Category: General

We’ll be honest with you. Life lately has been so busy with the remodel of the new place that even the dogs are so tired that they don’t need any extra activities and we haven’t been taking any photos of them. We’ll try to be better.

Shake it baby, shake it

Magic mirror, in the ditch – who is the fairest one of all?

He’s getting grey

Eino with an eye on the migrating birds

While the humans are busy renovating, the dogs are busy exploring new ditches.

In honour of the humans 22 anniversary a photo taken by our dear friend Victor on an old film camera less than a month after we took posession of the new place. And also a very rare photo of all of us at once.

Warm spring days and whole days spent outside doing chores exhausts even the most active of dogs.

While the flatcoats love it when everywhere is wet, for Eino it is the time of year when he has to get his paws wet.

The best part about spring according to the flatcoats? The meltwater all over.

Taste-testing the waters

What hey?

Eino the Grey

A wet flatcoat is a happy flatcoat

Pretty much every pile of snow these days is an excuse to take a break and roll around for a bit.

We’ve pretty much lost all our snow. Except for some shady spots. Unless of course Finnish winter decides to make a comeback. Which wouldn’t be a surprise.

We suspect you will be seeing a lots of photos from this forest in the future as it is nice and moody.

Just Kulo and his daily stick. Luckily he isn’t as greedy as Emil was…

Eino’s going to turn nine in a month.

All three of them, sitting still and behaving

Kamu in the dappled sunset of a thick spruce forest

In contrast, a very dry setter while the flatcoats romp in the water getting wet.

Two happy and wet flatboats

Finally!

The little snow we had has been disappearing faster than Kulo has been able to eat it.

Speeding through the weekend

Jumping feet first into the weekend

Kulo and Eino’s playtime

Kamu in the sunset

Kulo, who is never-ever guilty of eating too much snow.

A rare picture of the oldest two together and unposed

Kulo trying to help Kamu in his search for water by checking yet another snowbank.

As you can expect, compared to yesterday’s picture this is a more typical frame that we get when trying to get a photograph of Eino.

Eino without any flatcoats blocking the view.

Kamu air

Kamu wondering why the ditch is still empty

And here’s Eino in the snow

Little Kulo isn’t so little anymore.

Kamu wondering why there’s no water in the ditch.

A little bit of Kulo for you on this fine winter day.

Powder days

Eino in the air

Kamu with echoes of the past and one one of our favourite pictures of Flippe. In fact, Flippe and Kamu share some common ancestors, so the similarity might not even be far fetched.

Yay! We got fresh snow.

Another Monday, another day to play and enjoy life!

We’ve been busy bees during the weekend at the new place. The downstairs is pretty much done and we are busy at working insulating the upstairs into a bedroom and den area.

We are eagerly waiting to see how grey – or even white – Eino’s face will become.

Heading home for the weekend

Heading into the sun

Kulo trying to spot where Eino is hiding.

Kamu showing how the crazy tongue is done.

Kulo wondering why there aren’t any blueberries to eat.

Kamu and the juniper. But alas, not juniper berries to munch on.

Despite the increasing amount of light and lengthening days, the shadows are still long when the sun starts to set.

Eyes on spring that is just around the corner.

Can you identify which one this is?

They’re at it again. Eino doesn’t get much respite from Kulo. But then again, it is often Eino instigating the play as well.

Sunset Kamu

In the warmth of the February sunset

Following the rodent tracks

It seemed like Eino was depressed and sad for a very long time after we lost Topi. But now that Kulo is no longer an obnoxious puppy, he seems to have taken Topi’s role in Eino’s life and Eino is much more active, playful and happier.

A rare moment of play between Kamu and Kulo

There’s something about the contrast between the warmth of the sun and coldness of the snow.

Well yes, the whole pack is in need of a trim. But we are all a bit busy with the renovation of the new place so we will continue to be in need of a trim.

We’ve been seeing the sun more and more but the forests are still mostly in the shade and the dogs are moving blobs of darkness in between the snow and tree trunks.

Eino enjoying the sun and the fact that he doesn’t have to wade through deep snow.

Kamu’s nose and a large amount of frosty fur. The forecasts say that this will most likely be the last cold spell of the winter and the temperatures we currently have (-15°C, 5F) are what normal around here this time of the year.

One of those rare moments when the dog is fully in the air and doesn’t have a stupid expression on his face.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How on earth did we get to Thursday already? The weeks just seem to fly by.

The lighthouse gang

Sure the days are getting longer, but it’s still quite dark after the workdays.

If you were wondering, Eino does not appreciate a thick layer of freezing water on top of the lake ice.

Whew. That was a whirlwind of a road trip to Southern Finland. Results of the road trip will be published sometime soon.

Eino can try to hide all he wants, but the flatcoats will always find him.

Eino is trying to figure out where he can go and hide if a road trip is actually being planned.

Kulo wondering when we’ll be heading on our next road trip. He has a name to live up to after all.

Kamu ensuring that his coat stays nice and clean while swimming is still off the table.

A rare moment of sunshine. And of course playtime in the sun.

It’s been seven years since we first met this liver furball and started our travels all around Europe together.

The rare combination of a happy and somewhat wet Eino.

Kulo likes this very big water bowl.

The flatcoats would like to know that if we are going to have a wet January, why can’t the water be deep enough to go swimming in?

Eino: Wait for me, I’m coming!

Eino: Where did the flatcoats go? Eino: This way? Eino: Or that way? Eino: There they are!

Kulo choosing the smart route instead of the Finnish winter is trying to kill you route.

Walking on water. Literally. We are on the lake ice, but 5 cm (2 inches) of water on the ice in late-January is not normal.

The story of this winter: we get snow, it’s cold and the it thaws and we have water and ice everywhere.

Today was a good reminder of why the dogs pile up at our feet when we take a rare evening off and relax in front of the TV instead of hustling with the remodel of the little yellow house on the hill. We finally remembered to stop and start thinking about dinner at 19:30 after…

Let’s play another round of spot the setter hiding from the black missile.

Tell me it’s cold without telling me it’s cold.

The lighthouse keeper doing his rounds

Photographer beware!

Kamu on approach Approaching Slowing down Abort, time to de-ice

Kulo hasn’t learned to keep his tongue flapping in the wind yet.

De-icing

Tutju paw traffic services

Whose ski tracks are these?

We can see the lake!

Let’s go exploring!

Is it too early to be on the lookout for this year’s Christmas tree?

Trying to get a photo of Eino’s snout. And what do we get?

And heere’s Eino!

We realised last weekend that we hadn’t taken a group photo of the boys for quite some time. So here’s the pack and a belated Happy New Year from us.

Sometimes the humans get a bit carried away and work so late into the evening that the supervisors get tired.

Playtime in the midday sun

Boop that snout

The joy of running free on the frozen lake. And the problem of going on a walk with only one camera battery that has already been used and decides to die after only a few minutes of the walk…

An island of snow in the middle of the slippery ice

Headlamp walks in the slightly snowy forest in complete silence are something to treasure.

Inspecting the quality of the baseboards

Still recovering from the new year’s party…

About that New Year’s Eve party…

Let’s hope that Kulo can maintain his puppylike innocence into the new year.

Would you believe us if we told you this photo was taken a week from solstice just around 13:30? The day is now about 5 hours long. But the days are getting longer!

Kulo’s test shot and a very worried looking Kulo.

Of course, once Kamu got to come shine in front of the camera that’s what he did. Happy as always.

This year Eino had the dubious honor of serving as the model while lighting setups were tested. As you can see, he was thrilled.

Merry Christmas from Eino!

Merry Christmas from Kulo!

Merry Christmas from Kamu!

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you! Official Christmas portraits coming starting tomorrow.

To prove the point, here are Anna’s little knitting helpers.

It’s official, there’s at least one of Santa’s elves in our forest. But Kamu doesn’t have a worry in the world, he knows he’s been nice.

Eino’s got eyes on the elf as well.

Was that one of Santa’s elves Kulo just spotted?

Despite the lack on snow in the recent photos, we finally got winter weather. We have some snow and it’s currently -25°C outside.

Finally…

We wonder if there ever will be a time when we can have Eino pose somewhere without a flatcoat or two coming into the frame?

Eino’s attempts at being nice and staying out of the way don’t always work…

You try being a setter in a photograph among all these flatcoats.

Do you ever feel like there is somebody watching you?

King of the hill! Oh wait, the hill continues…

Remembering Topi. He would have turned 15 today.

Eino in the snow. Although his camouflage as a whole doesn’t work as well anymore, his snout is getting there.

A sliver of sunlight illuminating Kamu

In keeping up with the theme of getting on the nice list… Kamu helping Anna ponder some problem we’ve needed to solve during our kitchen build.

Eino at peace during golden hour

This little one turns seven today! So join us in wishing Kamu a happy birthday and Finland happy independence day!

The last rays of the sun filtering through the forest

Eino wondering what that strange light in the sky is

Happy times in the fleeting moments of sunshine

We had snow. And then we lost it.

In honor of Advent Sunday and someone making a list (that is not GDPR compliant) Kulo was being nice and helped Ramin troubleshoot some issues.

The look of mutual love

A black dog for Black Friday

The black monster in attack

That tongue

Yes, we know there is something right in front of Kamu’s eye. You could think that it is ruining an otherwise good jump photo. And if we could have avoided it we would have. But in the world of generative AI images we decided to leave the imperfection in place. If gen-AI would have known…

When you stop to look at something mid step without any consideration of what you look like.

Mist machines are all the rage in creating cinematic visuals. It’s quite handy when you have your own mist machine with you at all times.

The low lying sun of autumn really suits Eino

A black silhuette in the low autumn sun

And while Kamu was watching the brats, this is what they were up to.

His highness Kamu watching the brats at play

Is it a wonder if every now and then we can’t seem to find Eino?

There’s something in the forest over there. We can smell it in the air.

But on the other hand, a spot of shadow in the setting sun removes all color from nature.

We’re at that time of the year when nature isn’t completely monochromatic yet but a liver flatcoat will blend in quite well with the dying leaves.

This was two weeks ago when we had what you could call snow if you were being generous. Alas, it all melted away and it’s still dark and dreary. So November.

The days are getting very short and if we don’t go for a walk during the workday the only light we get is the dusk after the sun has already set. We are waiting for snow to come and lighten the environment.

You’ll never know if the moment of contact in yesterday’s photo was just a fleeting snapshot of time and the jump one of many between fleeting moments of sitting down or a long sit and a jump as a reward. And we are not telling.

Contact

Ah, young flatcoats and their tongues

Happy Father’s Day from all the young pests and well behaving offspring as well!

Moments before they are both off

Welcome to life in the middle of the remodel. And Kamu helping Anna wax the log drawer for our kitchen.

Eino has a stick. And for some odd reason he is keeping his distance from the retrievers…

It’s not all grey and gloomy even though the days keep getting shorter and it’s nearly dark by the time the workday ends and we get to go out for a walk with the boys.

Not Golden Eye, but Golden Kamu

Kulo admiring the colors of autumn. We just realized that this is Kulo’s first autumn home in Finland. The last two years we’ve spent large parts of September and October traveling in Central Europe.

The hunt is on

Kamu making sure that the kitchen cabinets Anna and Ramin are building are fit for purpose.

Eino trying to pick which blade of grass to eat.

While Eino fell asleep watching the paint dry, Kulo fell asleep while trying to follow Ramin’s work meeting.

We will just agree that we weren’t trying to take a photograph of Kulo lying on the ground and will say that we intended to get a photo of a rotating flatcoat.

One of the renovation supervisors demanding a break.

It’s officially dark season and putting up extra lights is allowed.

Eino fell asleep while watching the paint dry.

We have a strong feeling that they grey logs of the riihi (a type of kiln) on our property will be the backdrop of many a photo.

Kamu listening to the geese that are preparing to move south for the winter.

Autumn colors in our very own forest.

Kamu looking back at his roots and Camwood lines he shares with Flippe. Today marks 14 years since we lost our first flatcoat Flippe.

We’ve had a great weekend at our second or third home! The weather was warm and sunny. How was your weekend?

We still haven’t had time to resolve the issues we have with our harddrives. So instead of a picture of Luka to remind us that it has now been seven years since we lost him we have a picture of Eino. Eino is the last one of our pack that has lived with Luka. For…

Anna and Kamu having a moment

Flatcoat running and a flapping tongue

Watching the flocks of geese on the move

In the long shadows of the low lying sun.

Some quality time with Anna while on a walk.

A mexican standoff

We can’t look like supermodels every single moment, now can we?

Any special plans for the weekend? We know we are going to be enjoying the colorful Finnish forests.

Kulo following in Kamu’s footsteps playing king of the rock.

Autumn heather

Eino and his grey chin

Flatcoats and their long snouts. Sometimes it’s a challenge when you have a very shallow depth of field. But at least the leaf stuck to Kulo’s head for a moment or two.

Autumn unfortunately also means that the sun is starting to shine from lower and lower and the shadows of the tress reach further and further adding to the challenge of photographing the dogs at full speed.

Kulo’s first attempt with the leaf didn’t exactly succeed.

Autumn really is Eino’s time to shine in photographs.

The goofy puppy

And the fools in a sit stay. And finally given permission to be free..

But then when the message is not lost in translation and the idea clicks, the execution is perfect.

Every now and then when posing the dogs there is some challenge in figuring out exactly what is desired from them.

While Eino isn’t exactly a hunting dog, every now and then you can see the instict take over and his nose start to scent the surroundings.

Kulo making himself smaller when Kamu is approaching.

Sometimes it is so difficult to stand still because the tail is wagging so hard that the paws just have to move as well.

The weather is getting colder which means less panting with more running!

King of the rock

It’s Eino’s camouflage season!

Don’t tell anyone, but Kamu may have just snuck away from a stay… Älkää kertoko kenellekään, mutta Kamu saattoi juuri hiipiä pois paikka-käskystä.

It’s starting to smell like autumn around here.

Has there even been a flatcoat who isn’t an optimist?

What’s that there? Is it the weekend?

Something big and white on the ground near the powerline has often meant a dead swan, but this time it was luckily just a large piece of runaway plastic from the hay bales.

Time for a harvest dance party!

Ferocious creatures

Eino trying to enjoy the sun while keeping a wary eye on the black missile. 

Posing.  And no longer posing. 

Wow. 20 years of daily posts of photographs here on the blog. Who would have thought we would still be doing this after so many years.  Don’t worry, we have some special content planned, but it will take us a while to get them sorted with hard drive failures and being busy with the new…

And heeere’s Eino!

Happiness is…

The fields are free again!

Eino and some of the sea buckthorn on our new property. 

As we mentioned, Kamu is passionate about the well in our yard. He will interrupt whatever he is doing and rush to the well whenever someone starts to use it to get water. 

Little Kulo posing. And note the two phtobombers in the background. 

Kamu is following in Topi and Luka’s footsteps by always drinking from a hose. And now the well in our yard. Except now he also added helping Anna water the flowers to his repertoire. 

Using an optically not so perfect lens fits the vibe of the yard of a 100 year old house.

Hot autumn days and playtime in the shade. In fact, today Finland broke it’s record of hot days per year. We’ve now had 66 days this year with temperatures over 25°C somewhere in Finland. And yes, for us Finns that’s plenty hot.

We are experiencing an uncommonly warm early September and the dogs tongues are showing it.

We’ve noticed a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the boys in leaving the new place to go to our old house.

Fuzzy moments in the evening light

The boys: We’re not begging. We are just attentive.

Kulo got to be the first of our dogs to walk on the floor we finished three weeks ago. And this is a sneak peek of what the interiors of the little yellow house on the hill will look like.

It’s almost weekend and a chance to sleep in.

The guardian of the toolshed

Summer evenings by the lake

A very tired Kamu after a another long day in the countryside.

A dark and mysterious Eino

Here’s Kamu reminding you that summer is not over yet.

Like seen yesterday, pretty much every time we ask Eino to sit and pose one of the flatcoats will come and start licking his face. But luckily we do manage to get the flatcoats out of the frame and Eino gets his time in front of the lens as well.

Today marks 31 years since Anna’s first dog, Kassu, was born and 22 years from when our first flatcoat, Flippe, was born. Who would have thought that we would now be living with flatcoats number seven and eight?

The oldest two of our pack.

Who is that hiding in the grasses?

All claims of retrievers eating excessive amounts of grass are exaggerated.

Today Kulo started his career in retriever hunting tests by participating in the working ability test for retrievers in Finland. Unfortunately he did not pass the test. But we are very satisfied with the progress he showed. He has been somewhat soft and reactive in new situations since he was a small puppy (something his…

A nice spot for evening walks near just outside our new property.

So, the humans went and did a thing. They bought us a new old house. It’s a 100 year old log structure and you will be seeing a lot more of it in the future. And in fact, you’ve seen glimpses of it and the property it is on in the last few years. There’s…

Contact

Heading west

The focus of a young flatcoat chasing after water lilies.

Of course, summer isn’t summer without plenty of time at the beach.

But even if we don’t get to see a sharp running black job, seeing Eino run with a smile on his face is always worth it.

The only problem with walking the dogs in the golden light of cooling evenings is that the black one is just too fast for the camera for anything other than blurry shots. So a picture of Kamu instead.

A part of Finnish summers is taking walks in the long time of golden light with the barely setting sun.

And of course, we’ve spent a lot of time running around with the whole pack during the summer.

In addition to our trip to the Baltics, what else has been a part of our summer? Well Eino has been recuperating from a bee sting that caused two boils in his leg. He is all well now.

All trips must come to and end and Mr Backseat of a Trans Am Optimus Canis (Kamu) needs to jump into his car and head back home to prepare for new adventures.

Kulo in the air. Following in the pawsteps of pretty much every other dog on the blog as well.

A water installation by Kamu

Sand and water – what’s not to love about the beaches of the Baltic Sea in the Baltics?

Kulo: Is this amber? Or can I eat it if it isn’t?

Another evening of vanlife, another new beach to explore.

Just a girl and her pal. (Kamu is Finnish for a friend or pal.) Honestly, this was definitely not a bad spot to spend the night.

Sunsets on the Latvian coast with pre-WW1 fortifications framing the subject.

Searching for Baltic Sea amber Quality control checking if the find was actually amber or just a pretty pebble.

Riding the wave

20 years since Jalo was born. We are really approaching the 20th anniversary of the blog rapidly. It’s only eight weeks away.

No more shallow puddles of sweet water for us. We’re back at the sea baby!

After a nice long swim on a hot day it’s time for a nice rubdown with the towel.

The chase is on

Finally water deep enough to swim in! The Curonian Lagoon is an interesting body of water. It’s quite big but very shallow with a maximum depth of under six meters. So no wonder it took us ages to walk far enough from the shore to be able to swim.

There are all kinds of explanations of what the different ear positions of a dogs mean. But can anyone tell us what it means when a retrievers flapping ears are rolled upwards?

What is this odd place? We’ve walked a hundred meters from the shore and our paws still reach the bottom.

Hurry up Anna! We see water.

On our trip into the Baltics we once again found ourselves very close to the border between Lithuania and Russia at Kaliningrad. Kamu and Ramin were keeping a watchful eye on the border just in case.

How do you know that your dog has spent too much time on construction sites? He tries to climb anything even remotely resembling a ladder…

An excellent way to enjoy the summer heat. Swim.

Even the Baltics have an abundance of castles and manor houses. Why don’t we have more of them in Finland?

The heatwave continued and continued in late May and the boys – and humans – used every single body of water available to cool off.

Admittedly, a large head of Lenin was not something we would have expected to find…

The Baltics have interesting remnants and relics of the Soviet era for exploration. Here we are at an old Soviet nuclear missile base in front of one of the hangars where the warheads and launchsystems were stored.

Our crossing of the Gulf of Finland seemed to trigger something since the temperatures changed from fairly cool for May to an absolute heatwave nearly overnight.

We’ll jump from the photos from last autumn to our late spring and early summer trip to the Baltics. After an uncommonly warm April, May had started out really cool and since Ramin had a few work trips in Southern Finland and the Baltics we decided to pack up the van, drop Eino off at…

Summer fun in the water and a weird little tongue monster

Three years without Topi. We so miss Ramin’s shadow.

On the border between Latvia and Estonia our heater stopped working, yet again. With the night temperatures plunging to below zero we had to get everything in the van setup for winter travel and managed to survive waking up in the morning with a cool +8°C in the van. It actually ended up taking us…

And from Latvia we made our way into Estonia for the next weekend and another dog show. And we got to enjoys rainy Tallinn for a few days.

From Western Germany we made our way quite quickly through the rest of Germany, Poland and Lithuania to end up in Latvia for a couple of dogs shows which we reported already told you about when they happened last October. The lingering summer heat of Normandy had really disappeared by then. But at least the…

The reason for our stop at the garage? Well our heater was not getting any fuel and we needed to get the fuel tank dropped to investigate the problem. And hopefully fix it. And it was fixed.

After Cologne we visited a garage in a smaller German city where they built and repaired campervans. And had traveled around the world, including South America, in their own vehicle with their flatcoat.

Kamu, Kulo and Anna in front of the Cologne Catherdral

The director and the photographer

Anna and Kamu found a very big tree somewhere in Belgium.

Anna and her passion for photographing old doors means that Kamu ends up in front of them quite often as well.

Even though we were heading towards home, we didn’t hurry back and spent some time exploring smaller French towns along the way.

Kulo posing in Etretat

Kamu and Anna in Etretat

Our final moments on the coast of Normandy before turning the nose of our van towards the east and starting to make our way back to Finland.

Anna and Kamu, and Ramin and the boys on the beaches of Normandy.

Midsummer – time for swimming and shaking off the water.

Kamu in the midsummer smoke sauna. Happy midsummer!

Evening walks and sunsets on the beach

And the final photo from here – another family portrait since we finally remembered to take two during this trip.

Kulo serving as a test model…

Two little flatcoats and a very famous monastery.

In addition to being really used to modeling in front of the camera, our boys are often quite patient in waiting behind the camera for other photography to happen as well.

Even after the sun has set, the sea side is a magical place to run along the beach.

Enjoying sunset on the beach.

Kamu: Sand? What sand?

The scene from in front of the camera and to the side.

When we were wandering the coast of Brittany last autumn Kulo discovered the joy that is mussles. Yes, he eats them. With the shell if he can’t get them open otherwise. He will actively now search for them on the sea shore…

Beach walks in Brittany, part 2

Beach walks in Brittany

Somewhere in France

Kamu thinking how much cooler it would be if the lion statues surrounding the gateway to the chateau were actually flatcoats. The chateau in all it’s glory spanning across the whole river.

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. Last autumn we had a chance to visit the area and we explored both Omaha and Utah Beaches. Here Ramin and the boys are making their own landing on Omaha Beach just below the cliffs from the American cemetery and under the watchful eye…

Anna, Kamu, Kulo and the Chateau de Chenonceau

Anna and Kamu enjoying a view of the chateau straddling the river.

The chateau and its master

Chateau gardens. A prime example of owners who have too much free time on their hands. Or lots of hired help. It’s exhausting to think of the amount of time gardening them takes.

Autumn flowers in the spring. Sure, Paris is an interesting city for the humans to visit, but for big country dogs it isn’t all that interesting. Although we did find a nice big park in which to walk them. After a week of Ramin’s work in Paris we headed first into Orleans and then further…

We couldn’t leave the Eiffel Tower without a family photo, now could we?

After the weekend of shows we had to be in Paris by Monday afternoon. We drove into France, spent Sunday afternoon and early Monday in Champaign country sleeping in a vineyard and then braved the traffic to Paris a bit after noon. Our campground was a 6 kilometer walk from the Eiffel Tower, so of…

After the long day of driving we’d found a spot for the night just barely inside Germany but only 15 kilometres from the site of the shows in the Netherlands. We’ve reported on the shows way back when so no recapping that here. By this time both were already extremely experienced vandogs.

When a cafe is made out of an old VW Kombi, you simply must stop for a cup.

After we woke up somewhere in the German countryside near Puttgarten we started to make our way towards southern Netherlands and a dog show there. We had a long day of driving ahead of us but still had the time to go for a stroll in the center of Bremen where Ramin had spent two…

We only spent the single day in Copenhagen and continued our drive south heading to Rødby to catch the late night ferry to Germany. This ferry was Kulo’s 15th at the time and he matched his age in months with the number of ferry journeys.

From Stockholm we drove through the night after the workday ended and woke up in the outskirts of Copenhagen the next morning where Anna and the boys spent the day by a lake while Ramin was dealing with more work stuff.

Stockholm last autumn was also showing the colors of Ukraine in various places as a sign of solidarity.

We ended up in a city which smelled quite familiar to Kulo, after all it is where we picked him up from his breeder. Of course we are talking about Stockholm. We stayed there for a few days and explored parts of the citry while Ramin had some work stuff to deal with.

You know, we’ve yet to tell you about a trip we took last autumn. We started off by boarding a ferry in the evening – one of those that you are on long enough that we all had a cabin that we shared. And woke up the next morning to a very foggy morning.

Eastern Finland does not hide whose side they are on.

The pier of the country bumpkins. That’s pretty much what the sign says.

The amount of adventures and new experiences while traveling in the van tends to tire a little flatcoat out. 

One of our favorite places for a city walk with the boys is the harbor of Lappeenranta. 

Of course no visit to the Southeast corner of Finland is complete without a stops at our favorite coffee roasters, Lehmus.

Kulo also got to pose along the anti-tank installations. And a wider view of the anti-tank installations.

Salpalinja is a very long series of fortifications that was built from 1940 onwards across Eastern Finland and consists of series of trenches and different types of bunkers, entrenchments etc. The sight that pretty much every Finn will recognize is these anti-tank installations that still dot the countryside and forests across Eastern Finland.

On our trip down south to the show we also continued the exploration of the fortrifications left over from various wars across Europe. Since we were in Eastern Finland we were again exploring parts Salpalinja – the final defensive line during World War 2 that was luckily never used.

Last weekend we drove to Southern Finland to Loviisa for a dog show. Kulo’s first after turning two and he was placed as second best male and he got the last CAC he needed from Finland. Now he needs to qualify for the field to gain his Finnish Champion title. There is a reason why…

Happy Mother’s Day!

Not all training is done with game. We’ve been taking our dummies out quite a bit as well.

And a very proud brown job.

Proud dog and happy handler

Just hanging out here enjoying the water. And if you look closely, the meltwater has brought the thistles out from hiding as well.

Overflowing ditches mean lots of opportunities for swimming and finding treasures in the water.

It’s not always just Kulo that is the one chasing Eino and being annoying. Sometimes it’s the other way around.

And to continue our birthday week we once again have a veteran in the house with Eino turning 8 today!

Continue the sentence: Running into the weekend like…

The final spots of snow on the shade of the birch forests. It’s always amazing how quickly the snow melts and spring takes over.

Happy May Day! We’ve celebrated it by exploring the overflowing ditches and enjoying the open fields with no snow to slow us down.

This little one turns two already! Where has time gone? Our Plan B has really lived up to his kennelname of Miss Mallorys Exciting Roundtrip by spending over a quarter of his life already living vanlife instead of houselife. Happy birthday Kulo!

In addition to the dummies we’ve been melting the training game from our freezer to wake up the retrievers’ senses.

The bumpers are out and it’s time to train!

The last winter photo for a while. While we’ve been going through the archives and fixing issues we’ve been reading about the last year of Flippe’s life and the way his behavior changed due to pain. Many of the changes and behaviors are what we see in Eino as well, they have many of the…

Possibly one of the most challenging subjects for the autofocus of a camera and lens: a black flatcoat coming directly towards you at full speed.

A few more snowy pictures coming up before go back to the snowless and muddy fields. We also noticed that there are several issues with the posts that we imported. Some have working thumbnails and missing images when opened and some are the opposite. We are fixing it, but it will still take a few…

In honor of the day of dog in Finland, fresh passport photos of the whole pack.

The current rain has pretty much washed away the snow that fell over the weekend. But we won’t go to the muddy season in our photos yet.