April 8, 2010: Easter Fun
Being a self-confessed chocoholic, I love Easter. Imagine my delight when I was invited to spend easter in Denmark and discovered Danish people like Easter also (and the chocolate is to die for). Heaven!

This trip saw me in the very north of Denmark, at Jette and Stig Friis-Jensen's home. It was my first time to the northern part of Denmark and this part of the country is very beautiful! I even spied some hills...so Denmark is definitely not pancake flat (but they were little hills!). It was the wee small hours of Saturday morning that I arrived at my destination and was greeted by a huge bowl of easter eggs. No, I did not eat them all...and I even left a big easter egg for Stig. There are limits as to how much chocolate even I can eat. Yes, I did say that!

Jette lives in this really cool house, with quite a posh bathroom I might add. Her kennels are indoors...and I mean in the house!! It is a really neat set up and luxury accommodations for the dogs with underfloor heating. Oh how my dogs would love that in the winter. The dogs have a birdseye view of Jette's office. I am sure my dogs would like that too - being able to see me tap away on the keyboard or stare at every morsel that emanates from the refridgerator. There were lots of secure play areas for the dogs which was interesting to see, especially when we are trying to puppy proof a play area for our own young ones.

The weekend was spent running - or in my case hobbling - around a super training field with various dogs and a terrific bunch of people. One could not have asked for a nicer, more dedicated group of people so I had an absolutely wonderful time. I saw many nice dogs too! I can think of no better way to spend a weekend than to spend it out in a field with dogs and group of cheerful and interesting people...but why do people want to go indoors before it gets dark? It has been known for Kelvin to come looking for me with a flashlight... :-)

With a couple of exceptions, most of the dogs were at an early stage in their training. Perhaps the most frustrating thing for people is getting regular access to sheep for training. Some people can only train on the weekends, and even finding a place to train has its challanges. We remember what that was like! At the time we just went out and bought our own farm and own sheep, and set about trying to figure out how to train a dog to manage our sheep! Perhaps that is the New Zealand 'do-it-yourself' way. Of course we also had Scott Glen 4 hours away whenever we got into trouble, which was often! It isn't easy to just run out and buy a farm in Denmark so people do the best they can with the sheep access they can get. Good for them!!

Anyway, Easter was fantastic and I have to thank Jette and her lovely family for the superb hospitality, and all the people who came along and made it such an enjoyable weekend. There were many 'special' moments during the weekend but the best ones are always those when the handler is really proud of themselves for mastering a skill, even a simple one like getting their dog to stop. In that regard, Leo and Sammie warmed the cockles of my heart! Well done, lads! But there were many others too. Can't wait to go back...but perhaps we could tone down the chocolate!

Speaking of chocolate, this week we have had Danish, Japanese and Belgian chocolate. Perhaps writing a blog about chocolate was not such a good idea...please, folks, no more chocolate. I can't even run it off at the moment with my bad leg!

Since getting back, it has been all systems go here. The cottage got a huge and much overdue spring clean. The garden is still a work in progress but thanks to my sister doing some internet shopping, it now has a nice big cherry tree and oak tree, and additional shrubs. Today Kelvin, with the help of our Belgian friends, Gene and Hilde, made a new walkway from the house to the kennels. No more walking through inches of mud! We still have a bit of cleanup to do around that but the walkway looks very presentable. Hilde helped clean up our front entrance way while my job was the endless one of weeding the garden. Bailey helped out on all of these tasks, as did various pups at one time or another. It was a spectacular day here in Wales so we could not bare be inside for even a minute. If this is spring, bring it on!

Bailey inspecting the new pathway.