The Icelandic Sheepdog puppies are three weeks old this Wednesday and have been nibbling on solid puppy kibble softened for several days now - not much, and rather sloppily, but their first "solid" food. Kit is of course still nursing and cleaning up after them but that, the cleaning up, won't last long now. Clicking on photos will enlarge them.
We're still getting spectacular sunrises . . .
. . . and although we haven't had either a frost or a freeze warning - yet, we're expecting them soon, very soon. Last weekend I finally dug a few examples of the several kinds of Dahlias in my garden. That wasn't easy to do because they still look very nice. I've also finished planting more than 300 bulbs for next spring - I wasn't going to plant any more spring flowering bulbs but I was optimistic this past spring and so I ordered some fragrant narcissus and also some Grecian wind flowers (spring anemones). Because of all of my doctors' visits I'd forgotten that I'd ordered any so, foolishly(?) I ordered more narcissus and wind flowers. Then I had them all arrive within a few days of each other so I've been overworking myself to get them in the ground so that they could grow some roots and get started for next spring. In February I desperately need something green, pretty, flowering, and smelling nice to look forward to.
Because of their great backgrounds, they are all going to be, in my opinion, great conformation show dogs. It should go without saying, but I always, always say it anyway: Icelandic Sheepdogs are great performance dogs. They excel at almost all dog sports. Partly it's because they are incredibly smart and learn very quickly, but it's also because they are tractable and actually love to learn easily outpacing the other breeds of dogs in their dog classes. They watch their handler and follow instructions instead of going out on their own. They have a need to please. They bond with their human.
Some more recent puppy photos. They are definitely developing personalities (temperaments) now. Kappusino (Kappu) is going to be a large boy and talks - a lot. He is pretty insistent that he be heard, listened to. So I do - listen to him and pick him up and talk to him. I'm not sure he actually likes that. Remember? He was the first born and delivery was problematic because of his large size and because he was a breech baby and because his upper body got stuck. But all is well and he is going to be an amazing male. He's the one with the white head like his great Uncle Hidow Tryggur, although they are not related.
Abba is very sweet, soft, feminine - Sorry, she just is. She actually comes to me (actually they all do now when I call them) and wants to be picked up - and snuggled. She just winds me around her little dew claws. She is going to have lovely markings.
Watson, I might actually use his full namesake's name officially (Mark Watson), could easily have been called Odin, or Wodin because he has a split face. Remember Viking god-lore? Odin was blinded in one eye so split faces are sometimes called Odin. He is smaller than Kappu but larger than Abba - which is perfectly normal, Male Icelandics are usually larger than females. He also comes to me and likes to be picked up. He's going to be a charmer.
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