Tonight we are leaving for Holland again. Yatzie is a hero when it comes to flying, she has gotten used to it and nowadays she never complains about entering the air kennel. She took a last dip in the snow outside our apartment and went for a last rabbit hunt - disappeared for a while during our walk but as always came back happy, exhausted, full of dirt and thirsty. Then went drinking in the most smelly puddle she could find! I always try to prevent her from going into that one, but I was on top of a cliff... You can see her coming out of there dripping in one of the pictures. Just before that I found the first blue anemone - the most happy sign of spring here in Sweden!

The sunny weekend called us out for a nice walk with Silas, his family and team Neld. Axel chased Yatzie, Yatzie chased Silas and all of us enjoyed the lovely weather and the home made cakes at Stora Skuggan's excellent café.

Say the name Isa and Yatzie goes wild! Isa is a Portugese water dog, 9 months younger than Yatzie. They first met when Yatzies was around 1 ½. They immediately became best friends, play mates, a hunting team; they rest together, eat together and just enjoy life together. But every time they meet, Yatzie demands from Isa to lie down on her back and Yatzie must sound like a lion for half a minute. Then it is over. They both know it, and Angela, Isas mum, and I have had to accept that this is the procedure between these two, we can not prevent it. For the rest of their time together Yatzie is the one who is on her back the most! Saturday we spent two fantastic hours on the ice and in the woods near Waxholm, blue sky all day!

In grandma and grandpa's house Yatzie has her own box full of toys. The light blue octopus is a favourite and she can not get enough of playing with it. Anna, Yatzie's mini mum, is her best human play mate - or maybe she is also a dog, Yatzie has asked herself many times while tumbling around together! And then, after a playful session, what could be better than just resting in Anna's arms?

The time had come for both business meetings and visiting family and friends in Stockholm and Yatzie and I flew here this morning. No more daffodills and crocuses - instead a heavy snowfall! Yatzie loves it and when people here see ur excitement about the snow they shake their heads. They have had enough of it and are longing for spring. Yatzie had a nice tumble around with her good Dutch neighbour Silas who was so happy to see Yatzie he was shouting of joy!

Luna is a light spirited labrador who lives with our dear friends in Den Hague and they paid us a visit this past weekend. Luna knows Saartje from childhood and gets along well with Yatzie too. Now that spring is advancing quickly we decided to catch some of the beauty and made the dogs pose in a crocus field. Marianne did a great job to get all three of them in a pose! Planted fields of crocus and daffodils are a common sight in Holland around this time. Holland is after all the country of flowers! Coltsfoot (tussilago) has been around for a while already and many trees are sprouting. In a hedge in our garden a bird is busy building her nest. Last year we had five nestelings there! Spring brings new hope and joy for both animals and humans!

If it runs, if it flies, Yatzie's eyes turn into an eagle's and her focus is fascinating. Then the hunting pose, front leg up high, concentration. That is my hunting dog, my beloved Yatzie, that at times drives me crazy believing the prey is much more interesting than her master's dummy... like today, at the hunting training... But I tell myself, do not give up on the training... do not get angry... Yatzie is just in her element and I started late (I hope not too late) with the hunting training. When there is a prey or a fresh trace she turns deaf, she is only nose and eyes. When not she is all ears, an excellent dummy retriever, doing every step right, with lots of joy! Let's do it Yatzie, let us work for the hunting diploma together!

If hunting is Yatzie's passions, balls is Saartje's! Today as we walked around the Niederlandse Plasse our old labrador Saartje found a smelly ball in the dirtiest part of a canal. She was so happy about the ball that she did not allow me to take it from her mouth to throw it for her. She happily chewed on it as we walked around the lake, she even forgot that she can not run very fast due to her arthrosis. But after half an hour she was ready to play. So I tied Yatzie to a tree for 20 minutes. This was too unfair in Yatzies eyes who protested with a loud voice!

Yatzie has now left behind her a long period of fake pregnancy, during which she has been very affected by the motherhood hormones; she did not want to go out, she was making nests at home etc etc. Now she has so much energy! This energy she canalizes in hunting... it is getting out of hand sometimes as she is extending her area and the time that she is away. So I am forced to keep her on a long line - she can move but not run away.

This is Lumi. She is a White Shepherd that has captured the hearts of many and inspired the book "In love with Mrs White" (Verliefd op mevrouw de wit, Ton Verlind), that will be published in two weeks. I wish my Dutch was better, so that I could enjoy the book. But in fact being able to instead enjoy the company of Lumi herself is not bad! Yatzie and Lumi attend the same hunting training in Almere. When we took a walk the other day, Letty, Lumis mum, and I noticed that the two new friends already were cooperating as hunting dogs: Lumi being the scout in the front, Yatzie waiting for her to signal the direction. PS Lumi means snow in Finnish.

The Barbet is originally a fowl hunting dog, an excellent water retriever with a special talent to search for the shot fowl in reed and marshlands. The hunting instinct is stronger in some lines of Barbets, and Yatzie has a lot of it. During our walk in the Amsterdamse Bos last week Yatzie was very interested in a group of birds in one of the canals and I let her run freely there for a while. She has never caught a flying bird and I hope that will never happen. And when she jumps into the water the birds are of course much faster than her. She does not seem to understand that and chases them in the water with the same enthusiasm, sometimes barking as she is swimming, while the distance is getting wider and wider between her and them.