Nurhan's take:

Kin has now developed that Newfie urge, that when he sees water he has to go and jump in... and then come out and try and 'share' it with you... which can be downright disconcerting. Like Karma before him he also is beginning not to like being picked up... which has caused some issues. Not least of which is that he's not allowed to climb the stairs in my house... and so now refuses to climb the stairs at a friend's house, so even when he was up the stairs, he refused to come down and didn't want to be carried... this led to much 'hilarity' and comments such as "when selling the house, you'll have to say that the dog comes with the house!" Unlike my friends cat who really can be quite nippy and had no problem with the stairs.

'Sheep TV' is still a 'top channel' and another thing that I am going to have to look at changing!

The year before Karma died, I needed to replace a pair of trousers that I used for dog walking. I'd originally bought the trousers as outdoors trousers, thus I could 'accept' the 1000 NOK price tag... The trousers turned out to be crap for outdoorsy stuff, but excellent for dog walking and lasted eight years of regular usage, and thus 1000 NOK seems good... and so I bought a second pair to replace them... this pair is crap. I took them back to the shop and complained. They sent them off to the company and then told me that my trousers had come back... Spent three weeks arguing over the 150 NOK repair bill. I'd just like to say that Intersport at Østervåg spares NO effort in helping their customers. Which prompts me to say if you receive any customer service in Norway, you are talking to a Swed... Except the trousers are Fjell Raven (Swedish brand) and I received customer service from Japan Photos... bought a pocket camera from them to replace the Nikon that I broke the screen on. After trying this camera for the best part of two months, I'd come to the conclusion that it was crap... no colour depth and 1/2 the pics were blurred. Went into the shop, chap in there tested the camera against my old Nikon (that still works, you just can't see what you are pointing it at!). Tried four cameras and I bought the one with the best picture (small price increase). They took the other camera back, no questions asked and were really very helpful. New camera is a Canon IXUS 115 HS. One other thing that they told me is that the problem with lots of the instamatic cameras is that they can't physically write to the card fast enough, which is why some of the cameras with less mega pixles actually take better photos! And for the record Helly Hansen make excellent things from thermals (especially) to dry suits, (haven't tried their trendy stuff and have deep misgivings of them 'dumbing down' but being using Helly Hansen Lifa for years and it's excellent. My HH drysuit lasted the longest of any of my suits and was also the driest. (Devold are crap, don't waste your money, expensive and undurable... just like Fjell Ravan).

Here's Kin carrying a balloon, without puncturing it, demonstrating the gentleness of the breed...

 Keeping him out of water can be a problem at the moment... Today I had him down to a jetty and in he went, was about to throw a ball for him when I girl in the process of changing from child to adult dives in and then screams and says she's scared of dogs... Ummmm Duhhhhhh she saw him before he went into the water... why did she dive in?! Now he was heading for her anyway and she's making more noise, which he's obviously going to investigate... She wouldn't swim away from him, so by now I'm down to my boxers ready to go in, when he turns around and heads back to shore... he wasn't tired, for some reason he decided not to swim to her... no clue why, but was quite happy as I wasn't planning on going for a dip).

I'm happy to say that he has Karma's 'patented' feather duster tail.

And he's happy to explore... even today's thunder, &  lightening didn't phase him much.

Growing, broaching, lifesaving, cycling 4 000 km, Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

(Kin is the one on the left). Kin is getting big... He's not even seven months old yet and already he's got his adult coat on his back and it is a gorgeous rich texture.

Yesterday he met Odin, Mona & Pete's one year old boy, who came up to him and hugged him repeatedly and he was the picture of calmness. An adult Newfie you know will be fine with kids, but a Newfie puppy always wants to play, but somehow he seemed to know that he had to be really careful.

Unlike at Bråstein today... Now Newfie's are know to walk with a nautical gait (i.e. they always weave as though they are on a ship moving in a seaway), but carrying on the nautical theme Kin can broach as well (broaching is when the vessel is turned beam onto the wind / seas and she normally rolls over close to her 'beam ends'). Kin charging flat out, and then his paws take on a new direction, roughly 080 degrees to his current heading, inertia carries him forwards but his paws are now perpendicular to the direction of travel, causing him to trip and go skidding on his side, until his momentum is overcome by ground friction... He can do this quite well without help, although a couple of times, Shadow, an adult St Bernard's was only too happy to 'assist'...

Today we went a slightly different route in Bråstein; and the last time I went this route I had Karma with me, which got me thinking of Karma, which led me into thinking about my father (sadly, I lost both of them in a short time span, so it's hard for me to think of one without thinking of the other). One of the 'family legends' is how my father came to be in the UK. It was 1956 and he and a friend decided to come to the UK... from Cyprus. At the time the island wasn't partitioned. Dad, although Turkish, spoke (and did until his dying day) Greek fluently, as the two communities lived side by side and the kids all played together (there are many a book written on the Cyprus situation so I won't elaborate here). Well the obvious way to get from Cyprus to the UK was by, ummmm, errrr, ummmm, cycle! As in pedal cycle. Dad & his friend caught the ferry to Syria and then cycled through Turkey, and up through Europe until he came to London. Interestingly enough when he came to London, dad had enough money to book a room for a month and then he had to try and find work... The first day in London he bumped into a man from his village who sorted Dad a job and the rest as they say, "is history!" But if you knew how large Dad's village was, you'd be amazed at this stroke of fortune. Someone attempting this journey now, would organise sponsorship and get National Geographic to film them... not then. Dad never mentioned about the hardship of the journey, although he did say that people were very kind to them when they met them. Many nights were spent in the open, but folk offered them a roof over their heads at other times. This was as much of the story as Dad ever tended to tell. For some reason over the last few days I've been thinking about this and I would love to know more about the details. My father could never be called modest when it came to the land of his birth or how proud he was of his family, but when it came to himself, he was self effacing. My Father was generous to a fault, and like the emergency services, I suspect that many folk who knew him didn't notice my Father until he wasn't there any more.

Changing the subject slightly... as Kin is such a good swimmer I tried starting life saving training with him yesterday... I can't say this was a huge success. He swam out and recovered a float several times, but he was most unhappy when I also swam out... he ignored the float and made it abundantly clear that in, 'his world' my place is on shore... He looked genuinely shocked when I went in to my knees, and after coming up from a surface dive, he was quite vocal and physical in his objections. The idea is that you swim out with a float/toy/ball; he swims towards you. You wave the float so he becomes fixated on it and as he swims to the float you rotate in the water until he's facing the land, you then give him the float, grab the hair on his shoulders or bum and then he tows you back to land... Kin ignored the float and went straight for me... fortunately I can swim faster than him... which he didn't like either... Some work needed here... but then again he's not even seven months and already a good swimmer... it's very early to start him on such 'work'.

Kin has his mad moments (as puppies are want to):

Here he is having a respite in between re-arranging furniture.

Growing up: Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

My little boy is growing up. He's six and 3/4 months old and already he's bigger than the vast majority of dogs we meet. But he still moves like, not just a puppy, but a Newfie puppy... as though he's on a ship's deck in a seaway. He manages to trip over his own paws on a regular basis.

If anyone believes dogs should only be walked on the lead, they should see Kin when in turbo mode. He charges off (normally into the longest grass), tail held high, back end fishtailing, like a boy racer's car in the road, running in tight loops until he wipes out, and given his moment he carries on going for some distance before having this shocked look of, "how did that happen!" On the cuteness scale it's quite a bit off the top end. Beautiful to see, the rampant joy in just being... my jaw hurts from grinning so much to see this!

Then again:

These are two of the distinct drawbacks of having a Newfie!

Now back into working. Working as a subsea installation engineer for an installation company, it's interesting work... but it invariably ends up being 'fire fighting' work. For various reasons, none of which have anything to do with me, the project can not be delivered in regular hours... everything has been left too late and there are more problems then there really should be for the products that we are to install. The upshot of this is that I have to work overtime, which I don't really want to do and I am not re-reimbursable for the additional time that I spend working; and we're not talking the odd ten minutes we are talking a significant amount of overtime. Fortunately Jan comes and takes Kin out at lunch, so I can be a wee bit later home... but do not like this state of affairs... I'll have to see what I do.

Sheep TV... trying to get the little chap used to the idea; so I can let him off the lead without him trying to introduce himself... if anyone has any suggestions on how to achieve this please let me know... efforts so far haven't been so good.

Had some sad news, Malo the boxer, had taken to biting and after trying various options to stop this he had to be put to sleep; that was sad and makes me all the happier that Kin seems to be turning  into a great dog, able to cope with my life style. I said I'd never have a dog being single... but then maybe I'd never be in the position to have another dog...

 Kin is now very proficient at retrieving balls. I'm going to start him with water rescue work soon... was kind of hoping that summer would come about at some point in time... still waiting. Fortunately I have lots of wet/dry suits and this lake is ten minutes walk from my house (and after the Kommune shut my local pool for a year, I've started open water swimming here, but not with Kin. Tried that once with Karma, got 1/2 way along the lake {~1 km}before he started herding me back towards the bank, as Newfie's have a habit of doing!).

Like Karma before him, keeping Kin dry isn't easy!

Although being a puppy, he does tend to get quite tired...

My week - Kin

Kin's take:

My week has been long days in the kennel, with another human coming in during the day, then my human coming home later on. He tries to take me out in the time before morning begins... I'm trying to convince him that I am a 'B' kind of guy...

I think he's twigging the 'B' person thing, although I am having more trouble convincing him that the hole in the garden is a natural phenomena...

Retrospectively thinking about it, it would probably help if I didn't dig whilst he's watching:

Still I tried passing it off as I was inspecting this natural phenomena...

Not sure if he 'bought it'...

There's been playing with little people who drop into the garden from time to time... I've noticed that I'm now bigger than them, and have to be a bit careful as when I charge into them they tend to go flying... all good fun...

Then there's my drinking problem:

the problem being that most of the water sloshes out from the sides of my mouth!

A spot of tunnelling...

 Some swimming...

All in all quite tiring and my human is still being most territorial about the sofa, so I have to lie down here...

Line Check... Nurhan

Nurhan:

This post has nothing to directly do with Kin. Pictures are referenced to somewhere else to explain a point and be accessible on net.

 Issue with control lines.

This was the knot:

Checked glider next day:

Breaklines to the left, risers taken over the wing.

Residual twists in line... could have something to do with backwards starting?

At a bit of a loss to explain.

Not sure if this affect contributed/was the cause of the knot or not.

Line check is quite thorough.

Cows, farmers, & other predators... Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

Yesterday the weather seemed to have broken, so it was off to the beach for evening walk... Which has nothing to do with this post, but I'm going to mix in the pictures of Kin, Tina, & her mum (who's name escapes me, can't get Tina on the phone... so for the rest of this post she'll be referred to as TM).


Last night I went to bed with an okay blood sugar, and at 0300ish woke up with a very low blood sugar (I'm an insulin dependant diabetic). This is a really irritating situation, for several reasons, one of which is that since hitting 30, I seem incapable of eating the correct amount to cancel it out without sending my BS way too high (oh and not to mention that there was no obvious reason why it went so low as the 'before sleep BS' was fine). I eat, then try to go back to bed, but I am crap if my sleep is interrupted, as I don't really sleep for several hours; so it feels like my eyelids have just shut when the alarm clock rings. Added to this I am still trying to hit the balance with working regular days and taking care of Kin. End result that after cycling home from work today in the strong winds, rain, and 7 deg C (despite my having worn sandals and shorts... in an outrageously optimistic leap of faith that yr had really predicted the correct weather), I was rather knackered.


Kin meanwhile was doing high speed laps around the garden. 

{random photo... nothing to do with text...}


So obviously I had to take him out (unfortunately previous walks do not have a cumulative affect...}. Legs running a distinctly part time service & off we went...


Now part of the walk goes past a large field full of cows and sheep. There is some land separating the path, from the field and failing that there is a wire mesh fence topped with barbed wire.

And off Kin went... somehow he managed to get through the fence. Sheep & lambs start running and the cows look up. I ignore the protest from my legs and go after him. Now Karma I could run faster, I haven't worked out yet who is faster between Kin & I but he's defiantly faster than Karma. In wet long grass in terrain, with me with complaining legs he had an edge and he was ignoring my commands, as he was fixed on the live stock. He was only curious, & being a puppy he wanted to play.

 I'll freely admit that I was in the wrong here...


Now in Norway farmers have carte blanch to shoot dogs that are worrying livestock. Farmers here take that to extremes, with many incidents of farmers shooting dogs nowhere near live stock. A notable case was a farmer shooting a highly trained tracking dog, nowhere near any livestock, whilst the dog and the owner were training; the only comeback... the paper said how terrible it was. If the local farmer wanted to be bloody minded about it, he could have shot Kin  perfectly legally.


I managed to grab Kin. I picked him off the ground by the scruff of his neck and laid him down. I was angry, but I was trying to give a measured response.


We were not out of peril yet. Now cows are curious creatures... but they spook easily, especially with dogs. Every year dogs are trampled to death by spooked cows, who will go after a dog that spooks them. If the owner is there as well then the owner is collateral damage. All the cows were coming towards us.


Kin and I got to the fence as the cows came to ~ 50 m away. I picked Kin up (wet he's probably ~ 50 kgs now} and not taking any great care with where limbs were, I manage to pass him through a barbed wire fence, before quickly following him, just as the cows were breathing down my neck.

Sat on a rock with a subdued Kin sitting beside me, until my pulse came back down into triple figures. Then tied him to a tree, before going back down to ensure that we had not damaged the fence (folk ski on this hill in the winter and some sections of the fence have been damaged by lots of folk not being too careful when going through it).


Kin definitely knows something was up, and I wasn't very happy. I'm hoping he's linked the event of chasing livestock with this but probably not. Will have to be much more careful with him until, he like Karma before him, can transit past this field with only a quick look before getting his nose back to the ground and carrying on, on the walk.

Tina & Kin.

TM & Kin.