When we had our first Border Collie in 1998 (Bluewyle Basic Rhythm so Blue) we bought her practically ”around the corner” from our good friend Johanna Allanach. And although we didn’t attend the delivery, we were currently informed about number of puppies, sex and colour, and for the next 8 weeks we visited the puppies frequently and followed their growth.

When we had our second Border Collie in 2000 (Pikkupaimenen Peach Delight) Johanna was involved again, but this time because she – together with Sari – owned Whizz (Pikkupaimenen Chocolate Shake). We knew Whizz well from her several holiday-stays in our home, and when we heard, she was going to have puppies, we were very eager to get one of these puppies. At the same time we had just started looking for dog number 3, so we contacted Sari and were allowed to buy a puppy – if there were enough of them.

Strange – but also exciting – to follow our puppy “long distance”. Even though Virpi and Toni were sweet to write about the puppies, and to send pictures, there was such a very long distance from Denmark to Finland. And when we finally reached the day, we were going to pick her up at the airport, we were almost bursting from excitement.

However she was very lovely, and within about 2 minutes, she walked right into our hearts. We named her Meghann, and we loved her from the very first minute we had her. Well taken care of in the first 10 weeks of her life, loving and easy to work with, she was just the dog of my dreams.

When Meghann was 2-years old, and we heard about the possibility of taking part in a family-reunion in Finland, there was no doubt in our minds: we had to go, and on the 13th of June 2002 the tour began.

By the way: it all started rather bad. We left home an hour to late, it was raining all the way through Sweden, and there was a lot of road mending. In Stockholm there was a lot of road mending too, and this meant, that somebody had taken down all the signs - among others the ones, that showed the way to our ferry to Finland.

Well – no more than 5 minutes before “latest meeting time” we threw the car through the ticket-control, and without having any chance of taking Meghann out for peeing, we rushed directly into the ferry. We had a long night ahead of us. Meghann was restless; the cabin was miserable and the ferry was very little dog-minded. Never mind, the next morning we woke up in Finland. We found a place to have breakfast, and then drove the last 300 km. to Rekola dog sport center. Nothing could go wrong now, and nothing did! Without any trouble, we found the place and arrived in the beginning of the afternoon as the first ones.

We took a small nap in the car, until we could hear a car turn up. As we had never met any of the other participants, naturally we were very excited to find out, who was coming. But the car had hardly stopped, before Riikka, Jari and Johanna came out, and everybody was talking, just as we had known each other for ages. We couldn’t have had a better reception.

The first task was to find out, where to put Sari, and after that to get the hospital bed, which has been borrowed from some hospital, struggled into the house. Next task was to get the many refrigerators in the big kitchen to work. Only one of them gave us trouble, but after finding the switch on the ceiling, it was only a question of asking Bent to climb up and put it on.

The third task – and a very important one – was to find out where to sleep. Being some of the first persons on the place, we had a free choice. We took a nice corner-room on the 1st floor with a nice view over the lake and the fields.

Finally the ambulance came with Sari, and then we were just waiting for some more participants. Most of them came during Friday afternoon and evening, and the rest Saturday morning. In the end, all the rooms were nearly fully occupied. The last ones arriving even had to sleep in the sauna by the lake.

Bent went to Jyväskylä together with Jari and Minna to get the agility obstacles and to buy the last missing grocery. In the meantime, we (Meghann and I) met a lot of new friends, both with 2 and 4 legs. Furthermore there were made rules for visiting Sari. Hanna (Sari’s personal assistant) made a slip of paper. When the slip was on the outside of the door, admittance was forbidden. Was the slip on the inside of the door, we were free to go in and say hello - naturally with respect for the fact, that everybody wanted to visit Sari. This was easy to understand, no matter which language you were speaking.

The question about the language has been one of our biggest scruples. Would we at all be able to communicate with the Finnish people? But it proved not to be a problem at all. Most of them spoke English, a few Swedish and the rest spoke excellent “finger-language”.

Supper Friday evening was the first of a long series of good meals. With good helpers in the kitchen and a good sponsor, every day we had nice food – and plenty of it! All the time we were allowed to go to the kitchen for tea or coffee or whatever we wanted.

Friday evening we made a little presentation of those, who had arrived. Everyone was very active dog-people, and it was very exciting to hear, how many different things people were doing with their dogs. Contrary to Denmark, where most Border Collie owners practise agility, obedience or herding, Finnish Border Collie owners do much more searching and tracking, but also agility and obedience. I’m convinced, that Pikkupaimenen-owners may be the most active dog-people in the world.

Tired and satiated with new impressions and a long journey, we went to sleep around midnight, but before we slept, we just had the time to see, that in spite of the late hour, it wasn’t dark as in Denmark at that time of the night.

Saturday was spent with training, visits to Sari and a lot of talking with a lot of different people. As I concentrated on the agility-training, I can’t tell anything at all about those, who trained something else, except the fact, that they started awfully early in the morning, and they went on until very late in the evening.

I myself had great pleasure in the agility-training with Pasi (with the help of Jaana as a translator). Meghann did a god job, although the weather was rather hot, and even though she in between had to flirt a little with Osku (P.P. Sir Titanium). And it’s always nice to have some “input” on your training from people, who doesn’t know me and my dog and all our weaknesses. People, who just say: do it this way!

The ultimate culmination Saturday was when the new nice Pikkupaimenen-t-shirts arrived. They were quickly distributed, and shortly after, you could see many participants dressed in their new t-shirts.

Saturday evening started for us with Elina’s wonderful lecture about dog-massage. Especially about stretching the dog’s muscles.  We humans are often inclined to expect top-performances from our dogs, without giving them the optimum possibilities to do these top-performances. We learned about the importance of stretching the dog’s muscles and how to do it. Elina made her lecture in English, just for us, and we were very grateful.

Later in the evening, there were made a fire on the barbecue in the garden. And even if we didn’t feel, we could eat any more food; we managed to eat some well-done sausages. While the boys were in the sauna, the girls had a weaving-competition. In fact, it’s rather difficult to run fast through the weaving-sticks/pools, if you’re not a dog. But after a tough fight (and even a replay) Elina was elected as a winner, and she shared her price, which was a bag of candy.

During the evening and night, there were a lot of laughing, and the language was no hindrance to understanding. And the language was no problem at all, when there was a magnificent ballet-performance. On a big bale of straw, placed just outside Sari’s window, Toni performed pieces of “Swan Lake” (I guess it was). Very sensitive and with great persistence. I’m sure, that none of us, who saw this, will ever forget this lovely scene.

About 2 o’clock in the night, we had to surrender to our beds, but I think, that some of the tough ones went on.

Sunday morning was almost the same as Saturday. Still there was a lot of training, for instance flyball. And even a puppy-motivation-class was found there. More and more people came to Rekola. Among others we met a dog from the first litter Sari made: Piki (P.P. Mr. Pickwick). It was fantastic to see, that the family relations are the same, no matter if your dog are from the first or the last litter.

A lot of pictures were taken. I guess, that all dogs were photographed for Sari’s collection of pictures. And a lot of participants wanted to take pictures of their dogs together with family-members. So Meghann was pictured together with littermate Hera (P.P. Pina Colada), with grandma Cola and uncles Rontti (P.P. Cuba Libre) and Jesse (P.P. Contreau).

Too soon it was time to break up. The ambulance came for Sari, and everybody else was cleaning the house. Lots of hugs were given, and as people were leaving, some crying was done. Maybe because we just met for the first time, and then very quickly found out, that we had a community around our dogs, which did, that we felt like family at once. And add to that the fact, that a lot of us knew, it might take a long time, before we meet again.

Best thing was, that Riikka and Minna already at that point started to talk about: “Next time…..” and even if it takes 2 years before next time, we now know, that we will go again and meet the family. We have already decided, that next time we will use a larger part of our holiday to see some more of this beautiful country.

To us, holiday weren’t totally finished. We were going to stay overnight at Sari’s place, before we started the ride south for Denmark. It was fantastic for us to get to know Cola and Mike for a longer time, and especially it was great fun to watch Meghann together with her grandma. There were a lot of things with Cola, which was comparable to Meghann. But at the same time, Cola radiated authority against the two young dogs (Mike and Meghann), which both handled her with great respect.

Sunday evening we went for a walk with Hanna, who showed us, where we could go with the dogs. This meant, that Monday morning we were able to take all 3 dogs for a long walk. Furthermore Sunday evening and Monday morning were used for looking at pictures. We saw a lot of Sari’s pictures, and Sari saw the two albums we had brought for the same purpose. A funny thing was, that afterwards there was a lot of empty “pockets” in our albums. How could that be ???

About 2 o’clock in the afternoon it was time to leave. Lots of hugs and tears were given, but also promises about coming back. Be sure – we will.

We would like to use this opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to all our many new friends: Toni and Virpi (who took care of our Meghann the first 10 weeks of her life), Riikka and Jari, Minna, Katja and Jesse, Miia, Lea, Pasi and Jaana, and all the others, whose names unfortunately we can’t remember. But especially thanks to Riikka and Minna, who had put a lot of work into this grand arrangement. You can be proud of yourselves – you did a great job.

See you again to the next Pikkupaimenen family reunion.
 

Back to the Family Reunion page