Sebastian
The dog-concept became feasible when we found out that dogs are allowed in special rooms in most of the mountain huts here, meaning we wouldn't have to spend a fortune on kennel charges every time we wanted to head for the hills. So Nancy and the girls began scanning the classifieds, looking for likely suspects. Finally an ad turned up for "søte blandingsvalper scæfer/ border collie" (sweet mixed-breed puppies German shepherd / border collie". It was a Saturday morning and we all had big plans for the day, which we dropped immediately in favor of making the two hour drive/ ferry ride / drive to the farm town of Rissa across the fiord. We tried to keep an open mind -- maybe this just wasn't the puppy for us. Well, nobody can just look at a puppy and walk away. The farmer met us at a street intersection with two rather bewildered male pups (a third, female, had already been sold) one mostly black and the other black with tan legs. It took about 24 milliseconds to pick the black and tan and pass the farmer a crisp 500 kroner note.
On the car ride back, the girls dubbed him Sebastian.
Sebastian's life is bound to be adventurous. The weekend after we got him we stayed a night at Vangshaugen, a beautiful hut that is accessible by car, at least until the snow begins to pile up.
The next weekend Nancy and the girls went for a visit to the US, leaving Rick alone with the pup on a particularly fine Saturday. So we went for a little camp out near a windy summit in Bymarka, where we watched the sunset, full moon rise, a lunar eclipse, and then the moon set and sun rise. It was a bit of a stretch for an eight-week old puppy, but Sebastian did just fine. He has his own little tent (a freebie sales pitch from a dog food company) but we haven't tried it outdoors yet.
It wasn't too long before the border collie genes kicked in and he started herding us around the house by feistily attacking our feet. At one point his relentlessness had Molly near tears, but he and we are learning to discourage such inappropriate behaviors. Nevertheless, his penchant for playful nipping and chewing has earned him the nickname "Jaws".
In his proportions and coloration he seems to be all German shepherd, and he's growing fast, but it remains to seen if his ears will stand all the way up or how the border collie will show up.
