LA Shopping & Dog Trainers

I miss LA and all the shopping like CRAZY today. :(
And it does not help watching a bunch of TV shows, which all seem to be from LA....Reminders, reminders, reminders.... :(

In a little while I am about to watch a show called Show Dog Moms and Dads. It’s about five devoted (and some a bit crazy) dog families in the US. One I believe is a Dog Trainer, and I really liked her class structures. Her clients are people wanting to compete with their dogs in obedience trials. I wish I had known of her when my boys – Alih & Carlos – were young and I kept dragging them around to different classes...Quite a few of the classes we went to, I didn't like due to the trainers having philosophies that did not match my dog philosophy... or they were just plain old idiots who probably woke up one day and decided to start calling themselves Dog Trainers. Even though he’s not a dog trainer (i.e. he rehabilitates dogs and train humans) I truly am a follower of Cesar Millan. I cannot understand all these dumb asses who have something negative to say about him. To me their yapping sound like: "blablablabla, crap, crap, crap.... " In other words, it sounds like BULLSHIT to my ears! :)

What to do without music?

I love going to musicals and concerts...some of my most fabulous nights have been spent at some concert or musical.

One fabulous moment was when Anna and I went to a Tina Turner concert in LA at the Greek Theatre. The year was 1997 :) It was so damn AWESOME!

And while I lived in London I stayed quite busy going to musicals and concerts – for instance I saw...

* The musical FAME with my friend Tasha... It was Superb!

* The musical DANCING IN THE STREETS with my good friend Gaby... AMAZING!

* I was so darn lucky I managed to win 2 tickets to the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park ..My cousin Karro was coming for a visit so she and I went. It was great! And the performance that probably excited and shocked me the most was Robbie Williams. I have never really been a big fan of him, but he was AWESOME live. He had such charisma... Karro and I were both totally sold!. Hihihi...

And, when in NYC I love going to Café Wha in the Village. Amazing singers and performers... I could sit there for hours listening to them.

What the heck would we do without music????!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out Robbie at Live 8... Karro and I are in the audience somewhere mesmerized by him... LOL.



Below is a live performance at Cafe Wha by one of my favourite guys - Amadou. Give the clip a little time for him to get started. He has an amazing voice. Not sure what the guy who's filming is up to though... he's all over with the camera. :) The guy next to Amadou is another favorite... his name is Bryan. The last time I was at Cafe Wha I was dragged up by one of the band members.. and had to dance with him in front of all the freakn people at the club. That was not embarrassing at all... NOPE! :)

Kolmården

James did great at the Day-Care. Can you believe he has been out walking with 6 other dogs at once – handled by one person at one time??? :) Yup, that would be my boy!

He spent 3 hours at the Day-Care on Wednesday, mostly to see if it would work and to give him a chance to get used to the new environment. And yesterday, Thursday, he was there the whole day as Mr. L and I went to Kolmården. Alih spent the first part of the day at home sleeping and the afternoon at work with my dad. His office is busy with people running in and out of the there the whole time, so Mr. Alih was busy greeting all the visitors. Hihihi... Since we came home kind of late, my dad had to pick James up at the Day-Care. And he was told Jay had been a very well-behaved baby this day as well. Ahhhh, THANK GOD! :)

When my dad called to let me know he had picked Jay up, he started the conversation by saying: “well, the damages Janne has caused came to an amount of ... “. LOL

PS. Did you notice the name, Janne? Janne is my dad's nickname for James. LOL...A Swedish name and maybe not the most beautiful name in the world. :)

But back to our day at Kolmården which is, I believe, the biggest Zoo in Sweden. However, having been to both the Wild Animal Park & the San Diego Zoo (in San Diego, California) we were both a bit disappointed to tell the truth. We went there because it would be a fun day trip, but also because a friend of ours was there with her kids. Our friend, Susanne, is a friend from LA and she’s in Sweden for 5 weeks with her kids, visiting her parents in Linköping. Susanne also had some fabulous “treats” for me. Hihihi.. You see, I asked her before leaving LA to buy some items for me that I can’t get here or items that are too pricey in Sweden. In my Goody-Bag were make-up from Dior and Channel, some stuff from Victoria Secrets and some other fabulous items. :)

Here are pics of some of our new friends at Kolmården:






We finished the day off by going on an aerial cableway ride over-looking the park.

Day-Care Training...

James is going to Day-Care tomorrow.... hihihi... it’s just for a few hours for acclimatization ..But if that works, he will spend the whole day there on Thursday as we are going on a little trip.

My dad said he would have both dogs with him at work, but Good Luck trying to get any work done with James around. :) If for some reason the Day-Care feels James is too wild for them, I will take him to the country to my mom Wednesday night. Knowing James, he will have a fabulous ass time at the Day-Care tomorrow. The question is - will they? :)

Also, booked a private training lesson at the end of July with James. We need to get back in to shape before the fall is here and it's back to "school" for James. On the agenda this fall are: Obedience Class 2 (Grundkurs 2) and Competition Obedience Class 1 (Tävlingslydnad 1). I would love to get James started with Weight Pulling but it all depends on if we have the time...

The World Dog Show!

We had a great time at the World Dog Show. We went to the "Amstaff Ring" almost immediately upon arriving, and there we met James brother Atlas. Atlas and his “mommy” were waiting on their turn to enter the ring, and we got a chance to chat with them for a little bit. Atlas received a "Very Good" rating on the quality judging part but was kicked out in the competition part, which I believe they are still happy with considering the fierce competition. When the Male Juniors were done, we headed to the obedience ring and the World Championship in Obedience. It was great fun to see. We only watched a few countries though as we wanted to head back to the Amstaff Ring and watch the Male Amstaff Champions compete. Wow, talk about beautiful dogs. The winning dog was actually an American bred dog, but now owned by a kennel in Denmark, and the dog that came second is owned by a well-established Swedish kennel. All the Champions were sooooo beautiful but I believe the judge got it right in the end. At first it almost seemed impossible to pick one out of all these beautiful dogs. But I really fell for the winner and the runner up, and I told Mr. L. when the judge had narrowed it down to five: “You watch. Those 2 dogs will come first and second”... and they sure did. It was something out of the ordinary with them; they had personalities that shine through.

After that it was time to do a little shopping. Hihi.. I got a new leather leash for James and a new show leash as well. Oh, he will be so pretty. :) I got a few other small things but that was about it. I was actually a bit disappointed with the shopping; it was not as much as I had expected and the prices were not that good either. Anyhow, we ended up going back to the obedience ring where we more or less stayed until it was time to head home.

Right now I am waiting on both my babies to come home!! :) I have missed them like crazy this weekend, so I can barley wait.

Atlas waiting to enter the Show Ring