Dog days of summer

They have come and gone. But, I dearly hope, not in the sense that the hottest days of summer are already behind us. As far as western Norway goes, summer has been a disappointment so far. As always the spring was nice, but for weeks now the daytime temperature has hardly reached 20 degrees Celcius (68F). We have had a little sun today, but mostly it has varied between cloudy, drizzle and full on downpour.

No, the “diēs caniculārēs”, as the Romans used to call it, just refers to the fact that we have had a dog visiting for a week. While some friends of ours went off on a little holiday, they left their Norfolk terrier Tessa with us at Hilltop House. We are debating whether or not to get a dog, so this was also a test to see how we liked it.

PLAYFULL. Tessa likes to play every now and then.

Tessa is the cutest little thing. She is tiny, hardly any bigger than a cat, and has a very pretty ginger colour. We were prepared for her to be a bit restless and sulky from missing her family but she seemed to be in a quiet, good mood all the time. No barking, except for when there was a cat around, no nagging and no mess. It would have been easy to forget that she was there at all. Every evening when she was tired, she went into her cage and slept all through the night.

It was incredibly nice every morning to be met by someone who was so happy to see us that she almost fell over from wagging her tail so hard. We are not the fittest people in the world, so it was also good for us to have to go for walks several times a day. Tessa loved her walkies. There would always be something interesting to sniff, especially all the frogs that came out in the wet weather. One day she found an old flat football that she just wouldn’t leave behind. Craning her neck to hold it up from the ground, she carried it all the way home. Quite an achievement for someone with such short legs. That football was her favourite toy while she was here.

WELL BEHAVED. - But, where's my titbit?

We are still undecided about getting a dog. Not to mention what breed to get. We have tried numerous “breed selectors” online but none of them come up with the same breeds. I think that the Belgian collies are lovely dogs, but they may be too much for us to handle. We’ll see. Perhaps you have some advice for us?

ENJOYING. Being scratched behind the ears is just sooo good.

Hope you have all had a good weekend and wishing you a good week ahead. J