News about Osmo again

Its been six weeks since I wrote last time in English. Osmo has continued to settle down and it is beginning to feel as if he’s been always with us. :)

Osmo’s new safety car harness has been ok. We got a new one instead of the first one that broke almost right away, and the new one has hold.

Osmo has been with us now for nine weeks. Our cats don’t still love him, but they stand him quite nicely. :) Osmo has started to tease the cats. In the beginning he was careful and let them be, but now that the cats are familiar to him, he makes playful attacks on them. Our lady cat, Venla, doesn’t like that very much. She jumps on the closest table and that was that. If she doesn’t got the possibility to escape she just stands by and waits for the dog to stop the poking. Or if she is on bad mood she hisses or snarls at the dog. Then she usually gets the time to escape.

Our tom cat, Otto, is another thing. He rarely escapes the dog attacks. I think it has something to do with occasional playfulness but mostly weird proudness. He’s too proud to be told around by a mere dog. But the thing is, then he is totally open for more action than one attack and happy poking. Osmo starts riding poor proud tom cat Otto… But Otto has more clues, luckily. He can show the dog its place if he wants to. If Otto is in bad mood, he shows his claws to the dog and I guess Osmo already knows that they are quite sharp ones… ;)

But: Otto knows that if he meows really pitifully while the dog is riding him or else poking and wrestling him, the two-legged human people will yell at the dog to stop him teasing Otto. So Otto uses us to get back at the dog. He is totally able to help himself out of the situation. But because Otto is almost as attention seeker as Osmo, he is very happy to get attention by showing us human people how badly the dog is behaving… :)

We have continued our new daily routines. Dog walking, dog parking, dog practices and hobbies…
- We take a 6-classes long dog schooling course now, on Wednesdays. There are two classes left. It is obedience classes for puppies.
- We have continued to go on Saturdays to this TOKO – obedience classes on the beginners level. It is fun to do just for activation, and also it does good to the dog to teach daily obedience. I am still not sure about the Competition Obedience part… but it is yet to early to decide.
- On Sundays we have agility training classes on beginner’s level arranged by a local dog club. It is fun, but the group is so big we get to practice maybe 5 minutes out of one hour session. The class is cheap, only 4 euros, but I think it would be better to pay more and get more practice, since we have made the effort to travel in first place to the training place. It’s a 15 minute ride. But at least here in Finland the dog must be 12 months old before the Agility Clubs accept the dog to classes… So Osmo has his birthday on 21st of May… we’ll see if there are any courses starting after that. Probably it is bad time since there probably will be summer breaks, but we’ll see.

Bye for now :)

Osmo has settled down quite nicely

Osmo has been with us now for three weeks and he has settled down quite nicely. Our cats do not actually love him, but neither do they hate him. :) It is something between curiousness and occasional annoyance.

Osmo has started his daily routines with us. Gods, I have been a little tired, this all dog walking, dog parking, dog practices and hobby testing has been quite new for me. But now I have two weeks of Christmas holiday – what a leisure. :D

I bought Osmo a safety car harness. And it broke after just a couple of times of using it. Quite scary thing. Is it actually working if there is an accident. Well, I hope it was a so-called “Monday piece” and this new one he now have is a superb quality piece.

Last Saturday we was at dog school training session. We watched advanced level training. Tomorrow we will go to our own level class -beginners. I am starting to think it is probably nice to do sometimes, just for activation, but I think I would not like the competition. I have read stuff about “toko” which it is called in Finnish, and I suppose it is not really something dogs like since you are not allowed actually to speak or play with the dog during competition. Which is odd… Poor toko dogs. :)

Last Sunday we was at agility training session. We took part in beginners’ level training. The day after tomorrow we will go there again. I think it is probably nice to do for activation, like toko, but there is the thing about competition again. In agility they let you talk and play with the dog, though not touch him. It sounds more fun than “toko” and I think the dog would like it too. Though there are a lot of rules how you must complete the agility fences etc. Think I am not sure to be interested to learn them all… But we will see. Osmo is a braveheart and agile little fellow, perhaps we are gonna like it together :)

Merry Christmas!

Swedish Vallhund called “Osmo” moved into our home

Osmo is born 21st of May 2008 in Säkylä, Finland. He is a smart and cute male dog. He is a Swedish Vallhund, which is the national dog breed for our neighboring country Sweden. Also Osmo has “viking blood” in his veins :)

Osmo is quite small, his height is appr. 33 cm and his weigth currently 12,2 kg. He will probably grow more since his father “Rokki” is a sturdy male too.

Osmo likes to hunt for rodents in the grassy fields, play with other dogs in the dog park and he is also fond of learning new things – of course if one pays him with snacks. :)

Mostly I write in Finnish, but can occasionally write something also in English since Swedish Vallhund is a wonderful Scandinavian dog and deserves to be noticed!