Slow week

So since our snow filled adventures it has been a rather slow couple of weeks. February, though, starts a whole new chapter in our dog owning experience... dog shows. I'm a fan of competition. I played sports in high school, was in the band, on academic teams, went to all the football games in college and Grad school, etc... I like competing. Simon on the other hand is a bit luke warm about it. Oh, well. We have some ambitious goals for our young one, but I really think he has a shot at great things. We will see!


So the last couple of weeks involved me working on my paper and then (hopefully) in the coming month I will start writing my PhD thesis. Whew. Intense. I'll be happy when it's all over. Simon was on a lab retreat and came home last Sunday complaining of feeling ill. After 3 days of lying in bed and recuperating, he managed to get up and go to work today. He had two very diligent and comforting nurses while he was home.

Tomorrow marks Baxter turning 10 months old. One year ago yesterday we found out that our friends and Baxter's breeders had mated Iiris (Bax's mom) in Italy and were heading home to Finland.

We used to take pictures of Baxter once a month on his "birth date," but lately I've been quite bad about this. None-the-less, I'm going to try to put together a "before and after" type of photo montage this weekend. Keep on the look out!

We had unseasonably warm weather this week. Wednesday was 15C (~60F) and today it was windy, but around 10C (50F). Not too shabby for January! The boys are sitting here, snoring, and dreaming of their next snow day. 

                                         Have a great dackel-filled weekend!

Winter Wonderland

Up until Thursday we were having a fairly mild winter here in Switzerland (as apparent by a the previous posts). Then, boom! Snow overnight! I'm not especially excited about the snow, but at least now it feels more like winter. The dogs on the other hand LOVE the snow. I thought Freddie was a snow dog, but Baxter seems to live for snow. Maybe this is due to his Nordic heritage, but out little Finnish guy is a snowplow.

I was out shopping in town with a few girlfriends today,  but Simon took the boys to play in the white stuff and got some great photos. Enjoy!

Playing around

As I mentioned previously, the winter weather in Basel has been anything but normal. It's been roughly 5-7C (over 40F) and dry. Today it started to rain a bit and now the weather forecast is calling for it to be around 40F and snowy this weekend. Maybe my little snow dog will get some of the fluffy stuff to play around in!

Even though work is more stressful than ever, all of our dog activities have been on their winter break. No obedience classes, agility, hunting activities, not much of anything, which is both good and bad. The boys were a bit restless trying to get back into their "week" routine while Simon and I are at work. We tried to compensate a bit this week by taking them nice long walks this weekend in the woods nearby. At one point the boys found a stick and decided to play keep away. Enjoy!