Digging master classes, Chamonix, Grooming, and the results of Dog Yoga - Nurhan's take

Nurhan's take:

Don't they look innocent, neither one is paying any attention to the basket ball, that you can only see the top of, on what used to be a flat, green lawn! Zorro (in the foreground) has been conducting digging 'master classes' in the garden, what he lacks (by comparison to Kin) in size of digging apparatus (paws) he more than makes up for with enthusiasm. Kin merely moves the soil from the hole with his huge paws (and he likes to store plenty of it in his fur to deposit in areas where it won't be 'noticed' - such as the house...), but Zorro goes at the digging with wild abandonment; the soil arcing, gracefully up in the air, to the height of several Zorro's; this causes Kin to come over and watch as it's quite a spectacle! So when one happens to glance out of the window, it looks for all the world that Zorro is holding a Master Class and Kin is paying attention...


To give the grass a chance, I'm in the process of building a fence around the patio, so I can keep him on the patio for two weeks and let the grass grow!


Now 'every' year, we have a boy's trip to Chamonix; I've missed this trip twice since 1993, once as I was offshore, and once last year as Kin had just come to live with me and this was in his most formative age.

This year I was back. Now this is the only photo I took whilst I was there. This is a reasonably steep off piste section and my legs have melted. Over the years we've taken photos, we've taken video, and it never reflects what we actually ski, gradient, speed, feelings wise, so this year we mainly didn't bother to take pics... but we did come up with the Vole grading system; it's a well know phenomena with skiing, that when a person makes a jump they invariably think that their jump can be measured in meters, when realistic measuring the jump by the standard height of a Vole (or fraction there of) is a more realistic measure, and thus the vole grading system was invented! We had amazing weather. There was plenty of snow (which was good, as it didn't snow at all whilst we were there); but we had temperatures below freezing at night but by lunch time at 2000 m, temperature was up around 16 deg C with no wind, so t-shirts sitting outside in the sun having lunch :-) (and bragging about how many Vole's, Simon, Svein, and I were claiming).


Now Kin, although a boy, wasn't up for coming on this boy's trip. I had this conversation with per:


"Per, don't just answer this question, think about it and give me a ring back in a couple of days: You said that you wouldn't mind looking after Kin, if I go away, well I'm going to Chamonix in week 9 can you..."


'Yes'


"He's a lot of hassle, and he'll eat things."


'Yes'


"Are you sure."


'Yes'


It was with very mixed feelings that I dropped Kin off at Per's; not because I was worried about Per looking after Kin (he's had dogs before, he's known Kin from when I picked him up - Kin, not Per! And he cooked liver for Kin when I dropped him off!) But the longest I've left him before was overnight.


Per and Kin got on really well. When Svein, and I swung round on the way home from the airport, Per had moved the patio heater into the living room, so that he could have the patio door open so Kin could saunter in and out at will!


Kin had gone to bed when we dropped round:

Now Karma would jump up an be all over me when I came back from Chamonix, offshore, or elsewhere. Xo (another Newfie, that a friend, Pål had), would sulk and turn his back on Pål (which is only hilarious, if it's not your dog). Kin was somewhere in between, I think he had an internal battle over being peeved that I'd left him, but happy that I'd come back!


Really grateful to Per for looking after the little chap, and treating him so well - thanks again Per.




At the moment Kin is molting:

this pile is literary five minutes with a brush! Karma shed the whole year round. So far Kin's shed the whole year round but now he's having a major molt. He did lose his puppy coat way early (Karma got his adult coat at about the age Kin is now); so I'm wondering if this is a one off molt to do with the puppy coat coming so early, or if he will molt once or twice a year.


In February, with snow on the ground, and ice on the lakes, I took two ticks off him! Never found ticks before in such conditions. Took one off him today, so have put the tick drops on him today - this is several weeks earlier than normal.




We've also been looking at cabins, we actually bid on the one, who's roof I'm standing on - but didn't get it.

Kin has taken up dog yoga:

 Not sure if the furniture is required for this position, but judging by the snoring this is (surprisingly) a comfortable position - one he managed to hold, right up until I took this opportunity to try to groom his stomach and the inside of his back legs...




The weather has taken a turn for the better with several good weather days, which means flying. Some of the flying sites Kin can come to. This is coast hang at Reve.

 At the local clubs main flying place, Gjesdal, he's normally tied up next to the club house, most of the regular pilots know him and keep an eye on him, if not take him for walks. Here May is holding him (hat, with back to camera), Arvid (Mr President), is to her left, Dag is behind, and Per (who looked after him for a week, so he gets a special welcome, which they both enjoy) is behind Kin looking at his phone - and yes they are all standing in the middle of the road! 

Me, I'm packing my wing up... I landed close to the fence that's on the edge of the green behind them, lovely landing right next to the steps... lovely that is until Arvid took great delight in telling me how the fertilizer spreader (i.e. cow crap) had gone very slowly up the road yesterday, and that's what the lovely smell was! 

B-Person, & How to Make your Human Feel Useful - Kin's take:

Kin's take:

Now I'm definitely more of a 'B' type 'person'. Here I am trying to snooze whilst my human is trying to get me out on a trip, at some un-godly hour. Try as I might I can't convince him to go back to bed. I try strategically blocking the stairs. I snore contentedly, but all to no apparent avail, he seems dead set on this perverse activity of getting up whilst most living things are quite rightly sleeping.


However I have noticed that once I do get up, and go out, he seems to be in quite a hurry, and great entertainment can be had from randomly sniffing things every five meters. Now you might expect my human to get angry, but I've figured out a way to make him feel good. Get him to let you off the lead, and throw a ball. Run away with the ball, and hide it. He'll walk away expecting you to follow and give him the ball. Follow him and when about 200 m away from the ball, turn round, rush back to the ball's location as though your life depended on it. Now if you do this convincingly enough, your human should follow you. And now for the trick, make out that you can't find the ball and allow your human to find the ball. This not only extends the length/time of the walk, but will allow your human to feel useful, which will please them. Then when you get back you can go back to sleep un-molested by your human - unless food is being put out and then obviously one must go and investigate the offering.

Zorro with the squeaky bark, Kin's take:

Kin's take:

Hello, been playing in the snow, don't tell my human but have been digging in the garden as well... My human is spending time with Zorro's human, which means that Zorro and I get a lot of time to play together which is mostly fine by me...

Although sometimes it can get all a bit much:

And I just want to lie down for awhile and

roll in the snow.


Zorro had a trip somewhere, where he fell asleep and when he woke up he was barking in a higher octave and had a huge cone on his head, it was rather funny but I did feel a little bit sorry for him.


I had a trip to the vet, I had much merriment as they tried to get me onto the scales, in the end it took three of them to get most of me onto the scales, although I did manage to get my tail off, apparently I weigh 69.5 kgs, which apparently means that I've grown since this time last year.

Can't say that I've noticed the difference, feel the same to me!

Snow, strong winds, happy dog :-) Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Kin, not too keen on skiing, but loves the snow. This can cause some issues when going for trips as he's quite likely just to lie down:

in the snow and even better is if he gets to roll round for a bit.


Not so useful when you are in a hurry before work. Nor when you are clearing snow and he leaps into the piles of snow with wild abandon and flailing paws!

Today, we had high winds, cold temperature, and snow, this is the worst condition for keeping roads open, as the snow tends only to be stirred up by a snow plough's passing. Kin & I went out to Hellestø beach, as we thought that we wouldn't encounter any closed roads or stuck cars (one problem with having a four wheel drive car with studded tyres is if there is a car stuck and blocking the road, you still get stuck!... which led to Friday's trip to work, by bike takes ~30 minutes, normally in rush hour the car takes roughly the same as the bike, but with fresh snow on Friday, with an underlying layer of ice in places that was then invisible, I stupidly took the car, 1 hr and 40 minutes later... ).


Today driving by a snow plough, up wind of us and suddenly the world becomes white... as the snow is stirred up by the snow plough only to form back across the road after it passes! As these are coast roads, they don't generally have snow markers and in places the snow had drifted across the road to over a meter deep, light snow, keep driving and the car should push through... assuming that you are still driving on the road! People actually stuck in the car park at the beach!

Walking in the dunes, in places the snow was thigh deep, in other places the snow was blown clear. {Above pic is taken on the beach on the way back to the car just at the tide mark, only a dusting of snow on the beach}.

And Kin loved it, running and rolling in the snow.


Car was drifted in when we got back to it, but managed to drive out without having to resort to the shovel in the ski box.


On passing the end of the runway at Sola (which has the distinction of being the World's first airport ever captured by paratroopers, when the German's invaded Norway in April 1940), viability cleared to show six of the huge runway clearing snow ploughs coming along the runway in a gallant effort to open the runway. On passing the other end of the runway (downwind end), the snow ploughs with the snow blowers were having a better time of it.

Kin's also taken to following me up the stairs in my house and sleeping upstairs when I am, which led to him waking me up by snoring loudly at the end of the bed!


Suspect Jan is taking him for a good lunch walk whilst I'm at work, as on returning one day, was wondering where he was when I came home, looked out the side in the kennel, looked out the back in the garden, and then heard him yawn, followed by getting to his paws and his heavy steps coming down the stairs!


Although he can be annoying being upstairs when he tries 'assisting' as I'm trying to go out, yes what's better than having a Newfie trying to assist as you try to iron a clean white shirt!

Snow, Ice, Cabins, (evil) bureaucrats- Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Last weekend Kin and I went looking at cabins. Now there's several motivations for getting a cabin, a big one is that I love to ski and be out in nature, Kin (like almost all dogs) loves to be in the snow, but he really can't handle long ski trips, and to be honest I wouldn't want to take a dog on the trips that we like to do. But when not doing top tours or skiing into cabins it would be good to be able to take a ski trip for a couple of hours. Having Kin there is more organisation involved with going skiing in the winter. Having a cabin makes it easier to take ski trips. Also there is an economic consideration, in Norway you get a rebate on your income tax for the more money you owe, debt free, my income tax approaches 50%, with a huge loan this drops down into the thirties! Bizarre but true. So looking at a reasonable (low priced cabin) actually works out as a good investment for mind, body, and economics.


Last time Kin & I were at Gilja was March last year: http://kin-newfie.blogspot.com/2011/03/kins-first-ski-trip-nurhan.html at that Kin was coming up to being four months old. Now Gilja is a bit on the low side to get good snow for most of the season, but it's a no through road, and the cabins are not too far to walk from the road, which is a consideration with a young/old Newfie and also when there is deep snow. Conditions at Gilja on Sunday were amazing, ~ 40 cms of fresh, beautiful powder snow. I say beautiful if you are on skis, if you are a long haired, giant breed like a Newfie, you are not so keen on this.

 As the going does tend to get quite tough.

And then when you do get to the cabin, you're not even allowed inside!




My criteria for a cabin runs like this:
- snow in winter;
- no through road/little traffic; 
- close enough to the road that Kin can make it to the cabin especially in advancing years;
- not so close that he's likely to play with the traffic;
- something to do there in summer (climbing, paddling, flying, fjell running);
- short drive 1 1/2 hrs max, otherwise you limit the use that you'll make of the cabin;
- preferably no ferries to get there;
- close to water so Kin (and I ) can swim in the summer;
- proximity of neighbouring cabins;
- allocated parking-as this can be an issue with snow cover;
- time/duration of direct sunlight;
- cost is obviously an issue, I'm down at the affordable end as opposed to the GDP of a small to medium South American Country end;
- condition of cabin;
- development plan for the area;
- and for an owned cabin, water, sewage, and electricity could be nice.


Norway has a very 'liberal rule' when it comes to dogs, they have to be on the lead in all of Norway from April to September, and in some areas, this is extended to all year round, this is also a large consideration as the fewer folk around and the less sheep in the summer, the more option your dog has to be a dog (as opposed to a bored, animal limited by the owner).


Kin's run like this:
- food;
- sleep;
- play.

 The plan was to go and have a look at two cabins, however, Kin went on strike and we ended up returning to the car - talking of which, there were so many folk there that parking was an issue, the normal parking areas hadn't been ploughed (as this kind of snow here so early on in the season is quite rare), and lots of folk weren't too considerate, which did put a damper on the day before leaving the car.

 Thus the car was parked down the hill after forcing through an area that had been ploughed prior to the weekend's snow. Had been following the weather forecast and it was predicted to switch between snow and rain for the last four days, so the snow should have been compacted, however as all paraglider pilots will tell you in this part of the country, the weather forecast lies, and given the snow it's been below freezing for the last few days of snow fall and thus the great conditions for skiers, and the not so great for giant hairy breeds!

And I forgot the wax for his paws:

which given the conditions led to ice bits forming not just on his coat but in between his toes and pads, no harm done this time, but can't have been comfortable for the little chap.


So on the way back we stopped off at Bråstein so he could swim. Drop 400 meters and the paths become compacted ice, which was so great.

Still this is quite an effective way to remove ice from between the paws... however it does tend to lead to:

ice forming on the coat after the 30 minute walk/skid/fall, back to the car.

Talking of the car, being diabetic I have to get a form from the doctor to say that I am okay to drive, in order to renew my driving license; my last license was a 10 year license, my diabetes is unchanged, but a group of (evil) bureaucrats* have decided that the maximum license for diabetics is five years, so every five years I have to spend 1/2 a day between doctor, and going into Statensvegvesen, and spending 700 kr+ transport costs to renew my license, and despite having had an offshore medical for over ten years, never having had any problems with diabetes offshore, the (very evil) bureaucrats have decided to cause me all sorts of problems renewing my medical, this is causing me lots of time, stress, money, and aggravation and naturally 'it's no one's fault'; there are far too many folk in this country with time on their hands which they seem dedicated to making life hard for other people (and the really irritating thing is my tax money pays for them!), still as the concentration camp guards said during the second world war, 'just following the regulations, and doing my job.'




* is there any other kind of bureaucrat?


Reference one of the greatest lies in the world:


I'm from the government/Commune/... I'm here to make things better!

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...