Update in English

Wow time has really flown by. I’ve been meaning to write English updates about Kiira for quite a while, but haven’t had the time…

Aaanyway, Kiira is now 17 weeks old, and she is a really lovely little doggie :) Although it has been tough for me at times to get along with her, because she is *so* full of energy and I have no previous experience with dogs. It has gotten easier along the way, luckily :) She seems to be very eager to learn and do stuff, and she’s also very joyful and brave little girl. And curious! :D

Last week Kiira got her last puppy vaccinations, and is now fully protected! ;) We’ve been practicing nail clipping and grooming, Kiira isn’t very fascinated with either of those but when she gets treats, both are doable :D She loves cheese, liver casserole, carrots, sour milk and meaty moose bones. Too bad her own food doesn’t seem to get her that excited (except when given dry as treats)… Last week she pretty much refused to eat her breakfast, which lead to reducing her feedings from 4 times to 3 times a day, and it has worked ok.

Kiira had a little accident with my cat, Inka, a few weeks ago. Inka lives with my parents, and is not used to dogs or even other cats for that matter, she is quite a little queen of her own kingdom there.. It was really stupid of me to let Kiira and Inka get too close to each other, and Kiira got clawed :( She just wanted to greet Inka, but Inka didn’t like the idea and hit her in the eye!! :( It was so awful. Luckily she only scratched the inner corner of her left eye (plica semilunaris), it could have been much worse. I took Kiira to the vet the next day and got antibiotic eye drops for her. There had to be 2 people holding Kiira down when the vet tried to put drops to her eyes to check them :D And I had to put the eye drops twice a day for a week! Treats helped a lot, and in the end I managed to do it all by myself. The eye got better really fast, now we just have to hope that it won’t bother her later on. Funny thing that after the incident Inka has been more afraid of Kiira than before, and Kiira doesn’t seem to have any bad feelings at all. She would just like to go and say hi :) Maybe someday they will get along. I really hope so.

Kiira has met some really nice adult dogs, of which her uncle Leevi is her best friend and biggest idol :) I also took her to a puppy meeting a couple of times at the vet, and Kiira was sooo excited to see other puppies! She has also seen horses (she thinks they are really big dogs and would like to play with them :D), a dead moose (that was a bit scary) and hedgehogs (really scary :D). She also went swimming at the river Oulujoki a few weeks ago! She was running back and forth at the river bank, splashing in the shallow water, then rushed to the water and it was suddenly so deep that she had to swim to get back :D What a crazy and brave little girl! The water really wasn’t warm, but it didn’t seem to slow her down much…

Kiira also seems to be very interested in birds, and we have quite a few fieldfares in the freezer for her :) She got to carry around a warm, just shot one, and she would not have wanted to give it away at all. We should try to practice with cold ones, but haven’t got around to do it.. Also the plans that we had for Kiira kind of backfired, she was supposed to become a hunting buddy for my boyfriend, but we recently decided to break up with him :( It has been a very stressful time for all of us, and it really warmed my heart to see how Kiira reacted to my sorrow, would not have believed that such a small puppy would understand to act so kindly towards me. I’m so grateful to have her in my life <3 She brings me so much joy and comfort, even though she is often such a little rascal :)

Kiira weighs about 9.4kg at the moment, and has just lost her first tooth! I’m sooo looking forward to see all the other teeth changing, she is driving me nuts at times with all the biting and gnawing. She just loooves to hang onto sleeves and legs, and to bite toes and fingers >:( And she also looooves to dig. Our backyard has several deep holes in it, thank goodness the ground is frozen now :) We had first snow of the winter last week and Kiira loved it! She was bouncing around trying to bite the snowflakes, sniffing and poking around the snow with her nose. So cute! :)

Finally, here’s a short list of what we’ve practiced with Kiira so far: sitting, taking eye-contact, laying down, coming when called (shout & whistle), coming to the left side, searching (for treats), letting go (works nicely with treats, so that she can take them only after she gets a permission), staying off the sofa (sooo hard :D), staying on one spot (for a really short while), walking on a leash, and retrieving (we’re only in the beginning with this one).

I promise to post new updates more often from now on ;)