A heartbreaking day

Namu at a show

Today it is very very hard to write a post, but our policy is to always be honest and so we will be and we also feel it is easier to write this now so people know than to later have to explain.

Last nigth we lost our Namu. We have many dogs and love them all, but of course some are special to our heart. Many years ago I saw a little puppy I really wanted to buy, but the breeder did not want to sell her to me. When I saw Namu starting to move around 3-4 weeks old I saw that dog and I knew I had to keep her. People who know me know that already when Namu was 4 weeks old I saw just her. She was a special one. Few puppies could move like her. She was small, some said don´t keep that small puppy, but I had no doubt I wanted my Namu.

Namu 3 months old

Namu grew up a beautiful little lady with a wonderful character. She looked just as that dog I saw many years ago and in my mind I thought what will be wrong with her. She had A hips, was optigen clear and had healthy eyes. People know I was joking and saying what will go wrong, it can not be a dog this great has everything rigth. Last nigth it went wrong. At dinner time we heard barking outside and Jesper ran out. Some dogs had started fighting. Our dogs don´t normally figth and they were only four girls out together who are normally good friends. We don´t know what happened. Two days ago the wolf was here and upset the dogs a lot. He was only few hundred meters from our house and the dogs were of course really upset. Yesterday we saw the footprints again in the morning. Maybe he was there again and upset them? Maybe it was the stress with moving and a new place and new routines?  Maybe it was because Pilvi started her season two days ago and Namu was coming into season too? I don´t know.

Namu 1 year old

Anyway fighting they were and Jesper told them to stop and brought Namu inside as she would not walk on her leg. I looked and saw a wound and called the vet. He was not here, but 150 kms away and said if it was a bite wound and the dog was otherwise healthy we could wait till next morning when he was back. He calmed me down and said normally a bite wound is not that bad it looks worse than it is. And first we thought to do so - to wait. Namu was happy, looking up, eating treats, licking our hands. I washed her to clean to wound and see if there were other wounds I had not seen and she enjoyed it, licked my face each time I was bending over. But she would only lie down, she would not stand up. It worried me. After half an hour Jesper and I agreed to call to Falun as they had vets on call. I wanted to be sure she could wait and even if it was now 8 in the evening, minus 18 degrees celcius outside and overtime for the vet our gut feeling told us we had to go. 

Namu 1 year old

And so we did. We arrived at the clinic in Falun where we had never been before and have to say the staff was so kind and proffesional. As us first they thought it was not that serious. A bite wound, some penicillin and some pain killer and we would be amazed to see how quickly dogs recover. Namu was lying on the table looking around, licking everybodyes hand looking happy. But after ten minutes the vet as us started to wonder why Namu would not stand up. He tryed to pinch her toes. First a bit, then harder and harder. No reaction. I could see in his face that this was not good. We decided to do an x-ray and the heartbreaking news, Namu´s lowest part of the back was broken. She would never walk again. My beautiful little girl who moved like nobody else. There was no choice for us than to say goodbye.

Namu 1½ year old

It is not possible to describe how bad Jesper and I feel today. So unfortunate that destiny could make this. She could as well had just had a wound and been okay. We feel so guilty, we blame ourselves, we think what could have been done differently, but know we can´t turn back time. This is without doubts the worst possible way I ever lost a dog. As a breeder it is heartbreaking because she was a bright star for the future, a beautiful healthy dog who had so much we had worked for years to get and my Kiiski´s little girl. As a dog owner it is undesribable. She was my dog, my pet, my companion who loved to go for walks and I will miss her happy face and character and for always feel guilty for the way she had to leave.

Below here are the last photos of Namu taken at Christmas with her enjoying her daily walk in the snow in the forrest. This is how I try to remember her.

My sweat little Namumus I am so so sorry...

Back again

So finally a small update here from winter wonder land in our new place. The snow fell in the beginning of December and has been there ever since

The dogs are really enjoying themselves and we are too. It is wonderful to finally live by ourselves again surrounded by forrest and mountains. All dogs can run free all day and we can go for long walks in the nature from our own home. That is really a gift we enjoy every day! As seen from the photos below the dogs love it too :-)

Lapinlumon Yllätys "Totti"

Aslan

Lapinlumon Miamaia "Mia"

Lapinlumon Namupala "Namu"

Lapinlumon Xaana

Xaana again

Unfortunately moving to Sweden has proved more difficult than we thougth. This is the sixth week we are here and we are still waiting to get our Swedish social security numbers which seems to be the key to everything up here. This also means we can not get a tv connection, phone number or internet line set up. SIGH! So it has been hard to keep in touch and reply people. Hopefully you will have patience with us a little while yet. Besides from that we love it here and celebrated a lovely peaceful Christmas with the family as well as Valdemars first birthday.

But it was not all about realaxing. As we were already here we decided to do a show in Sweden and entered the Nordic winner show in Stockholm in December. It was a bit exciting to finally show our dogs among "real" competition, we have been in Denmark for so long knowing which other dogs would enter the ring and mainly competing against our own breeding so it was fun to meet completely different dogs. We have not had the chance to travel so much the last two years due to first our pregnancy and then the fact we had an infant baby so when we got the papers from the show and saw there were 86 Finnish lapphunds entered we looked at eachother and though okay, now our dogs will have to prove their worth! :-) Years back we did a lot of showing (and winning if we may say so :-) ) out and about, but the dogs we are showing at the moment had mostly been shown in Denmark.

But they did prove their worth! Well in Stockholm after driving through a horrible snow storm we saw in the cataloque that many dogs from Finland were entered and not just any dogs, but dogs who have won a lot there. Even the judge was Finnish, Saija Juutilainen. So naturally we felt so proud and humble and grateful when our dogs did as well as they did. With entry numbers like this each class had a number of dogs between 10 and 20 so just to place was great. But we did more than that!

Lapinlumon Elämänilo "Ilolas" won a big open class and even beat Finnish champion males in the class and we were so happy, also with the words we got from the judge about him. At the end out of all these dogs he finished as third best male rigth behind his dad Lecibsin Macce and he won the res. CAC and CACIB as well. Next up was my old favourite "ilo" Orso-Farm Ötömöttinen. In his days he was practically unbeatable and has won at both world and europe winner shows as well as at the breed specialty in Finland. however we did not show him for 4 years at official shows as he really could not win any more. But he loves showing and we decided he deserved to go again and so he did with style winning the veteran class and getting the title Nordic veteran winner 2011. Finally Lapinlumon Yllätys entered the ring again also after some years break doing it with style too winning open class bitches! She finished as 4th best bitch and she too won the res. CAC. WAW. To come here from Denmark at our first show here with such high entry numbers and so many top dogs there from Finland both males and bitches and then to win three classes each class with among 15 dogs in them was amazing. To make it even better the winner of the class of youth bitches was a puppy from Lapinlumon Elämänilo and Lapinlumon Davvebiegga and the winner of the junior class males was a puppy from Lapinlumon Esimerkki. So even those two winners we take a bit of credit for. 5 class winners with 86 entered dogs is not too bad....

We are excited to see what the new year here in Sweden will bring and we wish you all out there a happy new year and finish this post with a few more shots of our personal paradise.