Prune Mafia

« Otava eyes a pair of swans and considers swimming over to them until one of them hisses at him. He pouted for the rest of the day. »

What is it about my freak magnetism that I seem to especially attract crazy, nasty women of the over-40 set who feel the need to give me some sort of sermon about how cruel it is of me to have such a big dog anywhere but on a farm out in the country while out enjoying a relaxing walk and minding my own business? The usual ignorance about large dogs often grates on my nerves but these people with the idea that big dogs are more energetic than, say, a psychotic Jack Russell or German Shepherd are really starting to try my patience since obviously they've never had a big dog and possibly never had a dog at all.

Why people feel the need and the confidence to pontificate on how big dogs don't belong anywhere but the countryside is beyond me, but the next time some prune faced old hag comes up to me and starts to give me shit, I think I'm just going to come unhinged. Maybe there's an old pissy bitch network that will natter about how one of their operatives got bitched out by some crazy woman and lay off for a while or move their operation to another part of the city. Oh, and bitches, my dog's name is not Beethoven.

Having gotten that out of my system....The Helsinki Parks Department who also maintain all the dog parks have rather curiously added a dog park map [pdf] that is nice for getting a general big picture of where the parks are in the city but there's no information to accompany the dots which makes it not very useful for much else. If I get time, I may take the pictures and info from the dog park guide for area I and maybe make an image map to make it useful in some way. It would be interesting to see the locations of the dog parks mapped with the distribution of dog ownership in Helsinki, too.

The toxic algae season has arrived as well. Rajasaari is already on yellow alert so dog owners should check the warning map daily since it is deadly toxic to dogs. No more swimming for a while. :(

The Helsingin Sanomat had an article in the last week or so about doggie day care coming to Helsinki. I think it was ~20eur/day or so and likely only for the small dogs but I think it's a great service that will likely become very popular. The päivähoito is called Rakkaat Haukut and the day care is on Lauttasaari as well as a number of canine obedience courses that I've been considering for Otava. And, WETNÖZ, a dog specialty company, has a cool new toy called the 'spring roll' as well as some new very pretty looking bowls and scoops.