Summer training: The quadbike is repaired and yesterday we went for a trip in town after a brief snowstorm!

Team Qanik and Ludde

Refueling at the gas station

It was a warm day, Silver taking a break

Talik is a bit dirty after running on the muddy streets of Longyearbyen

Boat trip and tiral dog!

Team Qanik might get a new member! Ludde, the huskey is currently undergoing test driving. He is a huskey, black and brown, 2003 model, ca 30 kg and 0,2 HP.

The humans picked us up yesterday and took us for a ride in Kermit, their new green boat. That was quite nice BUT they made us wear life vests! It is so hard to be a cool rebellious teenage dog when you wear the same clothes as your siblings and MOTHER! well well it was nice to be out. On Sunday Qimmiq and Silver went for another ride- Qimmiq was positioned in the stern of the boat, when we returned to the beach and were just 50 m from land she could wait no more and made a swim for it! Rico "sprinted" (well if you can actually call it sprinting in a huge orange survival suit) after her but she was already at the car. So we returned a wet Qimmiq and dry Silver to to dog yard. Oh yes, one of great fans, aunt Lisa is back for a long time! Yesterday she and Ole took N&S for a walk while the young ones and Ludde went out with Rico. Welcome back Lisa- we look forward to lots of new adventures!

Trip in Mälerdalen 1/3 09

Slightly frozen humans

View from the sledge

The team

Talik and Nuna in the front

Qimmiq on the line

Weekend trip. On Friday the humans came with the snow scooters and picked us up for a trip. We were not quite pleased with being stuffed in boxes on the sledge. Last season we were allowed to ride on the scooter in front of the humans but they claim we are to big now! It was a bit of a bumpy ride to Reindalen since some one with a bulldozer and an anger management problem had been driving through Todalen before us, but in the end we made it. Nuna and silver have been in the cabin several times before, they spend Christmas there last year and Ulli (our ex caretaker) took us there for new year. The puppies were very curious and in the evening they all got to go inside for a short time- so cosy! The humans kicked us out just before midnight and went to bed. The next day it was Talik and Qimmiqs one year birthday! HURRA. We celebrated the day with a long trip en Reindalen and a big piece of meat in the evening. After dinner two of our fans and sometimes feeders Harvey and Marzena showed up. Even later more people came so we were not allowed to go inside again, luckily it was nice and warm (-1C) outside. In the night we had a bit of a snowstorm so we did not go on a trip on Sunday. The humans drowse us home after lunch and we played in the dog yard for some time. A good weekend for the furry ones.

NSQT

Rico and Nuna relaxing in the cabin

Sleeping birthday puppies

Talik (front) and Silver

The Humans are back!!
Yesterday the humans appeared again, they have been gone for almost 6 weeks and seem to have acquired a strange brown color in the face, peculiar in deed! While the humans were away Jonas`s human Yvonne have taken care of us, we have gone on trips with a lot of other dogs and eating lots of meat, not a bad Christmas! One thing though- the humans did not bring home any gifts for us! They said they had a gift for us but that was new reflex wests! We know its for safety, and we have to wear them but it is SO hard to be cool in something bright yellow and reflective....
Well we took the human on a little ski trip yesterday, just to get them started and today we went out with our newly pimped sledge, it even has a (YELLOW) brake now! Thanks for the present Yvonne! It is really warm at the moment, just a few minus degrees so we are getting really warm when running, hope we get some decent temperatures again soon. The warm temperatures resulted in some fog just above the ground, really spooky but fun to run in. That's all for now, we will post some pics later. NSQT

Puppy torture, the humans place food in front of us and makes .us wait and do tricks for it, doesn't that constitute cruelty to animals? TQ

Town trip!! Today the humans took us (QT) to town. We were placed outside the cafe and kept close watch on the town square! Oh yeah: we sniffed a tree, strange creations they are, they did not however seem edible so why they would place one in the middle of town we don't know. Today however the tree was emitting light. Quite practical here in the dark season. There were some human pups around who seemed to worship the tree, they were singing and dancing around it. Very peculiar indeed. We have been pulling the sledge for the last 3 days now so today when we came back to the dog yard we had a cuddle session with Rico. Tomorrow the humans go on vacation until January (they say they want to go to a warm place. We consider that utter madness as it ha just gotten down to some reasonable temperatures here). While they are gone Jonas` human Yvonne will take care of us! Well humans have a nice trip and bring back some goodies for us!!

NSQT

The last boat. Today Nord Syssel, the patrol ship of Sysselmanden left Svalbard for the season. Since it was also the first Sunday of Advent the Christmas tree was going to be lighted (Nuna claims that she has seen not just a tree before but "trees" and that they are tall plants that live in great numbers on the mainland and often stand around in packs of 1000s. QT remains sceptical. Uncle Silver was deep in a daydream about the unlimited peeing opportunities a so calleged forest would present and not available for comments). Well the humans took us on a long sledge trip in the morning to the sausage hut (Where legend has it that a kind stranger gave Nuna a sausage in 2004 and we still live in the hope of a meeting that wonderfull man again and thus return to the hut on any opportunity). After lunch the humans and aunt Lisa came back and took the puppies to town. First we went to the old quay to wave goodbye to the ship and see the fireworks. Talik though it was not that interesting and wanted to go for a walk, especially since Qimmiq kept putting her front legs up on his back to get a better view. (Fire and bangs are FUN! It kind of reminded me of the time I went ptarmigan hunting with my mom and the humans It works like this: the humans make a loud bang with some kind of stick and we get the head of a ptarmigan-yummy! Q) After the fireworks the torches were lit we and the humans followed the rest of the town to the town center. It was really interesting to walk among all the humans with their pups (think they called them children) we also met Odin and Savi from the dog yard and their humans and a lot of other dogs. At the town square we shared a cup of gløg with the humans (they got the nasty stuff inside and we got the delicious paper cup TQ). They were about to light the Christmas tree (we still have not seen it, there were so many humans so we cannot say for certain that such a thing as a tree does exist). When they said : "and now we light the tree" it went wooosh! and the town was completely dark. Impressive yes, but is that really what they mean by lighting a tree? It must be very dark at the mainland if they have a lot of trees..... After an exciting day we were driven home to the dog yard and had a big piece of frozen meet. The humans finally listened and from last week on we now get frozen beef and chicken meet every second day! Sweet

Northern light over our cages.