dog kennel – Lappland Nature Dreams

18.07.2021

Active Holiday

Since one week we have holiday now… and no, we are not laying on the beach 🏝 enjoying the sun ☀️ that’s anyway not our most favorite kind of vacation, we prefer active holiday 💪😉 but honestly this week was heavier than a whole month of “normal” work 😬

Last weekend the play toys for big boys were already parked…

On Monday Raffi and our neighbor company Nito Last AB started to dig for the water 💦 to our new dog food kitchen. They were digging and digging and digging… after a whole day they finally found the main water pipe with a T-cross, one to the main house, one to the yard – either to the old fountain ⛲️ or to the barn. Both options meant that the pipe must be close to the old “guest house” so we thought we could avoid digging the whole way but just find the old pipe and connect the new one. Great idea 💡👍 Two more days they were digging, first with logical thinking, later with a detector that clearly stated the way of the pipe but even in more than five meters depth there was nothing 😲 in the end we decided to go back to the old plan and put a new pipe over the yard… so, today they (almost) finished this part of the project. The dirt water pipe is still to do but that part is much easier and almost all way already prepared. And the inside work can wait until all outside tasks are done 😉

At least we don’t need to cut so much grass for the next weeks 😂🙈

Beside digging we also prepared the new dog cages. First we had to make the ground even, then put the dog houses in place. The dog houses we built already during the last months so they were just waiting to be used. And it’s much easier to put the dog houses in the cage before the cage is there because they are too big and much too heavy to get them through the doors. After this was done we put big logs around the cages and then the cage elements. Two of the cages will be “jumping cages”. They will have some additional planks on top to prevent dogs from jumping or climbing out of the cage like e.g. Stella already did when she couldn’t wait to be put on the line for training 😏 now, there are some smaller jobs left: finishing the jumping protection, make door locks/openers and fix the food bowl holders.

Last but not least we built up our grill kota. Another challenging project: first of all the quality of the material was quite bad, so after a complaint to the seller he promised that the manufacturer will send somebody on Thursday to build up the kota – as compensation. On Thursday the manufacturer called me that they can’t come today but will come on Friday. Meanwhile we had already prepared the ground. Friday morning we put all parts on place waiting for the guys to come. At 5 p.m. I got a call that they unfortunately can’t manage and that they can check on Monday if they can come next week… are you kidding me? 😳 Ok, we didn’t want to put all parts back in the garage to protect them from rain, so we started to build it up ourselves. Generally not a big thing, but instead of a written instruction with the delivery the seller send a link to an online instruction with nice animation videos. Not really comfortable to check your phone while working on the one hand but more problematic that a lot of parts of the kota where not exactly like the description and animation. The bottom, the corner pieces, the door, the benches, the grill… almost all steps you had to make changes and could guess what is the correct way, some parts were even missing completely. So, we checked pictures from the manufacturer to see if we are correct. At the end we could finish the building process yesterday evening. Now, we only need to finish oiling it. Yesterday night and today it was too much rain 🌧 so, we will do that within the next days. Also the surrounding and decoration will be made in the near future. But after nine days of hard work we had to spend 2-3 hours relaxing with a barbecue in our kota tonight 😋🌭🥗

Let’s see what the next week will bring 😉

By the way: the dogs are doing fine. Joël wants to go for walks with them every day again and again… good for the puppies to learn to walk on the leash 🐕🐾 and Joël’s most favorite thing on the yard is the “brumm brumm” – the atv. He loves to join a ride and next week colder temperatures are promised, so maybe we can go out together for training with the adult dogs 🐶

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29.09.2020

Ready

It felt like centuries but yesterday we could finally finish the dog cages and today our very happy dogs moved in 😃🐕🐾

But from the start: the weekend we used to put the bottom logs on their places and correct last parts were the ground was not really even. That takes more time than you think, especially when you also want to spend time with your dogs beside working. Then we started with the kennel elements in the back before we had to move the dog houses into the cages. They are way too big and with about 200kg each much too heavy to maneuver through the doors. So, better to put them on place before you close the kennel. But how do you move them over the yard? Ask Raffi, he always finds a creative solution 😉

When the dog houses were inside we could go on to put the elements around, screw them in the bottom logs and build some door locks/openers (they are delivered without). Now we need to think about a stabilization for the long side of the cage in the corner as well as cross our fingers that the dogs are not digging too much 😉✊🐾 but so far the dogs are enjoying there new homes, especially Ranger likes the view from the roof of the dog house.

So, we can focus on the smaller things in the kennel and the bigger tasks in the house.

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25.09.2020

What a day

Today was a good day, no question…

Getting up early to prepare the ground for the dog cages we received a sms that we will get a delivery at 7:30. While having breakfast we were guessing what that could be… last part of Byggmax delivery for our roof? The main part had already arrived on Wednesday after order late on Friday, so that was really fast. Dog kennel elements? Something else?

Some minutes after the suggested time a big truck arrived – and unloaded our sofa that we were waiting for quite long (and expected delivery in the afternoon). Yeah, now it gets comfortable in our living room 😊

At the same time the guys from Nito Last AB came with the digger to help preparing the kennel area. With a lot of big stones in the ground it was not possible to do it just by hand. So, it’s perfect to have the big machines right in our little village. Thanks so much 🙏

And short after lunch when Joël was trying out the new sofa for a nap another big truck came. I could see the truck but not what he was unloading so had to wait for Raffi’s info… and what we were not anymore expecting for today, it was the kennel elements 😃👏🐕

Now we can finally finish the cages at the weekend. We are really happy about that, hopefully the dogs too 😉

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11.09.2020

Nr. 1 Eigenschaft in Lappland

Was ist eurer Meinung nach die wichtigste der persönlichen Eigenschaften in Lappland?

Kreativ sein bei der Lösung von Problemen? Ruhe bewahren, wenn es nicht wie geplant läuft? Gute Ideen bisher… aber es ist viel einfacher: Geduld ist die richtige Antwort. Und wer mich kennt, weiß, dass das nicht meine persönliche Stärke ist 😉

Aber im Moment brauchen wir viel davon. Mehrere Tage lang warteten wir auf die Lieferung unserer neuen Matratzen, um sie gegen unsere Isomatten auszutauschen, die wir seit unserer Ankunft benutzten. Auch auf das Hundefutter mussten wir warten. Das wurde zwar bereits letzte Woche geschickt und kam am Sonntag in Skellefteå an, aber bis gestern hatte es die letzten 100 km zu uns nicht geschafft. Und nicht zuletzt warten wir auf die Hundezwinger-Elemente, damit alle Hunde genügend Platz haben. Zumindest Matratzen und Hundefutter wurden gestern geliefert 🙂

Aber natürlich sitzen und warten wir nicht nur. Alle Kisten aus Deutschland sind jetzt ausgepackt und es sieht schon fast wieder ordentlich im Haus aus. Wir bauen weiter fleißig Hundehütten und beginnen, den Bereich vorzubereiten, auf dem die Zwinger ihren Platz bekommen werden.

Und wir arbeiten auch an der Gründung des Unternehmens. Nettes Feedback und Unterstützung von den Gemeinden Glommersträsk und Arvidsjaur und den Menschen in der Umgebung haben wir bereits vom ersten Tag an erhalten.

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11.09.2020

No. 1 skill in Lapland

What do you think is the number one of personal skills in Lapland?

Being creative in solving problems? Staying calm if things don’t go like planned? Good ideas so far… but it’s much easier: patience is the right answer. And who knows me knows that this is not my personal strength 😉

But at the moment we need a lot of it. For several days we were waiting for the delivery of our new bed mattresses to exchange with our camping mattresses that we were using since we have arrived. Also waiting for dog food that was send already last week and arrived in Skellefteå on Sunday but since yesterday hasn’t made the last 100km to our place. And last but not least waiting for the dog kennel elements so that all dogs have enough space. At least mattresses and dog food were delivered yesterday 🙂

But of course, we are not just sitting and waiting. All boxes from Germany are unpacked now and it looks almost tidy in the house again. We are continuing the building of dog houses and start to prepare the area where the kennels will get their place.

And we are also working on set up the company, already getting nice feedback and support from Glommersträsk and Arvidsjaur municipalities and people around.

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04.09.2020

Work in progress

You are probably already waiting for an update… so, here we are.

The last few days were a lot of work but we enjoy being at our new place. On Wednesday we picked up the poles for the free run and the bottom logs for the kennels from Ute Trä AB in Arvidsjaur. For this we had to rent a really big trailer – this time it was privately rent so without any problems 😉 but Raffi had to drive two times because otherwise the load would have been too heavy. The really nice people from Ute Trä gave us the advice to ask somebody with a tractor to help unloading, but look how easy it goes…

In the afternoon our stuff from Germany arrived. About 50 boxes, a lot of working tools, my bike – yeah we can train 😉 and also the kennel elements from the one cage that we had there. So, yesterday we quickly build up the kennel and now always some of the dogs can be in the kennel. Luna and Stella seemed to be very excited about it 🙂 sorry for the bad quality of the picture but they were moving much too fast and today it’s raining, so no good opportunity to make a new one.

After that was done we drove to Piteå to pick up a nice old cabinet and the first part of the material needed for building the dog houses.

Later and also today we continued to unpack the boxes, sort everything to the correct place and try to get some order… and again driving to the DIY store to buy the rest for the dog houses.

By the way, on Monday the moose hunting season starts. But we already had visitors in our backyard today. A little bit into the forest on the picture above there were really fresh moose and reindeer tracks. So, maybe better to wait with the training for some days. Not so funny to meet a moose with the bike and some dogs while hunters are around 😉