Lots of Alone Time

I only have 2 more weeks left here, and I’ll be spending most of it alone. My main purpose of being here is to allow Stefan to take some time off, so he’s been taking full advantage! It’s been raining a lot over the past few days, so the kennel is really muddy, and I’m sure the mosquitoes are using this time to breed and breed and breed. The sun is setting at 10.43pm and rising at 3.34am. Jessie arrives in 13 days and I’m so excited to see a familiar face and most importantly, receive a hug! The countdown is also on to see Mum and Dad in less than a month - I think I’m going to cry (happy tears of course).

Last week the weather was great, so I borrowed Stefan’s kayak and took it for a ‘spin’ around the lake at sunset. It was SO much fun! He’s a bit of a mad fisherman, but I’m more than happy to just sit on the water and listen to music or listen to the birds. On the nice evenings, we have a campfire and roast sausages and vegetables for dinner. If Foxy is lucky, she gets to walk around and scavenge for any morsels of food we might have dropped. These are my favourite evenings.

Kayaking on the lake, cuddles with Sun, and another kayak photo

2 weeks ago, there was a small ‘argument’ in the free-run, and Granite got a bite-mark on his bum from Aslan. So, Granite had to come inside for a few days to let the wound heal. He’s usually quite shy, but within 6 hours inside, he was basically sitting on my lap on the couch and lifting his paw for pats. When Stefan was gone, I had to give him antibiotics, which was a first for me! I think these dogs are too smart for us to be putting pills in their food, so I had to put the pill in the back of his throat, and hold his mouth closed until he swallowed. Small things that also help are gently blowing air into their face, and stroking their forehead.

Saikki then got castrated - the poor boy goes crazy when the girls are in heat, so this should help with that. He spent a few days inside with a cone (a bucket with a hole cut out the bottom), but he’s since been allowed to return to a platform kennel outside, under strict instructions not to lick the wound. He’s also not allowed in the free run for 10 days. Castrations can take up to 3 months to become “effective”, and once they are effective, the dog requires ~30% less calories.

Preparation for feeding. The closer bucket of food has the most calories, so it’s used for the skinny dogs, or the ones who get diarrhoea from the other food.

The feeding during summer is just water and dry food, which sounds super easy. But Stefan feeds the dogs with 3 different types of dry-food, and of course the dogs all get different amounts, just to make it complicated! They also all receive a squirt of salmon oil. This makes their coats really soft and shiny. Since there are no ‘bowls in holes’, or fixed feeding bowls inside the kennels, we prepare the bowls outside, and then bring the bowls into the kennel for feeding. Then we collect them and rinse off the mud afterwards.