Chloe and Knut - A happy ending and a short update

Feels like a little update on what has happened since our last blog post is in order. To start with, we are happy to announce that our temporarily adopted dogs (Chloe and Knut) found two good new homes in Santiago.

Chloe exploring her new territory

The adoption process turned out to be more complicated than we had hoped. Not for the lack of interest, we did receive quite a few inquiries. Unfortunately, some of the motivations of the people who contacted us didn't really line up with our expectations.

Knut - now called Ramiro and quite grown up! - in his new environment (apparently he sleeps in the bed... no kidding!)

Just to give you a few examples:

1. Twenty-something year old guy with a very active lifestyle and who would regularly take Chloe (the German Shorthair Pointer) running or mountain biking. He lives with his parents who have a large house and garden... sounded perfect. Except for the minor detail that he hadn't really bothered discussing this with his parents. And guess who would have to look after Chloe when this chap eventually decides to move out of his parent's place and into a nice shiny apartment in Providencia (....or one of these hip places for young professionals these days)? You got it - his parents. In the end they didn't want to have anything to do with all this, so it fell through.
2. Or the person who wanted to adopt Chloe because she loved this breed of dogs (she already had one of this "brand"). But after a few messages sent back and forth she let us know that her boyfriend preferred to breed the dog they already had and keep one of the puppies (... and the other 7 may end up like Chloe dumped in the mountains in 12 months time?)
3. Or several people who didn't even try to hide the fact that they wanted Chloe because she is a pure breed dog and they could breed her and then sell the puppies on yapo.cl or similar places.
4. Or someone who wanted Knut (the Labrador crossbreed) but didn't like at all the idea that we wouldn't give him away without sterilisation.

Chloe is making friends in her new home

But in the end the wait was worth it and we found two families which seemed just right for each of the two.

Apart from finding a new home for these two dogs, we also had to medicate them to get rid of some nasty parasites (i.e. liquid dog poop all over the garden) which they had picked up in the mountains. But this all cleared up after a few weeks and we even managed to go through with the sterilisation, as planned, thanks to the help of our vet friend Ana.

Another member of Chloe's new family

Ramiro and his new house mate

So for now it looks like a happy ending all around... let's hope it stays this way but our hopes are high!

Having 4 dogs around the house for a few weeks naturally meant a bit of a compromise for everyone, our own dogs Mario and Pfiffi included. Trying to make up for the lack of attention we took Pfiffi to an agility course a couple of weekends ago. She had a lot of fun and clearly enjoyed the one-on-one attention, although it is probably fair to say that this whole thing of jumping through some hoops or doing some other silly things is fun for a while, until she finds something else that is more interesting (like, trying to escape and explore the neighbourhood). But we knew that our dogs are not necessarily blindly obedient and rather somewhat free spirits... I wonder where they got this from?! q-: Anyway, here is a brief video:

It was sad to see again how most of the other course participants were pure breed dogs, highlighting again the problem that we perceive in Santiago where people don't think there is anything wrong with spending lots of money on a particular "brand" of dog when there are already so many dogs out there in the streets.

On the "other news" front we can report that we have decided to put our straw bale eco house building project on hold for now. We've been designing it over the last year or so with the help of an architect. But now we've been trying to put a budget to the whole project and figured that it's a bit beyond what we want to spend at this stage. The project isn't dead but for the time being the timelines have extended a bit and we are priortising improving the property for now. We have already built a proper fence and are hoping to plant a "green fence" alongside it (i.e. a hedge to cover the fence). Also a few fruit trees would be nice and then we probably have to tackle the issue of the waste water disposal (or lack of) in the Adobe house that is on the property and in which our "care takers" live.

In the meantime there has been an opportunity, though, to put our solar design experience into practice. Christian built a little "Trombe Wall", which is a fancy way of calling a green house extension to the house, along it's norther (i.e. the sun facing) side. It's basically an air space that traps hot air during the day and which can be diverted into the house to heat it. So far it has made quite a difference and none of this wrapping up in sleeping bags while working on our desks, which was pretty much the norm on most days during previous winters, has been necessary yet.

Our Trombe wall

Last but not least we've also been on a couple of little hikes, the most memorable one was a pre-sun-rise climb of Cerro Manquehue:

View of the Cordillera from the top of Manquehue, very early sunday morning (i,e. before the masses arrive)