Treats

He did leave me with the pig's ear...

Cabin Life

For various reasons last year I bought a cabin:

In October I'll have had the cabin for one year. Main reason for having the cabin was to go up into the snow with Kin, so I get to go skiing and I don't have to leave him at home. 

Cabin is about 1hr 10mins from home, and I still have all the DnT cabins/Statens Skøg cabins to use for a proper mountain trip (ski in, ski out).

 Lovely temperature, especially when it's snowing :-)

 Although he has to check inside to see what the humans are up to.

He of course takes his child minding duties seriously.

He also likes to inspect all work going on at the cabin:

Fortunately this repair met with his approval:

The Best of Friends

I'm highly skeptical of South African Mastiffs (Boa Boars - liberties have been taken with this spelling). Karma was attacked by one at about seven in the morning as this dog pulled out of the owners hands in it's enthusiasm to attack Karma. Happily Karma was youngish, saw him coming, and probably had at least 10 kgs on it. Karma went up on his back legs and met the evil beast on equal terms. I managed an ineffectual kick into the evil one's flank (I had Karma on the lead, so had a bad angle). Karma fought the evil one off, and then went back to his walk, with his feather duster tail up in the air - nothing bothered Karma, he really matched his name! So I was skeptical when I met Ijronn.

Ijronn is a beautiful dog, both in form, but especially in personality. He's about the same age as Kin, they are in the same weight class (Kin 74 kgs, Ijronn 81 kgs) and they are the best of friends. We live a couple of Km apart, but text to try to take trips together. The two our soooo happy to meet, they play, and they are soooo happy it's great to see them.

Reidar, and Karin (the owners) are as lovely as their dog.

Creatures

We regularly see deer on our local walks:

Also deer have a tendency to lie down in the long grass and it's very difficult to see them:

Now when Kin's off the lead, he has a tendency to run and then do a high speed roll, I'm going to have to try and get this on video, it's really funny to watch; anyway he did this a few mornings ago at about 0600, and as he rolled a deer sprang up out of the grass, very close to him, and went off at a rate of knots, the really funny thing was, so did Kin, but running away from the deer! Kin get's spooked easily and then gets distance, whilst looking over his shoulder to have time to think what to do!

We also walked under this lady:

All the above pics are taken local to where we live, with a phone camera.

Now the local council have a hole digging fetish, and they have been feeding this fetish over the last few years by digging up all the roads around my house - to the extent that I went flying after work a couple of months ago and on returning it was no longer possible to get back to my house the way I'd driven out a few hours earlier - the car was abandoned and we progressed back on foot - but it's got sooooo bad that even the deer are stumped as to which way to go:

This was taken from one of the windows in my house... the deer is trying to figure out where to go with three out of the four directions blocked (she jumped a neighbour's fence, I lost site of her when she jumped the next fence).

The Last Year

During the last year Kin has got bigger:

(he's the one on the right, I'm on the left). Today he weighed in at 74 kgs (164 lbs).

He's become artwork:

(by Mafe

who's a bit on the shy side).

He's discovered ice:

And he's got way more skeptical about things, so after getting him onto the ice once (mainly as he didn't realise what was going on until he looked down, after that it was 'all stop' at the boundary, and he made it very clear that he had a low opinion of folk flouting their safety by going onto the ice, especially with blades on their feet 

Svein {and I on} Stokkavann}).

Obviously when there was water, ice, and no humans, this was perfect:

Great temperature as well :-) 

He's also been to the vets a few times,

You can see the patches of bare skin on both paws at his wrists in the above picture.

he's taken to licking his wrists, there was some concern that there was an issue here, especially when he developed a slight limp. The socks are to stop him licking (he manages to get the cone off his head in about three minutes, the socks last a few more minutes!).

He was knocked out for x-rays of his wrists, I had his elbows, and hips x-rayed as well

His elbows were 'free' :-) , the X-rays for his hips weren't okay for analysis, so had to be retaken. He's also seems to be getting tired from exercise, so I had his heart checked, and all seems fine, so it appears that he's just too hot (this is the best/warmest summer of his life so far). Today had his hips x-rayed again so hopefully these pics will be okay (both in terms of correct images for analysis, and especially for results). X-rays are send to the Norwegian Kennel Club, who have some vet prof who grades all such X-rays in Norway.

Obviously when he's knocked out I take the opportunity to groom his underside without the normal battle.

It takes him a long time to recover from the knock out injection. Several hours at the vet's, about 1 hour after he's given the 'antidote', and then about four hours. He stands in the garden swaying form side to side, not tired, but not in control of his body either, he's not very happy and you have to feel sorry for him. The first time he was X-rayed I thought I'd get to go back to work afterwards - it took 4 hours to get him back out of my car! First time was very unpleasent as the last time I knocked out a dog was when Karma was put down and I found it very upsetting to see Kin in that position.

Obviously in the last year, we've had lots of walks:

Plenty of swimming:

Culinary assessment:

I changed his diet to a mainly meat diet. A friend feeds his dog on this meat diet, and he's done lots of checking out, and lets face it, dogs have big, sharp teeth for a reason! Well on the way back from a site visit I was passing the factory where they make and freeze the food that Reidar feeds his beast, so I stopped off, they will only sell food to you if you don't sell it on and you buy 200 kgs at a go. I managed to fit 180 kgs into the boot of my car (cost is about 1/2 the price of buying it from a pet shop). There was however one drawback with having 180 kgs of frozen dog food in the car, I didn't have a freezer big enough to fit it in at home... and you would not believe how difficult it is to find such a freezer, buy one, and get it home. "Arh yes, we can have one by next Tuesday for you!" Happily I managed to find one, get it home, and Kin has been eating meat ever since. He's coat shines, his nails/teeth are good. He eats more, but he poos less (i.e. his body uses more of what he eats). He's been eating this since about March and seems very good on this diet. When you buy in bulk it works out the same as a medium priced dry dog food, and I'm convinced it's better for him.

And a bit of sleeping:

 Obviously the best place to sleep is in the doorway of the bedroom, when I'm sleeping in the bed, best on the other side of the door, so you can block the toilet door as well.