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.

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.

Syyti has grown fast. During the last four weeks he has gained 3 kg and now he weighs already 10 kg. Luckily, Sepe still outweighs him easily and there's no hierarchy problem in sight, yet. I surely do hope that Syyti won't grow up too fast and too strong-minded as then there will be trouble ahead, for sure.

But, for the time being, the two are living happily together. It's wonderful to see how Sepe enjoys playing with Syyti. He's acting like a young dog, running around and teething the little fellow.


And I'm so very happy that we now have a real garden for the dogs. A year ago we still lived in the one-bedroom apartment with a tiny backyard. But then, we found our home. I disagree with a Finnish proverb "Kell' onni on, se onnen kätkeköön" which means that one should not show her happiness. I'm happy and so are the dogs, apparently...

It has been wonderful four days, even if both us and the dogs thought that the weather has been a bit too warm. Sepe has been crawling in our stream cooling himself and catching bubbles. Syyti has mostly just kept eye on him, except once, when he reached a bit too far and fell into the water. As water is very shallow, he climbed up fast, and has stayed on the shore ever since.


Today, Syyti started his training for a tracking dog when Pasi made a first "sausage square" for him. Syyti ate about half of the sausage pieces before Pasi took him away. Sepe got to eat the rest of the treats.

Sepe and Syyti are getting better and better along every day. For a couple of days now, Sepe has played with Syyti even indoors, not just outside. We are truly greatful that he takes care of Syyti's morning and evening hullabaloos, and thus saves our nerves.



From time to time, Sepe seems to treat Syyti quite roughly but, occasionally, the little one gets on the top, too.

Today, the dogs and I walked to the upstream of Vänttilänoja to see the rapid. To see it flooding, I should have go there a week earlier. The current was quite fast still so I didn't dare to take dogs too close.


There's not that much snow left any more and Syyti finds it a bit hard to pee on bare ground. But running along forest paths is super fun.

During this week, Pasi has recorded some of the dogs' playtimes with his mobile phone. In one of them Sepe runs around the house twice followed by Syyti. The third time he has to return to see where the little lad disappeared :D

Sepe has finally budged, even if just a bit. He has now started to play with Syyti a few times. A couple of days ago, after we returned for a morning walk, I caught one of their playtimes with my camera.

Sepe is Vänttilä's watch dog. He's just getting a bit deaf, so but he tries to keep up appearances. He's already 10,5 years old but in good shape for his age. This photo was taken in February, when there were quite a bit more snow than now...

Today Miia visited us with all her dogs and puppies. At first, Sepe was separated from the puppies, just to avoid any accidents. When the pups got tired, he also got to meet them. And everything went well. He came to check the situation when Pasi played with Seppo.


I had to put a ribbon around Matti's neck to be sure of that "our own" puppy didn't get lost. We both are so smitten with him that Miia had to count the pups several times before leaving...