It was wonderful to catch up with a few people when I was in the Stavanger area again. I missed seeing my friend Lynn when I was down in at the end of August and we met up for coffee in Sandnes. Then my ex-boss Guro got in touch, so we went for a short walk together and ate delicious pumpkin soup that she brought. Guro also works for Mattilsynet in animal welfare and health, so it was interesting to compare notes about the tiny office in Finnsnes, compared to the much larger scale operation in Sandnes where she works.

We also celebrated Charlie’s birthday, on the 6th November, with food and cake.

It was lovely to catch up with people and also to eat cake, but most of this blog is going to be about our journey, and in particular about Triar. Back when he was younger, we worked hard trying to get him used to doing different things. We took him to the Christmas Marker in Egersund to get him used to crowds and into Stavanger on the train to dog-friendly coffee houses, where he learned to lie under the table while we ate.

But for the past three years, he’s lived a much more isolated life. Occasionally he went into eateries with us, but he never really settled and it was too inconvenient and expensive to be worth pursuing. The nearest train was a two hour drive away in Narvik and somehow, we never got round to taking him on the fast boat to Tromsø.

So I was interested to see how he would cope when he was thrown in at the deep end. The first leg of our journey was on the Fjord Line ferry that goes from Stavanger to Hirtshals in Denmark. We had a dog-friendly cabin, which was very comfortable. Fortunately, the weather could not have been much better and within minutes of boarding, Triar was feeling very relaxed.

Though I woke up a few times to find the boat gently rocking, Triar slept right through the night and seemed very cheery as we arrived in Denmark.

We had booked a taxi for 08:30 to take us from the dock to the railway station, but when I called the taxi firm, they said they had the booking marked for 09:00 and couldn’t get there sooner. Fortunately, there was a bus available, which we managed to hail, just as it was about to leave. We asked the driver whether we could bring the dog on board and he said of course we could.

Triar was such a good boy on the bus that the driver climbed out as he dropped us off to meet him properly. Triar can be a bit stand-offish with new people, but when the driver got down to his level and held out his hand, Triar did go up to him.

Soon we were on the train on the way to Hamburg, changing at Lindholm and Fredericia. We had a ticket for Triar, but the rules said that he had to stay on the floor. We had brought along some of his favourite toys and a chewy stick that Charlie had bought him. I was delighted to see how quickly he settled in.

Between Lindholm and Fredericia, he spent a good long spell chewing:

The Danish trains were very comfortable. On the last (and longest) leg of our journey, he was showing some signs of restlessness, but by the time we arrived in Hamburg, I was feeling very proud of how well he was coping.

The last leg was in a taxi, where he behaved impeccably, sitting at Anna’s feet on the floor. Indeed, he was much calmer than the taxi driver who, as well as making good use of his horn, ended the journey shouting at a woman who complained because he was blocking the cycle path outside the hotel.

Fortunately, the next leg of our train journey was a little shorter. I was thrown for a moment in the morning when I received an email with the words “Journey is cancelled” in large letters across the top. Fortunately it was only from Deutsche Bahn to say that the second train of the day, between Osnabrück Hbf and Amsterdam Centraal was not running. I had panicked for a moment, thinking it might have been the ferry crossing. Here Anna demonstrated the level headedness that had made me so glad when she accepted my invitation to come on this trip. Within moments, she had found information about alternative trains and we arrived in Amsterdam only half an hour later than originally planned.

Triar was mostly a star on the train. A lady with a toddler asked whether it would be okay for her daughter to be introduced to him. He has always been good with children, having spent his earliest days as a puppy with Wivek’s youngest daughter, Tiril, loving and hugging him regularly. Anna carefully controlled the situation, making sure Triar was sitting quietly and offering him food as the tiny girl stroked him quietly and gurgled with pleasure. Her mum made very sure her daughter was gentle and the whole thing went off very well. Triar seemed to enjoy it too.

Unfortunately, he did slightly blot his copybook a little later. Up until this point, he had remained perfectly calm, not moving a muscle, even when various guards came and stood right next to his head in their shiny black boots to inspect our tickets. But a woman came and stood right in front of him, and unlike the guards, she stared straight down at him. For the first and only time on our long journey, he stood up and lunged towards her, letting out a loud bark. Unsurprisingly, she quickly scurried away. I felt frustrated that we hadn’t controlled the situation better, but he had been so good up to this point that I hadn’t been expecting it. To my surprise, the woman with the baby girl still left her on the floor quite close to him and though we kept him on a fairly short lead, he settled back down and was well behaved for the remainder of the journey.

The last leg out to the AirBnB we had booked was on a jam-packed tram. Anna lifted him onto her knee and despite the crush of noisy people all around him, he lay in her arms and went to sleep.

All in all, the trip has gone very well so far. Though Triar looks incredibly sweet – so many people smile when they see him – he has a fairly typical Kooiker nature in that he can be wary of people he doesn’t know. We’ve been very isolated in our little snow-bound house and I’m going to contact a local trainer as soon as we get to Settle because we need to work again on his socialisation, both with people and with other dogs.

Most people probably saw a wonderfully calm, well behaved dog. I know I would have been impressed if I’d seen him as a stranger’s pet. I’m always impressed to see a relaxed dog on public transport. But that single moment with the lunge and the bark was a reminder of how quickly things could potentially go wrong. He’s never bitten anyone, but barking and lunging is alarming, particularly to anyone who’s scared of dogs.

We spent yesterday walking around Amsterdam in the rain, stopping in a cafe to eat some traditional Dutch kroketter. I asked the restaurant owner if we could bring a dog in and he smiled and said that if it was a cute cuddly dog, it was welcome to come in.

Here he is, under the table. I think he probably qualified, though fortunately none of the waiters put his cuddliness credentials to the test. He loves family cuddles, but there are limits!

I would love to come back to Amsterdam for a longer holiday. It’s a very attractive city with its canals and distinctive town houses.

We also completed an essential task yesterday. Triar had to go to the veterinary clinic and take a worming tablet before he enters the UK. I think the vet was impressed with our organisational skills as we arrived with a lump of pâté wrapped in cheese and the tablet was very quickly dispatched. I was also relieved his microchip was still working. It was unlikely it would fail, just at this crucial moment, but if it did, it would be potentially disastrous. We’ve travelled from Norway, through Denmark and Germany to the Netherlands without any kind of passport check, but if Triar isn’t allowed into the UK, we couldn’t take him back to Norway either as the same, stricter rules apply in both places..

This evening we will set off on the last leg of our long journey. An overnight ferry will take us to Newcastle and so tomorrow, assuming all goes well with the UK customs, Triar and I will be starting our new life in the UK. I hope you’ll join us on our new adventure.