Snow & Mountain Cabins;-Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Now most of the ski/mountain trips that I go on I wouldn't want to take any dog with me, let alone a Newfie, indeed Edward Whymper, who first, controversially climbed the Matterhorn (back in the 1800s {three of his 'guides' were killed during the decent}), in his old age, exemplified that he wouldn't be venturing on any too strenuous trips by getting a Newfoundland dog! (Which seems a bit sever an indictment!). But early season snow really isn't good for such a heavy, hairy dog as a Newfie.


Should probably diversify onto St Bernards at this point. There are two types of St Bernards, long and short haired. The one's that are renown for mountain rescue are the (smaller) short haired St Bernards. The long haired St Bs (I believe) came about as the short haired ones (that are recorded at the time of the Roman Empire as having been guard dogs), were suffering from some form of illness that was killing them off, so they tried to breed them with Newfies, which led to the long haired variety. The long haired variety looks like a supersized brown & white Newfie (and are generally the heaviest dogs in the world). The reputation for Mountain rescue and the the name comes from the St Bernards Pass, which had a Hospice built by Monks to aid travelers using the high mountain pass between Switzerland and Italy; after the storms the monks would go searching for trapped travelers and the monks' dogs liked to join them on these trips (what dog doesn't enjoy playing in the snow and being useful). These were the short haired variety. All long haired breeds suffer from snow balling in the fur and weighting them down.


But if you can drive to the cabin (or it's not a strenuous walk through deep snow) then the Newfie will love it. The above picture is Kin lying outside the cabin. There's approx. a metre of snow around the cabin, and this is a drive to cabin. Kin & I went to a cabin at Sageneset http://www.sageneset.no/ along with Ingunn, her three boys, and her dog. 


Kin loved it. He took to throwing himself off the ploughed path and flopping into the deep snow where he'd thrash around ineffectively for awhile before floundering back onto the ploughed path! Another favorite was to roll over and over in the snow, making deranged snow angel dogs! Did have to rescue him from the snow when he'd managed to break through into a stream bed beneath the snow and had to be very careful with streams and rivers as if he went into them I'd have two problems: (1) all the snow would stick to him and he'd have some problems moving far; (2) he could get swept under something frozen.

 Our attempts at a ski trip weren't a complete success in the conventional understanding, but I think everyone had fun. We stuck to the tracks (pistee beastie is used to flatten a wide section and make two sets of ski tracks, here the snow is consolidated so even without skis Kin didn't sink). Picture shows Kin, Ingunn with Oscar behind her, Waldemar, next to here, Zorro (the underwear stealing dog), with Alexander behind him. Ingunn summed up the ski trip by calling it a circus. We were out chasing the sun but as it's quite low on the horizon at this time of year we never caught it up. Kin pulled me over twice and every time Zorro got bored he attacked Kin (which Kin didn't seem to mind in the slightest, although at one point Kin decided that we'd gone far enough and (obviously considerate of other skiers, much to Ingunn's amusement) flopped down into the deep snow at the side of the track, rolled onto his back and looked like he was going to have a nap.


When we got back to the cabin Kin wanted some peace and quiet at a good temperature (~ -7 deg C/19 f), so I thought I'd clipped him onto a lead tied to the cabin, in actual fact I clipped him into Zorro's lose lead, but he still stayed curled up outside the cabin, if he did wonder off he came back.

During the night Kin slept next to my bed. He did wake me up once during the night, by banging his head into the beams/mattress under the bed; he managed to get himself stuck under the bed, by pushing himself under with his front paws, but he could not push off anything to get himself out again, he was lying at a 090 degree angle to the bed, I had to get out of bed and pull him out by his front paws, he had a bit of rolling to get small enough to get under the edge of the bed!


Now Zorro & Kin generally play well together, Kin is surprisingly gentle with Zorro (either that or he hasn't realised that with a flick of his paw he can propel Zorro into next week), but taking them both for a walk in the snow, I had to have both of them on the lead, as I had to stick to the ploughed trails/roads, and every time Kin tried to poo, Zorro attacked him, which really did put the big chap off his game! Had to return to the cabin, put Mr Zorro inside and then Kin could attend to call of nature un-hassled!


Kids got on well with Kin.

and obviously with their own dog Zorro, who's looking tired after playing out in the snow. Good time had by all.




Postscript note, talking of rescue dogs, this vidclip shows the kind of rescue work that Newfies excel at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28NMj0fdDM4&feature=related

New Year, fireworks, moment of change: Nurhan's Take:

Nurhan's take:

New Years Eve, and like many folk I'd take Kin & Zorro, to Bråstein to get them to un around and be tired for an evening that's normally filled with many bangs. In the car to and from Bråstein, I'd worn ear plugs and played firework noises obnoxiously loud from the car's stereo system. The above picture shows Kin & Zorro, after returning from Bråstein and having eaten. This was shortly before we all went to Ingunn's (Zorro's owner) for New Year's Eve celebrations.


{As an aside, I asked the pet shop how many 15 kgs sacks of dog food I bought for him in 2011, he's eaten 16 sacks!}.


The day before managed to sneak off and went skiing in a new area for us:

Steep soft snow up from the road, we should have used skins, but by the time we came to this conclusion the terrain was not conducive to stopping and putting them on (pic show's Svein).

Some difficulties in finding the best route through the terrain put us on a summit just after 'cut off time' (time when we need to head back to the car or risk having to ski down by head torch). Shortly after leaving the summit, I had my only real fall of the day; light had gone flat (i.e. with cloud cover it's no longer possible to pick out terrain features, dips and rises). We were skiing down the summit face which we'd just come up, and I didn't notice a small rise/bump, my skis did, inertia took over and my downhill progress was rapidly stopped by my face in the soft snow (obligatory ski tracks finished, followed by a gap and then a rather large dent in the white stuff!). Svein followed the normal procedure for having observed such an incident - laugh, when able to speak again through the tears of laughter, ask if I am okay, and then knowing where the bump is, ski around it!


We found a place out of the wind, and with a couple of minutes with a shovel and a bivvy shelter, stopped for a welcome bite to eat out of the wind, on our own tailor made 'sofa' complete with foot rest, tea holder, and back rest.


It's interesting how age changes us. Ten years ago, I would have skied with just a light (normally a HH Lifa) thermal, and a wind layer on top, today was big hat, wool thermal (Helly Hansan Warm), fleece, & a wind layer.

The route we found down was considerably better than the route that we found up, 3/5 ths of it like in the above picture with Svein, was on beautiful snow, with all the rocks covered, which left you free to ski as you wanted and link turns, then we hit a scree field where the snow wasn't uniform, and to ski quickly here was to risk broken bones, followed by another good section down onto the flat. Interesting area definitely worth another look now that we have a better idea of the lay of the land. - Norwegian maps generally have the contour lines separated by a vertical distance of 20 m, a vertical drop of up to 19 m can really spoil your day and these are not shown on the map, this area was quite craggy, in poor light conditions, it made for very careful and sometimes slow skiing.


Irritatingly I managed to twist my ankle the next day taking Kin (and Zorro) out at Bråstein, so now I have one painful ankle that's shaved and taped; and hopefully will be pain free by the weekend.


Initially it seemed like the firework phobia prevention had been a complete success. Come ten to midnight we ventured out to watch the fireworks and I took Kin with us, and initially he was fine. Often with animals (and people) something subtly changes and the change is noticeable (even if the cause isn't), and then it's just a case of waiting for the dust to clear and seeing the 'new lay of the land', that you are no longer able to influence. On this occasion there was no doubt as to what changed his composure, despite Stavanger sentrum being a, private firework free zone, some twat let off a banger practically right next to Kin. It made me jump, Kin's reaction was more pronounced. Situation should be salvageable, if you show no worry/reaction, so I took him for the walk back to the house without trying to calm him down at all. I now wish that I'd left him in the house with Zorro. When back at the house he seemed fine (as did Zorro who'd been in the house the whole time).

Now Jan (who often takes Kin out whilst I'm working/away), has a party at his house on New Year's Eve for which he generally cooks a turkey. The left over used to go in his dog, Tony, then when Tony was 'chasing clouds', Karma got the left overs, and here's Kin very happy about keeping this tradition going.


Shortly after the above picture was taken, Kin went out to sleep in the garden, there was a loud bang (someone close by setting off fireworks). I opened the door and he came charging in (I'm tempted to say, "as though someone let a firework off, under his arse",  but sadly that's a little bit too close to the truth) and hasn't gone out in the garden since. I'm still waiting to see the 'lay of the land' after the New Year's Shift...

Mirrors, & population control: Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Kin & I have had company for some of our recent trips, with Ingunn & Zorro. Zorro is a nine month old pup who has an inexhaustible supply of cute poses (I strongly suspect that he practices these in the mirror, when Ingunn is at work), and most of the time Zorro & Kin get on well.


For a Newfie, Kin is surprisingly agile, and generally foregoes the Newfie habit of going through things, as opposed to go around them. Ingunn's theory is that he's following Zorro, who generally doesn't have the option of going through things.


After having the two 'boys' in the back garden, my back garden resembles a miniature re-enactment of the battle of the Somme, not helped by the snow, followed by heavy rain. Not even when Xo & Karma (two Newfies) used to play in the back garden did the lawn ever get in this bad state! Will be interesting to see how this turns out next spring/summer.


Having the two of them running around in 'Kin's' house does mean that he doesn't truly relax, and once (the dastardly) Zorro leaves, Kin has to gather his favorite toys before he can then go to sleep: 

(I know that this looks like a staged photo but it really isn't, he really did put his toy and bone in this position and until I got the camera out his big head was on top of them!).


New Year's Eve (NYE) in Norway is generally used as a form of population control. There are only ~ 5 million people in Norway, and NYE is traditionally celebrated by drunk folk letting off pyrotechnics, often by placing large rockets in 2 mm of snow and wondering why they fall sideways, causing much merriment as they ricochet off bystanders. Last year the government decided that the population density across the whole of Norway was too low to survive a really harsh winter and took the monumental step to ban rockets, but all other form of fireworks are still fair game for New Year's Eve. Thus when I got Kin, I bought:

To try to get him used to the sounds. Karma would go and sit on the back lawn and eat a pigs ear when the fireworks were going off, I'd like Kin to be the same; thus I've been playing this CD at a volume that made the neighbours curtains twitch and I found disturbing, whereas Kin's reaction wasn't really noticable:

(Intention was to put a video clip in so the firework noises could be heard, and his reaction gauged... but he didn't react, not even when I put a mirror in front of his nose to check he was still breathing!) So either playing with Zorro really tired him out, or I have good reason to be quietly optimistic for New Year's Eve.

Balls, & Dalsnuten: Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Above you can see a classic problem with the long haired breeds, the snow balling behind the paws is irritating for the dog, but whilst he can still bend his legs, it remains mealy irritating; 

more seriously they can get snow melting between the pads of the feet, and then freezing again as ice, this can cut them between the pads and can be quite a problem. For a short trip in snowy weather, you normally just need to keep an eye on them, for a longer trip you can buy a form of paraffin wax that can be put on the paws and up the legs, to prevent balling (Karma once came on a ski trip and on two hours afterwards he still had balls of snow on the backs of his legs and under his stomach!!!).

 Kin took about 30 minutes to nibble off all the balls.

When it comes into bringing snow into the house, these chaps are quite accomplished.


And then the weather changes, temperature jumps up by six degrees C (i.e. over freezing), it begins to rain, and all the snow melts and we get flooding! Which Newfie's don't mind either!


In between two storms, today we managed to sneak off and fly from one of the hills over town. Can't see from vid clip but all the hills further back have snow cover on them. Friends have asked what is it like to fly a paraglider, so here is a high speed clip (slowed in places, but most of it is played at a faster speed, and then most folk will still find it boring, kind of thing that's best to do, with a tandem trip if you've never tried it (all the fun, with none of the training). Per & I took off from Dalsnuten and landed in Dale. Marginal conditions at take off, just enough to inflate the glider backwards, but you had to be quick to get airborne. Oh and if anyone can figures what falls off the glider, please let me know(played it back and took out four still frames, haven't got a clue what it is, and didn't notice it whilst I was flying, only afterwards looking on the vid, wing, risers, harness, & cockpit are all fine, so I'm a wee bit baffled.

Then it was into the car, picked up Kin an off to Oberstad to try our luck with coast hang. Way too windy, so didn't get to fly, but Kin did get to make friends with three folk on a Christmas walk, sadly I didn't manage to get a pic of them making a fuss over him.

The comfy seats, lucky escape, cats & dogs: Nurhan's take

Nurhan's take:

Now a friend, Allan, has suggested that Kin should be allowed to sit in the seats as the boot is 'un-sprung' and my car has fairly stiff suspension (there are foam mats under the boot liner to make it more comfy in there); what I didn't realise is that he has been tutoring Kin... 

Whilst I'm putting the ski-box on the roof, Kin's installed and ready to go! 

This he's not allowed to do, he travels in the boot... but he did look cute enough for me to take a couple of pics before removing him and finishing putting on the ski-box.

He tried out the drivers seat too, but didn't seem to get the idea that he should be looking forward (this could have something to do with him spending most of his time in the boot looking out the back window?!).

Ski-box was put on for a trip to Hovden at the weekend, on the (long but quickest) way up to Hovden we pass Røldal:

which according to the local paper (and more believably http://www.skiinfo.no/ ) has had the most snow of any ski resort in the world, in the last seven days. Sadly my friend who I was travelling with (and who's cabin we were staying at), is laid up in bed with flu. This means that Kin has had a lucky escape, as I had him booked into (his/our first experience in) a kennel from today until Sunday; skiing will be day trips closer, so no need to put him in  kennel.

Lastly, dogs and cats. Most dogs and cats go fine together, when they get used to each other. I was somewhat skeptical when a friend of mine with a Rhodesian Ridgeback (at the time) puppy, said that she was going to get a kitten (bearing in mind that puppies tend to be turbo charged and RR were used to hunt lions!)... several years later:

 not only is my friend pinned to the sofa by her animals, but she now has two cats (and no, the Madster hasn't eaten the other one, it's actually the two cats that fight, not the cat and the dog!).

Kin's main experience with cats is having them hiss at him, and to be honest a Newfie is more likely to lose an eye, by being curious to a cat, so I'm careful with him as I consider the cats more dangerous. Karma was friends with a number of cats, Chicken (believe it or not that's the name of the cat in the above picture), was nose to nose with Karma a few times. And he and Xo (another Newfie) used to have Pål's cats sleep on top of them, when he stayed over at Pål's. This led to an incident when arriving at Pål's house, Karma jumped out of the car, saw a cat and ran towards it. Now Karma was used to cats running away from him and chasing them is always a fun game; the cat just sat and waited for Karma (as the cat knew him, so wasn't scared of him), it's quite funny to see a grown Newfie executing an emergency stop! Front paws locked, the ground rippled in front of him and he just about managed to stop. All this time the cat just watched him. Then Karma lent down and with his tongue (that was about as long as the cat was high) give the cat a big lick, which is what knocked the cat over!

Wilson, Kennels, ski-season, old friends, being followed: - Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Right now I'm umming and arhing about kennels. I'm looking forward to the ski season, by the weekend there will be enough snow in the local hills for some fantastic top touring/skiing into STF (Stavanger Turistforening) huts, and a friend has invited me to his cabin at one of the bigger 'local' ski centers (Hovden). Friends who made it to Røldal at the weekend talked about 'drømmer forhold' (dream conditions) fresh powder, and lots of it... Now Kin is lying by my feet, he was lying under the table whilst I was sitting at the table, but when I moved he moved; I'm wondering how he will take to being put into a kennel. I've only heard good things regarding this kennel (from both Newfie owners and owners of other dogs). I do have the option of asking friends (which is the preferred option), but at some point I will (probably) have to put him in a kennel and it's probably better to do it whilst he's younger then when he gets older... (Despite the proverb, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but some 'tricks' are easier when they are younger, and if I get him used to the idea it should work out fine).

Above pic is taken by:

Anu, who (along with her husband) are directly responsible for me being in Norway... long story and has nothing to do with Newfie's.

 Now 'sadly' I have to report that 'Wilson' who arrived at the castaway's party, after a surprisingly charmed life, has succumbed to inevitable...


Weather in Stavanger has reverted to the 'normal' winter weather, just above freezing with everything from the occasional glimpse of the sun (which we were very happy for earlier on a walk today), to rain, hail, sleet, & snow. Gulf Stream runs along the coast here which despite the Northern latitude, normally moderates the temperature. Go inland a few Km and the temperature normally drops. With the notable exception of the last two years Stavanger generally gets snow followed by rain, followed by snow, followed by... which leads to 'interesting' driving conditions. Last week's snow has mainly gone at low (coastal) locations and the ice that had/was forming on the lakes has receded again:

(This pic was taken a couple of years ago http://www.aftenbladet.no/lokalt/stavanger/Bil-gjennom-isen-p-Vannassen-2016784.html but couldn't resist including it, it's such a good picture {taken by Signe Christine Urdal}, the way the headlights and the flashing orange lights are still lit! The kommune tests the thickness of the ice, before opening the lakes for ice skating, here they were ploughing the lake for ice skating and the lake wasn't quite as thick as they had thought... two folk in the pickup got out okay).


This means that Kin still gets to do one of his favorite things:

'rescuing' balls (incidentally this ball really is a Wilson!).

Which is more than he got to do at the local river at the weekend, which is probably at the highest I've seen it (I might have seen it higher one year in the ten that I've been walking my dogs down there); Figgio elve was in flood, and as I white water paddle I'm fairly good at spotting dangerous things and here there's lots of opportunities for him to get washed into strainers (low trees across the river, branches/items that are stuck in the flow and these quickly become lethal (pinning is less of a hazard as the water level is so high, that his paws will generally be clear of any pin hazards-but is still a risk). I let him swim but only in a place where there was plenty of time for him to get out/me to get him out before he came to anything really dangerous... was a lot happier when he was out of the water; Karma I just didn't let him near the water on days like this, Kin I'm trying to let him see the power in the flow so if he did get off the lead his choice for swimming locations might be more prudent.

Kin & I have had some very good times recently, I'm just wondering how a kennel might affect him.

Birthday pressies, those difficult teenage years, and drawbacks of snow - Nurhan's Take:

Nurhan's take:

Anu & Scott where the only ones to make a fuss over Kin's first birthday, they bought him a box of dog treats... unfortunately Kin doesn't seem so fussed by treats as Karma used to be. Indeed often pigs ears and other treats get pushed around the floor with his nose:

In fact Kin is getting downright opinionated as a teenager. Most of his behaviour is funny, sometimes it's irritating, and occasionally I have to intervene.

The other evening, Monica,Matt, and their kids paid us a visit. Now Eira is the youngest, and she knows no fear. I think Kin decided to sort out the pecking order:

Video stops when he tried to climb on top. Now despite Kin weighing about three times as much as Eira, she didn't go down... but Kin did, by my hand as although this was rather funny, and Eira was laughing it's not behaviour that I want him to get into the habit of! Shortly after this Eira was pulling Kin back from jumping on the other two kids. It's quite entertaining watching Kin playing with them, as generally he's exemplary gentle, this is the first time he's tried anything like hopping up. Suspect that as this is something he'd do with his litter mates/other dogs he didn't realise that he's not allowed to do this with these small folk. I'd be very surprised if he tries this gag again! (I got him when he was still on his back legs, Eira was still laughing, it's quite hard to gently put a Newfie on his back {and you have to be somewhat careful as you don't want to hurt/injure him}, growled a bit and then let him up. He didn't try this again but he did run when I got near him five minutes later and I suspect that he was thinking that his human had 'lost his marbles'. Our dogs generally trust us, but we do walk a thin line not to abuse the trust).

Now we've had snow, which means that Kin's quite happy bringing as much of it into the house as he can!

Other drawbacks with snow are:

depending on the consistency of the snow and the temperature, it tends to form balls in dogs fur, the furrier the dog the more this tends to be a problem. Here you see the little chap stopped, and he's using his teeth to clear the snow from behind his right leg/paw.  A bigger problem is ice forming between the toes. This is when the snow melts and freezes between his pads, this can cause cuts, and is doubtlessly very painful for the animal. For longer trips I put on a special paraffin product for dogs that stops balling/ice between the pads, for shorter trips I just clear it off when it becomes too bad.

Jury is still out on this last picture:

 With the snow it's easy to figure out where he's been, wondering if this is an attempt to disguise his foot prints... will have to watch this potential development in canine cunning!


Going back to the idea of disciplining your dog; when he runs away he risks all sorts of hazards, he's not used to the human world's hazards, he smells another dog and wants to go say 'hi', not understanding that the road in between could prove fatal as could the farmer with his shot gun. Therefore owners have to modify this behaviour. But when you can't wait for your dog to come back and have to chase him, he then has no clue when he's greeting another dog why you roll him onto his back and growl at him, again he thinks you've gone a wee bit loopy... hmmmm what to do...

Cool lightning storm whilst out this evening, got in just before it let rip with painfully sized hail stones :-)


Lastly I'm umming and arhing with kennels at the mo. Karma was never in a kennel, but then my ex generally took him if I couldn't. A couple of my friends helped out at other times. Kin will be more of an issue. If I go away and I can't relax because of Kin then it's questionable if there is any point in going away. I will have to address these issues shortly as the ski season is about to kick off and I love skiing. I discovered that one of the kennels that I was considering had a dog die the day a friend of mine went to pick up her mother's dog, (twisting of the stomach), of course this can happen at any time, but lots of dogs get stressed when in such environments and thus it's more likely to happen. On the other side of things the younger the dog is when he experiences it the less fussed he should be about it. I can ask a couple of friends who have offered or I can bite the bullet and try a kennel. Two overnight ski trips planned for the next few weeks, will have a think what to do.