On a Rainy Day

This weekend we'll have lots and lots and lots of rain. Wind too. So what better things to do than go play fetch on empty fields while all the other dogs and owners are hiding from the rain at home?

It was great getting out of the house, all the kids are here and it's nice to take a breather away from them all. We also walked for a bit.

My son  got his two year old hands on the camera and I completely forgot to check its settings as I stood in the rain. I messed up every photo except those two above. Below is mine and Bella's idea of artistic...

Happy weekend to everyone!

A Life With a Terrier

I have had lots on my mind lately. Last Monday I went tracking with Bella and honestly I just wanted to throw in the towel. I have been working on building distance to her tracks and it's just not working. I had to cut the track short as she had just stopped trying. However she did re-locate and finish and found all the articles so it wasn't entirely horrible.

 

So I decided to stop working myself into a frenzy about it and remind myself what Bella is good at. Being my pet and walking/biking companion. So we went out for a 7km walk yesterday evening.

I took her to an area that I used to bike in before getting her. I recall how I dreamt about biking these trails with a dog running around. I was only walking now but it was fun having the dog.
We landed right behind two women with 6 or 7 Cavaliers and Bella was about to hyperventilate out of excitement so I took her down another path so I could set her loose as this area allows dogs off leash. We took the photo above on the bench and looked across the small lake called Red-Lake (Rauðavatn).

Beyond the lake is the neighborhood I live in. I literally live on the outskirts of Reykjavík city and it's surrounded by nature. Highway number 1 is also there, this is the exit out of the city and to southern Iceland.

After taking the bench photo I went back to the trail and Bella must have thought we were returning because she bolted off back the way we came. One second she was there and the next she was just gone. I had to go back and had a good view over a large area but didn't see her. I knew she had followed the Cavaliers and just waited to hear barking. It never happened, after some time I heard her returning and called her to me and we were able to continue.

 

We also met two worried Golden Plover parents that were trying to fake being wingbroken to get us away from their young. Bella doesn't bother chasing birds and after being made a fool from another one last Monday she wasn't going to let this trick fool her again.

We kept going in the nice evening sun, we even met another older Cavalier who Bella liked so much that she was going to follow him the other way. It was just wonderful to go out and not frustrate myself with what Bella isn't. I'm going to take a few steps back and work on making things more fun for both of us.

A Different Sort of Adventure

I recently tried my new bike carrier recently and took Bella and my rarely used Mountain Bike to a very exotic (ha! ha!) place right next to highway number 1. Like under 25 yards away from it. In my defense a small river separated us from the highway and it was late in the evening and I live in Iceland after all.

Considering the photos were taken around midnight I'm not sure I should say the lighting conditions were crappy, but it explains the blue hue.

Anyway, I biked 2 miles on a dirt rode with Bella unleashed and I haven't seen her this genuinely ecstatic for a long time. She ran like around the little devil she is, running some distance in front of me and stopped to sniff and enjoy the scenery before running off again. She ran alongside me and looked at me with pure joy in her face.

I'm glad she had so much fun because I love mountain biking and have been wanting to do this kind of biking with her for over two years but due to physical constraints and not having a bike carrier I haven't been able to. I'm not ready for more than dirt packed roads but we'll get there. I'm healing fantastically!

On a worse note, after getting home tonight from biking in the neighborhood I saw an announcement that a foreign guest judge will be judging Tracking tests for the German Shepherd division in early July and that other breeds are welcome to enter. My competitive side really really wants to enter but I'm not sure we'll be fully ready by then. Too many challenges, so little time! We'll see what we can do, at least I can observe the test if I fail to be ready.

A Day Off

Two weekends ago me and fiancé went to a hotel out of town. I was so busy taking care of what to do with the two year old and packing for the little one who would stay with us that the night before leaving I realized I had completely forgotten to make arrangements for Bella.

There's no such thing as dog friendly hotels in Iceland and just recently some camping sites have started allowing dogs to stay. I was really disappointed in myself.

But to make the best out of things I decided to check the weather forecast and the following night promised cloud and rain. If it would come true it would mean Bella could sleep in the car overnight. Despite it being spring the temperature is fairly low.

The drive was a lot of fun, we drove through a fjord that's called Hvalfjörður which translates as Whale-fjord. It's a short driving distance from the city and used to be the only way to get to western Iceland but a tunnel rendered the road useless and now it's barely used.

When we reached the hotel I was freaking out because the sun was shining and there was no way I would let Bella stay in the car that way. I was trying to figure out if and how I could smuggle her inside or what else I could do. Thankfully, while I was agonizing over what to do, the sky thickened up and it started raining in the evening. Bella was in excellent shape the morning after.

On the way back home (and actually also on the way to the hotel, but I discarded the photos) we stopped to let Bella loose.

There was some running. And then:

 

Emergency brakes!

 

There's sniffing to do.

 

Sniffing at the beach.



More sniffing to do.

 

Back to the beach to.. yep, sniff!

I am fond of this last one, it just lacks the tracking line and we would look like professionals.

Starting Again

I have been a bit lazy with the camera in the past few days. The days fly by so quickly that I never get to do everything that I want to do.



I did attempt to sign me and Bella on a 10 week course in Obedience this summer but it was full. Maybe a spot will open up, maybe not. It doesn't look like there will be a tracking course for us either.

More excitingly, my physiotherapist assured me I would be biking this summer and encouraged me to give it a go whenever I felt I was up to it. So I went on a 2 minute ride on Monday with no bad results. So today I went ahead and took Bella with me on a short 5 minute jog.



She looks very calm and stoic in these two pictures but in fact she was running back and forth whining because she was so excited to go.



As expected she still pulls like a freight train. I need to put effort into breaking that habit if I am to allow her to bike with me this summer. What's more exciting is that now I finally have a car that can haul bikes which means I can also find biking spots where she can be off leash. I've dreamt about that for several years now.

What a fantastic summer this will be!

Don't Plan Too Much

My daughter got her name on Saturday and as I suspected I wasn't able to take Bella tracking that day. We had a birthday to go to on Sunday and I was tempted to be lazy after it but I went and laid a track anyway.

Yesterday should have marked the end of the first stage of imprinting but since I missed out on laying a track on Saturday I wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Continue with day six or take a break as I had planned? Yeah, I made myself a real dilemma there.

After sleeping on it, I decided to lay a track today since we had Saturday off. I also decided to proceed to stage two of imprinting. It wasn't a big step at all since stage two is about adding variation now that the dog is learning the game. The author recommends sticking to the same field for at least two next tracks but only change the direction to begin with.

So instead of going straight away from the road I went alongside it today. I have been laying the tracks mostly on moss but right next to the road was lots and lots of grass. Bella was racing down the track and would jerk to a stop now and then when she had to pick up treats.

Afterwards I stopped in a new place to allow her to run loose and the weather was wonderful. It's great to be back out there with my dog.

Days Three and Four

Things are a little busy at Camp Bella since we are preparing for a little get-together with family in order to announce the name of the newest family member. However I'm making it a priority to go out there and lay a track inbetween feeding the little one and cleaning the apartment. Then my body is fragile so I have to watch out not to go overboard and risk limping.

Yesterday the new lens arrived so I took a moment after tracking and shot a few photos.

It's been ridiculously sunny for several days now and it makes it impossible to see clearly if what I was doing was working out or not but it was fun nonetheless. Bella got a case of the zoomies and I just couldn't keep up very well. That was the first challenge, finding her since the camera goes up to 300mm and it's just wonderful. Next will be getting the focus to be on her eye/face rather than her back. I can't wait ti have more time with this lens. It's nice and sharp.

 

 

The last two aren't focused on her face but getting these kind of action shots has been my dream so now that I've got the equipment I must master the technique. I know Bella won't mind helping me out.

 

Not sure how much me and Bella can do this weekend, today we were only able to lay the track and go home. I don't know if I'll have time to lay a track tomorrow but we will try. Hopefully there will be time for photos on Sunday. That will also be the last day of the initial tracking imprinting, after that we start the second stage on Tuesday that will gradually allow more variation.

Day Two of Imprinting

Today was bitterly cold. The windchill did reach into the marrow of my bones, brr. It's supposed to start snowing tomorrow or Friday.

However, having started the imprinting program yesterday I wasn't going to hide inside and later regret it. I even had one of the nasties of Icelandic processed food industry bought for me yesterday to use for treats, a hot dog on steroids. I can't eat it myself but Bella loved it so much that she tracked super well for me.

The track I laid today had a lot of sidewind and I tried to make it so that it was rather more in my back than in the face. In the program she says to pin the dog to the track so it can't lose it but with the sidewind Bella was going a little to the left and then worked her way back up where the treats were so I gave her a little longer leash to work with. I was incredibly happy with her because right from the get go she knew what we were doing and she was raring to go and worked the track really enthusiastically. She was going a little fast at times but kept her tracking profile almost the entire time and when she realized she was going a little too fast she occasionally attempted to backtrack to where she skipped a treat and continued from there like nothing had happened.

It was a 180 degree turn in her mindset since yesterday. Hurray!

After completing the track and finding the article we headed back to the car and to a small lake called Helluvað which is actually only about 30 minutes walk from my home. There she got to run loose while I tried not to freeze to death.

Bella grinning.

I threw a piece of the treat into the grass and that resulted in me getting a picture of her tracking profile. She looks pretty good, if I say so myself! I have a good feeling about our future in this kind of work. At least we are both enjoying it which is the main thing.

Out and About

Today I decided to bite the bullet and get started on the tracking imprinting as described in the book I have by Deborah R. Davis in her book Making Scents of Tracking. I wish I could have returned with some heroic tale of Bella's amazing tracking prowess. Instead I accidentally made the track a few yards longer than the planned 10 yards, then when I started Bella on the track she showed absolutely no interest and actually peed on the track which is a big no no, obviously.

However I kept her on the track through a very short leash and did my best to keep her focus on the ground, she took slight interest in it now and then and then she would lift her head and meant to go somewhere entirely different.

But this is only the first day of six, and then the program continues for 6 days out of 7 for another three weeks before cooling down the frequency of it. I know Bella can track and this is a slightly different method than I had going so I still have hope. I'm going to use better treats tomorrow, she missed about 80% of the treats I laid on the ground so that wasn't helping at all.

Afterwards  I drove 2 minutes further and allowed her to run loose for a while so I could take photos. It was so super bright that I found it hard to see which shots were okay and which weren't so I just played around and got a lot of photos I deleted, but a few turned out alright.

I was shooting next to the road in a moss covered lava field.

I must confess, it's good to be back out there with Bella!

Spring is in the Air

Some days are just perfect in their simplicity. My fiancé kicked me out of the house today and told me to go let Bella loose. So I did.

This winter has been ridiculously mild and now that spring is in the air being outside is so refreshing. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with us, Bella was running around like a racehorse. I even found some logs from trees that had been culled and made a small jump for her.

I honestly don't really feel like my physical health is improving much but I don't feel a lot of pain while I am outside. It's like a hangover that haunts me in the days after but at least I can enjoy moving while it hasn't caught up with me.

I may have a push factor in trying to keep going out despite the pain that follows, I asked around yesterday and there's a possibility that a tracking course will be held later this spring. I think it would be fun to be able to get out there and learn from experienced handlers. I just need to be able to deal with the walking a course like that mandates.

March Finally Arrived... And Is Now Gone

I haven't written anything since last year. The main reason being that I was borderline depressed in January and February from being stuck to using crutches to go from one room to the other in my apartment. I don't know why Bella didn't get unhinged during all this time spent with me but she truly is an amazing individual.

However, I finally had my little girl on March 20th, 11 days ago. We're both doing well and it's a great relief that this pregnancy is finished. I've told my fiancé that from now on I'm only adding more dogs to the family.

Little one likes to sleep which is a blessing. Now the enormous task of recovering awaits me but I am thankful to have Bella's lone eye to help me keep mine on the prize.

It's only been a few days but already I can walk fairly normally around the apartment and get things done again. Going out for short walks takes me a few steps back but I think I need to do it anyway to eventually be able to recover.

So here's to hoping this summer will be an active one for me and Bella!

Happy Birthday Bella!

Today was a very special day -it's three years since Bella was born.

I had some time to kill downtown Reykjavík after my physiotherapy and decided to revisit the dog fence with Bella. It has been fixed so me and Bella played ball in beautiful but cold weather.

 

Photo taken around 3 in the afternoon, yup, that's the sun setting!

I was freezing when I got into the car so I almost decided not to bother checking the other dog fence that was about 10 minutes away and had also been built without being dogproof. I had also botched something up with the camera so it wasn't focusing as it should. 

However I still had enough time so when I found the fence I decided to take a better look at it. For some reason it didn't feel as cold there.

It's a lot nicer area than the other fence, it's next to a public park and the Reykjavík petting zoo. However it's placed in a giant field and the ground is still very sore after the construction. 

 

 

Bella was ready to play some more.

 

 

"More please, it's my birthday!"

Since I knew the fence hadn't been dogproof I decided to see if it would contain my terrior after being fixed. Bella was not amused.

 

"Let me out! Let me out!"

 

Both fences are in fact a lot better and at present they should keep most dogs in. The gates themselves will however allow dogs with narrower chests than Bella to slip through. She got herself halfway through and probably could squeeze her way through if she really desperately wanted to.

When we got home Bella was acting a little uneasy. The kind of behaviour that always she does to suggest I am forgetting something.

Hmmm...
Water available? Check.
Been out to play? Check.
Had the opportunities to send peemail? Check
Napped in the car? Check.
Hungry? Ah... of course, I skipped breakfast to give her a birthday "cake" in the afternoon!

So me and my son Magnus created a gourmet cake from an Icelandic speciality that consists of liver, fat and oats... I better not get started on what sort of food Iceland is known for!

Bella would jump through fire for most liver-based foods so she wasn't about to let some puny candles stop her from gorging herself.

 

"Just to be clear, I'm not on a diet tonight!"

It's not every day that treats are allowed for an entire meal, usually I use normal dog food as treats so today was something special.

Now it's time for Bella's regular evening nap to get rested for tonight's sleep. I think she's been happy with her birthday and I'm glad I had the time and energy to do something for her.