"Hi, I'm Rilla the Drama Queen. Beware of the woman behind the camera, she's evil; she tried to rip my paws off with paper towels when we came in. I tried to scream and bite her but she just didn't let me go... sniff. I took my revenge by peeing under her desk."

Rilla aka Borderiinan Hippityttö is Sepe's cousin-once-removed, and she is owned by my cousin (not removed), Mari.

Today, it is Syyti's birthday. Syyti did not celebrate his birthday in any special way, but it was a fun day for him, anyway, as he went for a skiing trip with Pasi. Here is a video shot by Pasi (with his "hat camera") during a similar skiing trip a couple of weeks ago.



Exactly one year ago, Syyti was the firstborn puppy in the litter of five, given birth by Willa and sired by Pixi. Greetings to Mommy and Daddy, as well as to all the siblings: Kinna, Iina, Nappi, and Kloppi with their families. And special thanks to Miia, the breeder of the pack! The youngest member of our family have proved to be just what we wished for...

We wish all of our our friends, both furry and "skinny" a very Merry Christmas! The Christmas card photo of Syyti was taken a month ago in Pudasjärvi.

Possu, aka Sepe, saved the day last weekend when I visited my aunt with my cousin and our dogs. Shortly after we had arrived, I lost my car keys. Apparently, I had dropped them somewhere on the yard. But, as snow covered the ground, it was nearly impossible to find a single key with no keychain attached to it.

No worries, I took Sepe out of the car and told him to find "an object". Since he has been trained to find things that smell like human when asked, he started to sniff my tracks around the yard. And in no time, he tucked his muzzle into snow and pulled it back with the key between his teeth. And I'm 100% sure that if my aunt had not witnessed the whole thing by her own eyes, she wouldn't have believed that Sepe was the one who found the key. All the dog people are not surprised at all, obviously :D

Here is Sepe, the hero of the day, with Syyti in my aunt's neighbourhood nearby Syöte fell area.

We had friends staying over last night. Syyti was thrilled as he had chance to play long and hard with one of his favourite "girlfriends", Noppa the Finnish Lapphund. These two ran around in the garden and a few times to the field behind our house. Today, we went for a walk in the forest and fields covered with fresh snow. When we returned home, Syyti continued his flirtation and most of the time he behavied like a gentleman.

Kiss me once kiss me twice,
come on pretty baby kiss me.
- Mick Smiley -

And we are back... it just took some time. Meanwhile, the autumn slipped past and winter seems to be coming.

It snowed first time a couple of weeks ago. I took dogs to the field where one of the old sheds that used to belong to Vänttilä farm stands. Well, it looks a bit beaten-up, but, it will protect our firewood from rain and snow for coming years. We got a huge pile of birch trunks from a friend. Now the pile needs to be chopped into logs...


After I took the photo above, I let the dogs run free and hunt mice and voles and such. Then, suddenly, there was a wedge of whooper swans flying over the field. Even if I don't have a telephoto lens, I caught the beautiful birds as they flew low enough.

Poor Syyti, he's sick. He threw up a few times in the afternoon and I thought it was just because of the warm weather. But in the evening it was apparent that he might get dehydrated because of recurring vomiting after drinking. He wouldn't even play with Hirmu, who came to visit us, together with Miia and Retku.

Hopefully it's nothing serious but I'm a bit over-cautious after the knickers-eating-bowel-blocking incident that happened to another Muttaburra border collie some time ago. We are very lucky as we have a vet living in a neighbouring farm. She injected liquid under Syyti's skin.

Our patient is now tired...


...very, very tired...

Family is like fudge...
mostly sweet with a few nuts.

We had a lovely time last weekend when we met Syyti's siblings in Helsinki. The annual Specialty Show of the Finnish Border Collie Club was held in Tuomarinkylä Greyhound Stadium and Syyti's breeder Miia had arranged a lovely picnic meeting for all of us.

It was great to see the brothers and sisters to play with each other. Even if the little sister Iina was a bit shy to join the rough game, Syyti (on the left) and Nappi surely had great time.



Later, Syyti got a chance to play again, this time with his sister Kinna. They were alike in temperament and looks, too.


Kinna also did Syyti a great favour by "removing" his lip wart by accidentally biting it. The vein was damaged and a couple of days later, the wart fell off without leaving a trace. Now we don't have to take Syyti to the vet and have him anaesthetized. Thank you Kinna!


I took some portraits of the siblings as well, here are the head shots of Iina, Kinna, Nappi and Syyti. The wind was blowing hard and therefore some of the pups have their ears up.

Our little puppy is not so tiny any more. Syyti and his siblings turn 5 months today. Syyti weighs now 14 kg and his withers height is ca. 45 cm.

Syyti has been testing our nerves lately, by getting himself into trouble such as crawling under the house to do some digging work. As our house is a traditional log house, there's a gap in the stone foundation wide enough for a man, not to mention a dog. The problem is, that there's no one big space under the house but a number of maze-like tunnels. And naturally, Syyti has to go in the far end and bark there, pretending that he cannot find his way out. Until now, he has come out by himself every time, but I'm afraid that one day he will get stuck somewhere and we have to take apart a piece of the foundation to get him out. I'm now planning on building a not-too-ugly net to cover the gap.


Syyti has had also other new experiences. We travelled to my brothers wedding and stayed a couple of nights in a shed which was the only puppy-proof room at the manor's estate. Or, so we thought. Syyti managed to chew chips out of the floor and scratch the door when he decided to be bored enough.

We have continued our herding classes. Minna the coach has been satisfied with Syyti's performance, with mine, not so much... After tonights class, Minna will decide whether we should continue, or have a few weeks break. I still look forward to see the similar reaction in him we witnessed during our first class. With the permission of the Zi's owner Jarmo, here are the photos. The time difference between the first and the last photo is only 1,5 minutes. In the beginning, the tail and head are held high, in the last, they are lowered and the 4-weeks-old puppy controls the sheep with her stare.

Yesterday, Syyti saw sheep for the first time when we participated the herding class for young wannabe-sheepdogs. I was gladly surprised when he was more interested in sheep than their poop. In truth, he ate some poop, too.


First, I took Syyti around the pen in a leash, after the sheep. I took Syyti out as soon as he showed the first signs of tiredness. He's still so very young and his span of attention is extremely short.



As Syyti didn't show any fear or aggression towards the sheep, I could let him free for a couple of times when he attempted to go around the flock. During the second session, Minna held Syyti while I walked in front of the sheep. As for the handling, I need at least as much practise as Syyti does.



There were four other young border collies training herding, too. It was instructive to watch them, but it was sheer magic to see a puppy, younger than Syyti, running with her tail high and a minute later finding her herding instinct and starting to eye the sheep in a traditional BC pose. If I get a permission from the owner, I'll post the photos of the magical moments here.