Indy - Bookstore dog of Stockholm

Jim and I spent a day in the oldest section of Stockholm: Gamla Stan. Gamla Stan is a medieval city; once walled. At one time, all the people living there were required to live within the city walls. Then came the plague and wiped out more than half the population. And after other diseases spread through the city, the restriction on living outside the walls was rescinded. People moved outside the city walls, the population density decreased, and diseases stopped spreading so quickly. It was a great solution. It also created Stockholm.

We took the T-bana from Fridumsplan (where our hostel was) to Gamla Stan. It was fun to hear all the stops announced correctly by the subway train driver. When we came up from underground, we found this bookstore: The English Book Store. It's a lovely bookstore and I found Steig Larrson's 3rd book there.

The young woman who helped us, Tiffany, went to school at Virginia Tech and has lived in Stockholm for 2 years. We got to talking and I said we'd lived in Puerto Rico. She said, "My dog is from Puerto Rico!" And we met her dog -- Indy. Here's Indy.

Indy is a sata (Puerto Rico street dog) just like our lovely Sally was. When Jim and I moved to California, we brought Sally and two cats (Sugar Ray and Leonard) from Puerto Rico. The street dogs there are lovely, sweet, kind and grateful. 

Tiffany's sister does research on Monkey Island in PR, and sent Indy to her before Tiffany moved to Sweden. 

One more thing, Tiffany's Indy is just like Justin and Crista's Indy -- sweet, lovable dogs. It was more than fun to run into another Indy so far from home.

Silky at the puppy sitter's

Silky's spending three weeks with puppy sitters - thanks, guys - while we're out. I love this part of the GDB program. Not only can we travel without worrying about her care, Silky continues to receive training and puppy handling the GD way. She learns about different families and has lots of new experiences.

Cooper "painted" a picture. I love the way Silky uses her paw to hold the toy upright. (chomp chomp yum yum)

Sitting pretty while out to dinner in Petaluma. Good girl, Silky.
Since she didn't see fit to go into season while we were gone, it's likely she'll be away from home for another 3 weeks not long after we get back to California. Not to worry, though. We won't be dogless. We'll have OPP (other people's puppies) as we get the chance to puppy sit in our house!

Missing our pup but oh look at this

We are on vacation in Scandanavia for three weeks. It's been hard to be away from Silky for so long, but her puppy sitters are taking great care of her and have sent us some emails. And for a bonus, they've sent us a couple of pictures. Speaking of pictures, here are a few from our trip on the Naeroyfjord in Norway. The boat traveled round-trip from Flaam to Gunvagen and back. It took about 4 hours, rained for most of the trip and was over before we knew it.

The fjords are salt water. They are actually inlets from the sea. The difference between high and low tides is about 1.2 meters.

Not much of a wind blows inside the fjords so the water is calm and mirror-like.

These little towns are accessible only by boat. They are part fishing village and part agricultural village. They raise mostly goats and sheep and make great cheese.

The water rushing down the mountainsides is glacier-melt. There is so much runoff that the water in the fjord is mostly opaque near it's closed end, becoming more clear closer to the ocean.

Puppies meet horses; horses meet puppies

One family in our puppy club invited us to a horse farm. Their daughters were competing that day and all our GD puppies and raisers were treated like VIPs. There were lots of horses, lots of people, lots of interesting sounds and smells for the GD puppies to encounter.

Nougat gets a good look at a horse walking by. There's a water truck in the background that drove around the track spraying water to keep the dust down. Some of the puppies were more interested in that truck than in the horses!

Guide Dog puppies in the VIP tent. Where else? I'm not sure who the BL is on the left, but the YL in the center is Don.

Great picture, Don. What are you looking at so intently? Could it be Silky?

Primrose takes everything in stride. She was recalled not long after this outing.