We met Tanhu, the lapponian herder puppy, and Päivikki, her owner, again today. The puppies played together and also got good practice in distractions, there were a lot more people in the park today. I took some pictures but the digital camera was way too slow for getting good pictures of puppies playing.

 

I introduced the target stick to Riva this weekend. His attention span is still quite short, two sessions with five attempts each is enough training for him at one time. After all, he’s not quite three months old so that is plenty. He did get the idea of target stick quickly and started to follow it.

 

Riva did quite good the two days last week when I went back to work but I could see some effect of the long days in him. In the evenings he was wilder and more restless and settling after activities took more time. My father is coming to do some renovations next week so Riva won’t have to spend the days alone the whole week.

 

Vacation is over and its back to work for me. Sitting at a computer in an office is so high on my list of priorities right now…not. The only good thing is that Riva seems to have adjusted quite easily into being left alone for short periods, he settles down quickly or plays quietly with his own toys. Now the days are just getting longer but hopefully we will find a good rythm soon like with the older dogs. I sometimes used to work at home and thought the dogs would enjoy having me around during the day. I was pretty disappointed when instead of hanging around with me the dogs all retreated to their favorite spots and went to sleep at exactly the time I usually left for work. And if I suggested a walk in the middle of the day they all looked at me like I was seriously disturbing their beauty sleep.

Its funny to see people’s reactions at work when they find out what I have been doing during vacation. The idea that someone would travel halfway around the world just to get a dog seems to be quite incomprehensible to many. “Couldn’t you have gotten one from Finland?” is a frequent question.

But yesterday was still vacation and we enjoyed every last minute of it. I took Riva for a walk in the woods around my place and it was so wonderful to watch him taking in the World with all of his senses, chasing butterflies, climbing rocks and jumping fallen branches. I took a toy with me and during the walk we played a recall game. I’d whistle the way I use to call my dogs and when he turned to look where the sound came I invited him to play with the toy. After a short play I’d exchange the toy to a treat and let him go exploring again. After a few repetitions he started to race back to me as soon as he heard the whistle.

One of the nicest things about living in the country is that I can give the puppy a lot more freedom than I would if we lived in a more urban setting. I can take him for small walks and I don’t have to worry about traffic or strange dogs or people coming to interrupt our little training and learning games.

Riva has also little by little befriended our cat, Lasse. At first the cat didn’t want anything to do with this wiggling little puppy but now he will stay still as Riva goes over and sniffs him (very nicely) and then Lasse will rub himself against the puppy. So cute!

A couple of days ago Riva had his first nail trimming in Finland. I don’t think he actually noticed at all that someone was doing something to his nails, he was too busy eating the pancakes that I had. I held him in my lap and fed him while my friend cut the nails.

We had an exciting day today, two of my friends came to visit us. How come it seems that it is so much longer from the city to my place than from my place to the city? It’s always nice when someone bothers to drive to visit us at home. And I also think it is good for Riva to see that people can also come to our place. He had a blast with my friend’s miniature dachshund who is a year-old but actually a few pounds smaller that Riva.

Yesterday Riva also got to meet my friends kids, 4 and 3.

Yesterday we went for a walk again at the center of Lievestuore. Its not much but its something to socialize the rural puppy to a more urban environment.

A more notable event yesterday was Karma and Riva playing together a bit in the evening. She is really warming up to this puppy thing .

Today Riva had his first experience of the lake. I took him to the beach and after a few tries of getting his toes wet he waded deeper after me. He was so funny, picking his feet up high on every step. When the fur under his tummy started to get wet he decided that he’s had enough of this and headed for the shore. I think it was pretty good for his first “swim”.

Riva and Karma had their first face-to-face meeting today and everything went great . I saw a change in Karma’s attitude towards the puppy yesterday evening, she went to check out the puppy in the x-pen and her whole appearance said “I guess you are not quite as disgusting as I first thought”. I’m so relieved, she is the kind of dog that first encounters are very important with other dogs. If the first meeting goes well she usually is fine with other dogs later but if it goes badly…

Riva also had his first search training session today. Our search training group has quite a few puppies and other beginner dogs right now and so we had beginners training today. There were Riva 10 weeks, lapponian herder Tanhu 13 weeks, smooth collie Omppu 10 months and miniature snautzer Peppi 6 years. We did basic socialization and greeting people nicely (no jumping etc.), not actual search training yet.