Puppies, dogs and blue northerners

Hi Everyone,

Glad to be back writing some blog posts!

As I elluded to before, we have had a very hectic and very up and down autumn. I will spare everyone the grusome details of most of went wrong. I will however share what went right!

Kaia is pregnant with our first child. She is getting a big round belly, and is healthy and happy as can be. She had her first ultrasound last week, which I got to go to. The baby is healthy and moving around a ton. Aaaaaand... It's a boy!
We have been been thinking of names for months now. We thought we had settled on a few, but kept changing our minds. Now I think we have settled on the final name. Eivind.
It is easy to say in English, and is pronounced exactly like it is spelled. So easy for all parties.

We had some puppy litters this past summer that are looking great now. Look at some pictures! These are the Langbein X Soka puppies. They have tons of energy and this is the closest I have come to getting a completely still shot of them!





























Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at Ropphaugen

Well hi, It's been so long

Hi everyone,

First of all I need to apologise for how long it has been since the last posting.
Things got a bit nutty here in September, and have only just mellowed out. So posting has been lowish on the priority list. But! now things are starting to get a bit mellower, and we are ready to start catching up!

We are a few days out from Christmas now. We have trails that are super right now. It snowed all of last week, and we are running on sleds almost every day now.
The dogs are looking awesome. Our pups from last year are really looking super. I was out yesterday morning with some of our youngest. I left before the sun came out, and was out when it came up, so I got to see the sinrise from the back of a dogsled... One of my favorite things.

We lost Jago about a week ago. He ate a rock the size of a small orange, and it did so much damage on the way down that he we had to say goodbye to avoid undue suffering. He was a super dog and we are going to miss him a ton.

Our team is getting more refined and we are soon going to be starting to focus on training to be ready for some shorter races this year, with the major goal being Femundløpet next year.

DeeDee Jonrowe has been taking great care of Ethan's blood tests and paperwork, so he will be ready to join us here in Norway and settle into his forever home. We are super excited to get him here, and we are really impatient to get him into our gang.

The biggest news of late is that Kaia is pregnant with our first child. We have been to the first ultrasound and it's a boy! We are going to call him Eivind. We are excited as we have ever been able anything X 10. Kaia is healthy and looking beautiful. We are feeling blessed in a way we have never felt before.

We are not working with Dr. Tim's anymore. Fjellfor has been a wonderful partner, and now we are looking forward and not backward.

I wanted to make a step in the right direction and post a quick update. I will post some training pictures soon, and will continue posting throughout the winter.

Cheers, Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Barry