Eppu's hobbies

Companion dog visits

The Finnish Kennel Club has trained already abt. 400 dogs to act as companion dogs. We visit regularly old-age homes, homes for seriously disabled and mentally disabled. After certain amount of visits the dog gets a skarf which will be used only during visits. When we are going for a visit and the skarf is put on around Eppu's neck he knows that we are going to go for a visit. He enjoys the visits very much and for some reason he is very fond of people who are sitting in wheelchairs ;)

Tracking and retrieving

We have been training some tracking and retrieving just for our own fun. We are not going to compete in these sports, but it's fun to be in forest and at the same time give some activities to Eppu. Seri has also tried tracking and it suits quite well for his age ;)

Photo: Kirsi Lonka

Obedience

We have been training obedience once a week in Lappeenranta with other collie friends :) We have such a good teacher that it's a pleasure to drive 80 kilometers back and fort for trainings. And it's also nice too see all friends and talk about collies :))
Maybe we are also able to pass the BH-test someday :))

Photo: Antti Sirvio

Herding

In the autumn 2008 we tried once again herding, now we visited Kennel Pihlajapirtti in Kotka. There were abt. 10 collies trying herding. It seemed that finally Eppu understood a bit what to do with the sheep ;)) At least it was very speedy :) First time we tried herding in spring 2007, it was in Kitee. The teacher's first comment when she saw Eppu was that "what a dandy" ;) Well, this
first time Eppu was not very interested in these peculiar animals, more interesting were those little brown poops on the ground ;)
The second round he started to be a bit more interested, but he just wanted to go to play with them. It was quite boring to move the sheep from one corner to another ;)

Pulling children in wagon

Eppu's new hobby is pulling children in wagon. He seemed to enjoy it very much, so if possible we will continue with this new hobby also in future :)

Eppu's and Seri's hobbies in common

Jogging in the forests is the most important of their mutual hobbies :) And even better if their friend Sunny comes along :) They enjoy running around and smell the odours of the forest ;)) Well, sometimes they get excited to run inside and roll the carpets in passing ;