“Hi I’m Mauro. Let’s be friends.”

We spent one week in Moscow and during that time Mauro was in Skiren Gården. A friend highly recommended this dog hotel for Mauro, about 70 km. (45 miles) south of Stockholm. We had planned to visit it 3 weekends ago. The previous week had been warm and everything was melting. However on Friday evening it began to snow. Before the weekend was over, we had a foot of snow and I decided the better part of valor was to skip the inspection and rely on our friend’s recommendation. That was a good decision. It continued to snow off and on all week and, although the weather was clear on the following Sunday when we took Mauro to the kennel, there was two feet of snow in the forest. And the kennel is deep in the forest. Once you leave our equivalent of the interstate, the roads begin to narrow. The forest gets heavier and heavier and the road narrows, eventually to about one lane which was covered with a layer of ice. When you meet another car, one of you has to pull over or back-up until you can pass. If you go off the road, you are a goner. You could call a tow truck if there was any cell phone service out there but, very strangely for Sweden, there isn’t.

Mauro turned out to be a backseat driver. We got him in the car okay and he seemed relatively calm. But he spent the whole trip looking over my shoulder and mumbling to himself and whining and drooling on me. It was kind of like he was saying “slow down, watch out for that car, and don’t miss the turn”. If we travel this summer, I am going to definitely have a talk with him.

The kennel is in the middle of the forest, surrounded by trees and a lake. It has separate, large inside enclosures for each dog, is very clean and the owner obviously loves dogs. They walk the dogs 3 times a day and the dogs get to run loose on the lake. Mauro loved the chance to be able to run free. I think he lost a couple of pounds there, what with fewer treats and more exercise. When we got there he immediately made friends with the owner and then went from dog to dog as if to say “Hi I’m Mauro. Let’s be friends.” I had to laugh to myself thinking about our Akita Lucy. She was very friendly with people but was, as one person described it, “animal aggressive.” If we had brought her into the same situation, she would have said “Hi. I’m Lucy. I’m in charge. Stay away from me. If anyone doesn’t like it, step up now and I’ll kick your ass, so we know where we stand.” All in all I guess Mauro’s approach is better but I did love my Lucy.

This also reminds me of another difference between the two. When we were deciding on another dog, my wife voted for a Cane Corso because, among other reasons, with the short coat, we wouldn’t have big balls of white hair all over. She was right. Now we have short dark hair all over instead. I guess that is one indication that Spring may be on the way. Mauro is shedding huge amounts of hair.

We were home on Friday and picked up Mauro in the sunshine on Saturday morning. All three of us are happy to be home. Mauro has been particularly frisky as we have gotten about a foot of snow in the past 36 hours. It continues to snow, so he has nice fresh snow to play in every time he goes out. We have had more snow in the past two weeks that we have had all winter. At the moment everything is white and beautiful. It is a challenge to try and hold 100 plus pounds of puppy romping in the snow at the end of the leash but at least we have ended our separation anxiety.