HAPPY BIRTHDAY I

MAJA IS ONE YEAR TODAY

It is a big day for a small girl.. Oh, well, maybe it feels bigger for the owners. Maja has had a pretty nice day - playing a lot with one of her boyfriends, but besides from that I am not sure how much she is aware of her jubilee :) We haven't had her for a year, of course, only for about nine months, but it still feels like a day for some thoughts and "remembrances".

This is my first dog, so it naturally felt a bit strange for me: What will it be to have a dog at all?? Fun, troublesome, tiresome, what, what?? It has been a small miracle :) Sure, we have had our fair share of visits to the vet (and money used on that), our fair share of worries (about stomach infections, troublesome legs, troublesome eyes) and maybe some few moments when we though "oh, how much easier this would have been without a dog." 

But so much more important has been the joy of having her. She is always in a great mood, always ready for a hug, always happy to go for a walk and to meet people. There is a lot to lear about attitude here :) She had a rough start on her life - we now and then wonder if her siblings are still alive, and if they are - are they appreciated and loved? There are so many moments that I find touching - the joy she shows when we come home from work, how much fun she has on walks or playing with other dogs and how relaxed she seems in the evenings when she is tired and sleepy. I think she has become a very safe, secure and happy dog, and I am really happy about it - all dogs deserve to be!

I also quite often remember when we picked her up. The seller had put her in the trunk of his car. When he opened it, there was a small, white, scared furball that was curled up in the darkest corner. She sat in my lap on the long drive home and made small, strange sounds. When we let her out for the first pee, she said hi to some people, but came back to us again: I wonder if she already then had accepted us as owners, or at least found out that we were the best chance for some safety. 

It was maybe not the smartest thing to do, but we had tickets for a theater play that evening. So, we drove fast to a shop and got her a bed, and then left her alone in the car for two hours. But maybe it wasn't that disastrous: she at once got used to her bed as her safe place, and got a bit used to being alone. When we finally came home, the bed was already hers: she would curl up in a small corner there to sleep, nose tip and tail meeting and hidden. That was a HUUUUGE bed, we thought, but now it is almost strange to think that she fit in there. They grow so slowly and steadily that you just suddenly see that there is no way they can hide in the tiny little corner underneath the chair where she used to hide :)

And there have been things to learn for the humans, too. We have become great fans of Cesar Milan - the Dog Whisperer. We never took Maja to any classes, but she is pretty well behaving. Through watching Milan's series, we felt that we learned a lot about the relationship between dog and owners, about being steadfast, about walking with head high and broad shoulders. Not stupid - there are things here to learn for use in other parts of life, too.

So many small things to tell from this year.. But that is what this blog has been for! It is nice to be able to go back and look at joys and frustrations. And I have enjoyed writing :)

So - Maja: Happy birthday, even if you don't know (she is btw. wagging her tail in sleep beside me right now!). I'll end off this by posting (and re-posting) some pics from this year: