Winter joys



It has been almost three year since the last update. It is absolutely time to do something about that.



Elbereth is spending a long weekend in the mountains with "mom". The snow is powdery, it is - 10 C outside and the stove in the cabin is well fed from the pile of wood in the shed. Elbereth enjoys being here where she can run more freely than at home. At this time of year there are no sheep to hunt here, almost no people to scare and unfortunately no other dogs to befriend (males) or attack (females).



Fashionable pawwear



The snow and the cold gives her a choice between wearing those disgusting socks, or get icy lumps under her paws. Socks or no socks, when coming back from a walk, she does not want to enter the cabin right away.



No thanks! I'll stay out here...



She prefers to be left outside where she can keep a watchful eye over her valley. She has obviously no idea of how small part the part is that is ours. Anyone who dares enter within her hearing distance is told cleary that trespassing to Elbereth's territory is barked upon.

When at last the cold gets to her, she comes pawing at the door.  Then she goes straight over to the blazing stove, lies down right next to it and puts her nose under it. She sighs and goes to sleep, while I worry that she might get fried.

Birthday girl - one year old today!!!

She is beautiful

She is alert

and she is amusing.

Daylight is slowly returning

Elbereth's knees are fine. For the last month we have been able to go for longer walks again and I think that running and playing in deep snow has done her good. With February and longer days here, we have gotten a few walks in daylight during the weekdays for the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure she cares about the difference, but I sure do.

As this has been the most perfect winter for skiing that I can remember, we decided two weekends ago that we had to try skiing with Elbereth. Based on how she behaves when we are out walking on foot - and how she has reacted when seeing other skiers - we had concluded that it would be impossible to ski with her this year. But as the snow continued to fall through January, the urge to try the ski tracks became stronger and stronger.

We went to a flat area with no people aorund and started out by me skiing back and forth and Tom on foot with Elbereth on leash. Her behavior improved rapidly from chasing the tips of the skis to not caring, and then last weekend we did the real thing and it went surprisingly well. After tripping over Tom's skis a couple of times, she realized where she had to position herself. She doesn't run ahead pulling him, which is good as she is still too young for that. Sometimes she stops suddenly, jerking him a little (that's why it is him and not me holding her leash). But when speeding downhill, she runs nicely on his side and then she doesn't care about other skiers.

13.02. Speeding downhill

14.02. Moving uphill through deep snow

14.02. Elbereth keeping lookout before breakfast

Cold days

We have bought socks for Elbereth. When we are out walking in minus 22 centigrades, she is much more happy with socks on her feet. They are very thin and they can't add any warmth, so the positive effect must be from keeping her feet dry and free from ice.  We are happy as long as she is happy.

Yesterday we went to the dog club for the first training session in 2010. Six dogs were present, but it was much too cold to work on obedience, so the dogs were allowed to socialize for some minutes and then we all went home.  Jan Erik had brought Zazza along for the first time and they promised to come back when the weather turns more favorable for outdoor activities.  We are looking forward to getting better aquainted.

On cold days Elbereth prefers to stay in front of the heating source.

Making new friends at the end of the year

Elbereth has had a wonderful Jul. She has enjoyed lots and lots of powdery snow, having her people at home all day and making new friends.
The daughter of a neighbor came home for the holidays with a pack of dogs, mostly Border Collies. Elbereth played with them all, but loved most being with the two ten week old puppies.

We borrowed IQ (his given name) for a couple of hours

Then we borrowed Rubin for a walk

At the last day of the year Zazza came to visit - and yes, she is a lovely, young Picard!!!

Yesterday we received a phone call from Jan Erik in Drammen. He told us that he is the owner of a Picard, Zazza, who is five months old and born in Sweden. What a wonderful surprise! We had wanted to get in touch with other Picard owners, but didn't dream that there would be any that close. And today they have been visiting. Zazza is a beautiful little girl. Her coat is a mix of dark and light (brindle?). She is at that age where they have very long legs and very big ears. She and Elbereth got along very well. We are looking forward to seeing much more of her the coming year.

We are staying at home tonight, hoping that Elbereth will not be scared by the fireworks, but having contingency plans ready. :-) Our primary wish for the new year is that Elbereth knees will get well and stay well. She is now being medicated for her right hind knee which she hurt right some time the last week (it was her left hind knee she hurt in November).

We wish all Picards and Picard owners,
four- and two-legged friends and family
a Joyful and Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays to all!!!

Elbereth celebrated 9 months on X-mas eve. She got her perfect gift; lots and lots of new, fluffy, white snow to play in. Click here to see Elbereth play in the snow.

In the evening, our traditional Yuletide family feast kept her on her toes almost all night. As the evening wore on, she started nodding in our midst, but wasn't able to give in to sleep until around ten o'clock. After all the guest had left, we went for an after midnight stroll along almost empty roads while Elbereth jumped around our legs trying to catch our frozen breaths. This morning we woke up to even more snow and the sound of dogs on the road, it will be fun holidays for us all.

We wish all our friends happy holidays and a wonderful midwinter feast!!!

December brings better moods

The last Sunday in November, Elbereth's knee was finally up to longer walks again, and we went for a long walk in the woods along paths new to us. All the while thinking of our Picard-familiy in Germany who were attending their traditional Advent-spaziergang the same day.  We felt a little alone, but the trees were frosted and the woods seemed enchanted and bore tidings of better weather the coming month - that lifted our spirits.

That same evening, snow started to fall and the next morning the world was wintery again. After work I took Elbereth out for a walk, and decided I needed to try walking her along the roads. I have mostly avoided this  because of the way she has behaved towards passing cars since we got her. The first she did when we came out the door was to bark at her favorite neighbor - she absolutely adores him, but this time he was holding a dangerous snow shuffle and she obviously doesn't see well in the dark. After she realized who it was, she crawled over to him to be scratched under her chin.

We then proceeded down to the main road which had a lot of passing cars at this time of night. Up until this time I had not had one walk with Elbereth ignoring passing cars, but this walk was the turning point for me. She sniffed her way along the pavement only occasionally looking at a car, but no barking and no pulling. We were almost home again when she barked for the second time on this walk. It was a really scary stone, the size of a shoebox, with a hat of snow on top. :-) I was so relieved after this walk and it was another reminder to be patient and peristent and remember that Things Take Time.

November - that awful month

The second day of November Elbereth hurt her knee. We are not sure how, as we think it must have happened indoor while none of us were present, but we suspect a combination of a passing cat and a slippery hard wood floor has some of the blame. We were off to the vet's in a matter of minutes when we disovered she was walking on three legs. After drugging and examing her, the vet concluded with a hurt knee (some relief) and prescribed pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory drugs and rest. Walking only on leash for ten days. :-(

Already the next morning Elbereth starting putting her hurt leg on the floor again, but she favored the leg for at least a month. Our walks in the woods became short and rare. As the weather was typically for the month, cold - wet - dark - awful, it didn't matter much. And it gave us the push we needed to work on Elbereth's behavior towards passing cars and people. We took her to the city (if Drammen can be called such) and walked the most popular route.  Tom also started walking her more alone along the trafficated roads in our area. And he reported progress.

Elbereth is now on YouTube

2009-10-31 Elbereth on her Halloween-hike

Elbereth has recently started to perch on top of rocks in the forest. She is obviously aware that I like her doing that, because she jumps onto every suitable rock and stares expectantly at me. And of course I immediately give her a treat.

 

My new camera allows me to record film and I have started experimenting with it. The quality is not very good yet, I move to much and do other stupid stuff, but under are links to the best three from october.  

NB! When the video page opens, you should hit pause immediately and wait for the whole movie to upload before pressing Play again. Then the whole thing will play more smoothely.

• Youtube-movie: 2009-10-11 Elbereth and the sand quarry
• YouTube-movie 2009-10-14 Elbereth and ice on the puddles
• YouTube-move: 2009-10-31 Elbereth on ice (not quite Bambi, but...)

Elbereth - the nose

Today Elebereth has been tracking in the woods for the first time.  She has of course followed scent trails on her own initiative many times before, but this time we practised with Kjersti from Klikkerglede.com.

Kjersti started the first trail by dragging one of Elbereth's toys behind her. She went out of sight for a little while and then reappeared from another direction. When she came back to us, she showed Elbereth her empty hands - no toy - and Tom put Elbereth on the trail. She needed no instructions, put her nose to the ground and went ahead - a little to fast and then suddenly she had lost the trail and had to sniff around a few seconds before she was on it again. Tom was instructed to make sure she couldn't go so fast. She then sniffed her way to the toy, barely nodded her head at it and continued to track Kjersti's trail back to the starting point. Then it was my turn making a trail. No problems this time, except that she again didn't stop at the point we defined as the end of the trail. The toy didn't interest her, and when I left a little heap of food, she didn't care for that either. She just went on following my trail back to the start and it seemed that she had great fun.

Kjersti was impressed with Elbereth - that she figured out right ahead what she was excpected to do - and told us to go right ahead with longer trails the next time. We will, maybe already this evening. :-)

Elbereth and Kjersti
after the third trail was successfully completed.

Coughing and training

Elbereth was coughing enough on Friday evening that we decided to take her to the wet on Saturday morning. She would cough and vomit water all over the house. The vet examined her - she seemed fine to us except for the coughing - and said it probably was a virus. No medicine - just let her take it a little bit easy and keep an eye out for worsening symptoms. So, we stopped using her collar when walking her, we put on her harness instead, and took only a short stroll in the woods yesterday and a slightly longer one today. She seems to be coughing much less already, and we are confident she will be fine.

We are taking three private lessons with a dog trainer with emphasis on clicker training and tracking. The clicker training is fun. The first week we worked on teaching Elbereth to bite and paw at a cardboard box. :-) Now we work on getting her to offer the same behavior several times in a row. Last Friday we also learned how to teach her to follow a manmade trail on a lawn. We will be having our last lesson next Saturday and learn how to lay out a trail in the woods. Looking forward to it - I'm sure tracking is an activity both Elbereth and we will enjoy.

Our hike today took us to a sand quarry.

Elbereth was intriged by the gravel rolling down the slope.

Frost 1 and 2

Frost I

Frost is Elbereth's sweetheart. He is a German Shepherd who is only two weeks younger than her. They usually meet every Thursday evening at the area's dog club where we go for socializing and training now that Elbereth has completed her second class in "dog school" (we will not talk about her "grades" yet, she was the youngest in her class and we continue to work).

Frost and Elbereth are obviously very happy to see each other. When allowed to get together, they will mostly wrestle on the ground without making a sound. Last Thursday we all went together to Frost's home after obedience training. Frost is very lucky. He lives on a farm, with large fields surrounding the house and the woods with elk and deer at the edge of the fields. Elbereth and Frost ran happily chasing each other over the fields in the dark.

It is not easy to get good pictures of these two as
they move constantly. These are from September 5th.

Frost II
Yesterday was a beautiful day, the clear blue autumn sky a magnificent backdrop to the wonderful colors in the woods. Elbereth and I took a long hike along some of our favorite paths. The first touch of frost had put a thin crust of ice on the puddles along our way, and Elbereth was at first carefully exploring this hard water. She seemed a little puzzled, then startled as the ice crackled at her touch. Then she got bolder and stepped on it, only to be sceptic to the moving air bubbles under the ice. She had to growl and bark a little at them. In the end, she lifted herself up on her hind legs, better to be able to smash her front paws into the puddle and scatter the ice. Joy and happiness. Now I'm looking forward to her first experience with snow.

Forgot my camera yesterday. This is from Steinarvannene, October 1th

Vacation

It's fall, the weather is nice, the woods are wonderful and there will be no school nor work for either of us the coming week. Elbereth will get her share of hiking and playing.

A day of sun and fun

Instead of hiking in the woods today, Elbereth, Tom and I rode in the car for 30-40 minutes to reach a "dog field" near Sem Gjestegård in Asker. It's a fairly large fenced field that borders on Semsvannet (Sem lake) where dogs are allowed to run loose.

The weather turned beatiful after the foggy morning and we enjoyed running and playing dogs for more than two hours. Elbereth was thrilled. She hardly ever paused, but once in a while the dog pack ran down to the lake to drink and then she went in for a quick swim before entering the race again.
Dogs and owners came and went while we stayed there, and there seemed to be a majority of young dogs Elbereth's age or a few months older. It was perfect - we humans enjoyed it as much as the dogs. We will go back soon - maybe even give up our traditional Sunday hike tomorrow to go there again.

It was a grey, foggy morning...

The woman and the young dog left the sleeping house quietly. After 20 metres they encountered the oldest cat, who didn't budge when the dog went up to him. The dog realized there would be no hunt and went willingly with the woman towards the road with all the exciting smells.

The couple proceeded towards the forest and managed to pass all the houses without meeting a single moving car. The woman sighed with relief as they entered the woods. The dog was let loose and they started the climb towards higher ground.

Suddenly the woman became aware of a small black and white head appearing over a rock ahead. She spun around and realized that the dog hadn't seen anything yet. The leash was put on again and they proceeded towards the strange cat who was not happy to see the dog. As the cat ran, the dog tried to follow, but soon behaved well again and heeded the woman's commands. The woman sent a friendly thought to her husband and their dog trainer who had been working hard the last couple of weeks trying to get better manners into the young dog.

The rest of the walk was uneventful. The light was growing, but they didn't rest at the highest point to admire the view as they usually did. The pile of horse manure was passed without trouble this morning, it had obviously become to old to be tasty and the dog preferred a snack from the woman's hand instead. Back on the road it was still too early for people to be moving around in their cars, so the woman and the dog trained sitting and staying and then walking heel for a few steps before going indoors to eat breakfast and wake the rest of the family.

Weekend hiking

Elbereth proved to us earlier this week that she can't be trusted to run free when we go for a hike in the woods. She ran off to meet some other dogs and didn't heed our calling at all. One might wonder what she uses her big ears for - she's got very selective hearing, that's for sure. We've learned our lesson and now she has to pull a long line in the woods.

We've had two wonderful hikes this weekend and made some unsuccessful attempts at making her follow a track. At other times she is more than happy to put her nose to the ground and follow the scent of another dog long passing, but when one of her humans go into hiding, she runs around with her head held high sniffing the air - and of course she find us anyway.

On Saturday we climbed over rocky ground and dead branches,
around wet marshes and through bracken. We rested on this hill top.

Today we managed to get Sebastian to come along and we went for a long walk to this lovely lake.

The September sun warmed the air today and Elbereth enjoyed
the water and chased the dragonflies that hunted over the lake.

Hot dogs were definitely not the right Sunday snack for Elbereth - although we humans
enjoyed them. Here she makes sure one of the pieces she was given is well buried.

Three eventful weeks

I discovered today that it's been three weeks since my last blog entry. It's also been three weeks since I started working after a wonderfully long vacation. Coincidence? I think not.

The weekdays are busy - Elbereth and I start the day at six o'clock with a 30-60 minutes walk in the woods. Since Sebastian started school again ten days ago, she has been alone four to six hours a day. That seems to go very well, no accidents, no refurnishing needed - she is just very happy when we come home. Sebastian takes her out in the yard to play when he comes home at two p.m. Then Tom and I take her for a walk or training session at night. Last week we started training class again, this time we go on Mondays. Then Thursdays we go to the local dog club where Elbereth has befriended Frost, a German Shepherd who is her junior by only two weeks. Those two can't really see why they should have to sit nicely and behave well around the other dogs when they could have played all night. :-)

Two weeks ago we had overnight visitors and Elbereth behaved well towards little Martha as long as she stayed put on the floor. When we all thought that this would work very well, Martha crawled over to the window to pound at it, and Elbereth started barking. This is one of our present challenges - Elbereth barks at people, cars and of course at scary objects like garbage cans, plastic bags etc.

9 days ago Elbereth went to the vet's to have her upper two baby canine teeth pulled out as the permanent ones didn't push them out. I really didn't appreciate that experience, but it went very well and her teeth are now in the places they should be. A day without food also helped us getting her feeding under control. We used to leave her food out for long periods as she never ate much. Now she cleans her bowl immediately and gets fed twice a day.

The only food challenge left is to find the one food that will keep her attention at all times and under all conditions when training. For a while I thought that sticky cat food with gravy was the answer, but last week proved me wrong - maybe I'll have to go to training with stinking tuna fish in my pockets?

Sebastian and Elbereth are still best friends and playmates.

A beautiful day at the coast

Yesterday we spent at the coast. It has been five weeks since Elbereth last went on the boat and it was considerably more difficult for Tom Ivar to carry her on board this time as she is both a lot heavier and larger.

She enjoyed being on the boat and this time we went on shore on a small island and spent most of the day there, bathing and exploring. Elbereth was allowed to run free until a family with small children arrived. They were carrying huge, scary stuff - bathing toys - and Elbereth ran up to them and barked her displeasure. This resulted in her being on the leash for the rest of the day.

My camera is working again and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

August and blueberries

What a wonderful day. The morning bore tidings of fall with its low temperatures, but the sky was clear and the sun soon warmed the air. It turned into a glorious summer day, much appreciated after all the rain the last weeks.

Tom, Elbereth and I went on a hike in the woods at eleven and it turned out to be Elbereth's longest walk so far. We were out for more than three hours. Most of the time she was allowed to run free without a leash. She enjoys running from the path into tall grasses and heather, but at the end she was obviously tired - more from lack of sleep than anything else.

The blueberries are ripe now and as Tom and I pick and eat, Elbereth shows an interest. She has been offered berries and has taken them, but I can't tell if she swallows or just looses them.

As my camera has stopped working, there will be no new pictures for a while, the picture below is from July 17th

Birthday girl

Elbereth is four months old today. We have celebrated with two long walks in the forest, one with me in the morning which included a swim and one with Tom and me in the evening when she was allowed to run free for about half an hour. Then she was served ground beef with yoghurt for her birthday dinner. She finished it all- which is unusual, she rarely cleans out her food bowl.

Elbereth enjoys to chew at dried muscles. They last her a long time, and when she is through chewing for some time she stores the muscle in one of the sofas or armchairs where she retrieves it later when she needs to chew some more.

She also tries to bury treasures she finds - like old, worn socks - in blankets or under pillows when indoors. Outdoors she digs holes for food she doesn't feel like eating at the moment. Watching her shuffling soil over fresh chicken bits is not very inspiring for the one trying to train her.