A three dog walk

Lita waiting while the two boys decides who will pee on the light post first. Three leashes can definitely be a challange to manage...

 Today after work, me and a colleague of mine went for a walk with two of her dogs and my dog Link. She has a setter mix called Lita and a Siberian husky called Varg, that I mentioned in a previous post.
It was a bit of a challenge to walk all three dogs, especially since Link tried to get the two older dogs to start playing with him while they all were on leash...

Beautiful and friendly Varg

Sweet Lita

Link just wanted to play, but the other two weren't very interested, and neither were we at the other end of the leashes.

Anyway, the walk gave me hope that maybe one day Link can learn to pull properly when wearing a harness, at least as long as he has another dog to run alongside with. I even asked if I could borrow Varg to train Link, so hopefully in not too long I will write a post about running with two of my favorite dogs!

It was during moments like this that I actually could imagine getting Link to pull alongside another dog.

Visiting the Huskies

Last Sunday, one week ago, Link, Mads and I went visiting my friend Monica, her family and all of their wonderful Siberian Huskies. One of their female dogs just had a litter of seven puppies. The mother's name is Lærke (pronounced [læ:rkɛ]) and she was very happy to have some visitors, not hesitant or nervous having us around her puppies at all. She really is a wonderful, trusting dog!

All of the seven puppies!

I'm not going to get any new dog any time soon, but I must admit one of the male puppies really caught my eye. He has very similar markings and colors as Varg, a dog from a previous litter with the same father, Birk. And I really like Varg a lot. He now lives with a coworker of mine, so I get to see him from time to time. I really like Siberian huskies that has those "wolf-like" markings. They don't look like all of the other "normal" Siberians out there.

Beautiful Varg!

But one thing is certain, if I do get a Siberian it's going to be one from Monica. She had two 3-4 months old puppies there when we visited, from litters earlier in the winter. And I must say: Siberian huskies that are as social and eager to learn as those two are hard to come by! Monica clearly does a good job when it comes to socializing the puppies. Far too many people breeding huskies only have them outside, with the result that they are more dog oriented than people oriented. These two pups clearly demonstrated that Siberians can be trained to do far more than pulling sleds!

Birka, a female pup that was visiting.

Arwen, a female pup that Monica kept from a previous litter.

Weekend at the Cottage

 I've spent the weekend at the cottage with my boyfriend, his parents and our dogs. It has been a fantastic weekend!

Beautiful Link!

Mads, Link and I got there already on Thursday evening, since both Mads and I had the Friday off. We got there late in the evening, so we didn't do much that night. But it felt so good to wake up at the cottage the next morning, so it was worth driving there in the dark.

Mads' parents Danish Swedish Farmdog named Scott.

 Mads, Link and I went out for a walk and some light jogging (to get Link used to pulling when wearing a harness) at lunch the next day, before Mads' parents and their Danish Swedish Farmdog named Scott, came to the cottage. We jogged on the road by the lake, and after a few kilometers we went out on the ice on the lake and walked back to the cottage. It felt almost like spring in the air! The sun was shining and there was hardly any wind.

Link pulling! At least a little...

Link and some "ice sculptures" by the road.

Link making "doggy snow angels" on the lake ice.

 The Saturday was spent mostly outside. The roof of the cottage was heavy with snow and ice, so we had to remove that. Well, I shouldn't say "we", it was mostly Mads and his mom that did the work. Link worked hard too, carrying around big blocks of ice and digging in the snow. But I'm not sure it helped getting the roof cleared...

Mads, his mother Merete and Link working

 Me and Link also went out jogging a little that day. He is really getting the hang of it now, but I could tell he was a bit tired from all the digging and playing. That didn't stop him from resuming this when we got back to the cottage.
 

Link and Scott playing after Link and I went jogging.

Scott.

 The only bad thing about this weekend was that I cut Link's claws right before we went to the cottage. This meant that as he spent most of the Friday and the whole Saturday outside playing and on walks, he wore down the claws too much. When I checked his feet on Saturday evening, he had worn down all the claws to the quick and was bleeding from some of them on his front paws! He had not shown any signs of pain during the day, so I hadn't checked earlier. Poor Link!

Link with bandages on his front paws. He clearly thought I was crazy when I put them on.

So note to self: never cut Link's claws before a weekend at the cottage! I gave him some painkillers (Prescribed by the vet for Link after the surgery, not the same kind we humans use! Human painkillers are often poisonous to dogs!) and only allowed him out when "nature called" on Saturday evening.  On Sunday morning he wanted to go outside again, and he can be very persuasive, so I put some light bandage on his front paws and let him go outside. It worked for almost 1.5 hours, then he managed to get one of them off. I tried to have him stay inside the cottage after that, but he just wanted to go outside all the time. So we decided to head home earlier than planned. It wasn't any fun to be at the cottage when we couldn't be outside with Link.

 Link outside with bandages on.