well within his limits but still use his energy and make trips fun... I believe that we've hit the right balance...

 After being rolled in the mud, I had to wash him. Now with the weather straying into double figure temperatures it was time to introduce him to the hose... Now Karma hated this... Kin gave the impression that he wouldn't choose to do this, but didn't seem particularly fussed. Here he is soaped up.

Here he is rinsed.
And then we sat on the back patio with the dryer and it was remarkably effective. Only needed to dry his face with a towel (didn't want to use the dryer on his face). Okay we did have to 'sacrifice' a cow to get his co-operation, but it all went rather 'swimmingly'. And his puppy coat became sooooooo soft, but he did lack the sheer sheen of the adults he'd met earlier on in the day.

Didn't last long... next day we helped a friend moving some stuff on and off his island. At lunch time Kin dug a  trench to lie in... if only I could get him to do them to order, I could send him out to work! As it is my back garden is taking on the impression of a mutant mole's convention... Out there the other evening to bring Kin in for the night and every time I turned the ground moved... It was covered with worms and when the light from my head torch fell on them they 'dived for their fox holes', freaky and a sight that goes on all the time but is rarely noticed by humans!

With the hot weather, drinking from a tap becomes a 'requirement'; although being a puppy he's a bit clumsy at doing this:

Kin had his first 'work' visit. We dropped in on Allan, he runs a modelling agency... This is models as in building everything from scale planets to ships, to templates, he's just got two contracts with Aker Verdal to build two jackets (as in Oil rig platform supports) and a barge, so that they can check rigging placements when these are lifted off the barge, flooded and placed on the seabed. I know him as he's made three models for projects that I've been involved with. He's very good at what he does and he's also a good chap.  (Allan is the one on his knees, and Marcus is to the right, Marcus helps out and is Allan's son). Just above Allan's head is a light house model that they have been commissioned to make.

 Good weather means flowers! Think one of the neighbour's kids has bought this van... years ago I had one of these vans... wish I'd thought to do this with the back. Spontaneous creativeness isn't something that happens a lot in Norway... but occasionally one comes across gems to be cherished...

 Met this chap after a nigh out in Bergen, he was bigger than me. Just sitting by the side of the road drinking his bear, ummm sorry beer and taking in the atmosphere!

If only I could bottle it! - Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

There's something about Newfie puppies that just makes folk want to climb in and give them a cuddle... If I could just figure out what it is and cover my body with it, my life would be so different. Here's Christina after her first high tour with a paraglider, and rather than buzzing at having been flying, she climbs into the back of the car to cuddle Kin... still he didn't complain!

 These two pics are Kin and I at the take off at the Nicostarten Eggebø, kindly taken by Carlos in between flights and tree sacrifice... One ferry trip to get over here, and Kin gets to meet lots of folk, who keep an eye on him. No livestock out yet but soon he'll get to meet those as well, although need to be careful with cows as if they get spooked they will trample him and me, cow's look docile but can be very dangerous for dogs, especially slow, giant breed dogs.

This was the first time that Kin had seen me drop into the air, and apparently his complaints were quite vocal, until he was distracted by a petting session from one of the girls!

Beautiful skiing conditions at the weekend in the mountains, Matt and his kids kindly looked after Kin to allow me to get some great steep skiing in, although with rise in temperature the avalanche risk was significant so some slopes had to be avoided.

Now on returning home, Matt came out with I had three single women in my house to meet Kin... this is significantly better than I have managed in the last (too many) months! Again if I could only isolate it and bottle it!

Kin wasn't impressed when I ventured onto the roof of Anu's and Scott's house to look at the chimney (they have a modification on the chimney which my neighbour and I have been talking about putting on ours, and as their roof was sooooo easy to get up on, and I had a camera seemed ideal). Also it's good for Kin to see different things going on, so he doesn't get freaked out later. Incidentally Scott and Anu are the reason that I am in Norway, which I remind them/blame them for everytime something happens!!!

This building is Stavanger's Observatory. It's ~ 300 m away from where Kin and I live and on clear nights the folk that run it can roll the roof back and inside is a large (by armature sizes) telescope. It's intresting talking to the folk who run this as they can talk animatedly about the subject of stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies  and more than once Karma and I were out for a night stroll and got invited in to look at some point of light on the other side of the galaxy, through their telescope. They also invariably made a fuss over Karma... Kin has yet to meet them.

The view from here is good, and like the view from my house we get to see when the snow has arrived in the hills and it's time to get the skis out. Below is (I'm sure there is a word for this but can't think what it is), a compass rose with distances to different features that can be seen from here, some over 100 kms distant.

Pictures don't do the view justice. Sitting out in the Fjord, (just above the white house) is the world's biggest crane vessel Thialf she has two cranes each rated to 7 200 te lift capacity (here cranes used to be rated to 6 800 te capacity; the vessel that holds all lifting records is Saipem 7000, she's also a semi submersible crane vessel with two derrick cranes, each crane rated to 7 000 te... thus when Hereema recertified the cranes on Thialf... ).

Talking of boats, here's my cat, sans mast, which was damaged after she blew over in the autumn storms. Here's Kin 'helping' to move a concrete tie down. A friend Jan-Inge, suggested that I go and have a chat with the folk that run Lundsvågen, about drilling into the tarmac and putting two expansion bolts in as extra tie downs, not only were they happy to let me do this, they even gave me the expansion bolts. Need to do some work on her but no the weather is warming up need to get her ready to sail again.

This is Karma in front of my old cat. Karma had a habit of getting in all photos, although it was very difficult to actually get a good photo of him. Cat is no place for a dog, but did have Karma out on yachts a few times.

But I like sailing dinghies and catamaran's too much to buy something with a lump of lead on to take Kin onboard. Added to that it's not easy getting a grown Newfie on and off a yacht either!

 Yesterday evening sneaked off to go flying. Now Karma seemed happier to be off the lead in my garden whilst I went and partook in such 'silliness'. Kin doesn't know any better, so am trying to take him with me to as many places as I can. Flew for over an hour yesterday. Kin was behind the car

 Which is just by the green trees in the swing of the road, next to the Jæren Hang og Paraglider Club house:
http://www.jhpgk.com/index.php
Plenty of folk going back and forth. I think that he seemed quite happy:

On the drive back we stopped off at Bråstein (aka, 'the dog woods'); where we took a trip for a few hundred metres. Kin got adopted by two lovlies, and I asked him several times for an introduction, but he acted as though he didn't know what I was talking about - Karma wasn't good at 'sharing the love' either...

Now if only I could isolate it and bottle it!!!

First Swim, Para-venting, 'kidnapping', ... Nurhan

Okay, Newfies are water dogs, however most dogs get past eight months old before they become interested in swimming... before this they tend to be curious and may venture out if their ‘family’ head for the water. Karma was a great swimmer and would swim at every opportunity AFTER he was ~ eight months old.

Last week Kin & I joined, Scott & his son, Ryan at Lille Stokkavann. Kin ventured into the water, but kept his paws on the ground. Kin watched as they threw a bath toy boat into the water, unfortunately they were not agreed on who was taking responsibility for what and boat and both ends of the string it was tied to, arched into the air... Fortunately it was an onshore breeze, and eventually the boat drifted ashore... some bushwacking latter and boat was recovered. Kin watched keenly as the boat was thrown into the water once more... and off he went.

Three times the little chap swam out and ‘gallantly’ ‘rescued’ the toy (by this time Ryan and Scott had agreed on who was doing what).

This game was interrupted by what can only be termed, an angry swan, suffering from Lake rage... over he came puffed up and hissing... Kin was curious... I did briefly wonder if this was the same Swan that had gone for Karma, right up until the point that Karma had turned to face it, stood up to full height and pulled his lips back... you can imagine the effect of the swan as his horizon takes on the appearance of a knife murder’s, over populated knife draw; on that occasion the swan’s miniscule brain registered that this was not a course that he’d do well to pursue and he retreated. Sadly, Kin’s jaw and size aren’t yet this impressive, neither was his attitude... “I wonder if this white thing wants to play with me?” I don’t like Swans, as they tend to be angry, and way more opinionated then duvet bed stuffing should really be. Over came Mr Swan and then he tried to peck Kin’s curious nose... he was only saved from a quick kick in the beak, by Scott, demonstrating how to deal with a swan. He puffed himself up raised his arms above his head and looked somewhat comical... the swan didn’t pay any heed, so he went all out and opened his jacket to increase his projected area... I was trying to growl at mr Swan, but was laughing too much at Scott’s sterling effort. Mr Swan obviously decided that he’d made whatever point he had to make and off he went. And so ended Kin’s first waterborne adventure.

(Tried writing this in word and publishing it from there... not a great success... had to import all the pictures in a second time manually... still get to use a better font...)

Kin is trying to figure out how to overcome the ghastly gates that get in his way...

This gate is over hip height to me!

Weighed him two days ago and he came in at 30 kgs, when he's dry... and as it appears we have entered the Monsoon season in Stavanger, it's is getting to be quite rare.

On last Sunday it looked like we'd get a short spell of good weather - probably not good enough for 'hanging' flying (paragliding), but possibly good enough for a sledge run down. May, Kristian, & I headed for Dalsnuten, this is not one of our normal take offs and if we have an intentions of hanging here we have to get permission from Sola airport's control tower. 

We did get some strange looks as most folk go for a Sunday stroll with at the most a Thermos flask, our glider sacks do seem excessive for such a trip. (Whilst we were doing this Kin was in the back garden).

We checked out the take off options. Checked the flying routes to get to the landing, and then we began the cruel art of para-venting ('venting' is Norwegian for 'waiting'). This is one of the least liked parts of paragliding.We have a narrow band of windspeed that we can realistically fly in (~ 0 m/s {depending onn take off location, but more normal 1 m/s} to ~ 5(ish) m/s).  Normally you sit on a hill side for several hours gripping on to rocks and shouting above the roaring wind, blinded by the snow/rain, and you get used to the weather conditions, and as you get used to them, obviously the windspeed drops... which can lead to interesting take offs like this:

(this is the NW take off at Ulriken, below on the left is the Viking capital of Norway, Bergen... the two pilots steadying me are an instructor, and a PP5 (most experienced pilot grade in Norway)... immediately after take off, and 30 m over take off...

On Sunday, we couldn't convince ourselves that the wind was anywhere near our realistic limits, and despite watching crows and sea gulls that were soaring and showing the areas of the best lift, when the rocks started rolling up hill, we called it a day and had our 'excitement' with our choice of descent route:

Kin and I have now finished the puppy course. Last session was  yesterday, out in the monsoon, in a forest doing tracking, which was cool. Kin was great with following a person trail, finding treats, and finding a person, but he bulked at the deer paw (and I can't say that I'm particularly 'upset' with this state of affairs).

Not having my own kids, I have to 'borrow' kids. Here's Eira, Isak, & Kin keeping each other entertained.

As you can see this can be quite tiring.

Keeping track of your human is a full time job - Kin

Kins's take:

Here I am checking out the terrain to ensure that it's safe for my human... really he just opens the car and jumps out anywhere, no checking, no planning.

I constantly have to keep an eye on him... he doesn't appear to realise that his actions can have any consequences.

Especially when he gets these things out...

Here I am leading the way back to the car in the hope that he'll follow me... I mean, just look at the size of his nose... it's not like he'd be able to sniff his way back to the car if the weather changes...

Here I am checking out a ferry to ensure that there's nothing dangerous for him here.

Sometimes the easiest thing is just to keep walking and hope they follow you, especially with the little humans... although my human seems to be somewhat obstinate and you wouldn't believe the number of times I've had to go back looking for him...

It can be a full time job, keeping an eye on your human, checking what he's getting up to...

Does get tiring, and just when you try to lie down and relax, you get jumped on:

No wonder when I come home, I need to have a good stretch out: