Introduction

Hey! My name is Suvi Katariina Lehto. A lot of friends call me with some other names aswell, such as Sigge or Yessi. I don't mind getting new nicknames at all, haha.
I'm quite young, at the moment 19 years old girl from Finland, living in a town called Lahti. My birthday is 6th December 1991 so every time I'm celebrating my own birthday, I may aswell celebrate Finland's independence day. I live alone - or as alone as you can live with dogs and other pets - in an apartment building. I'm only around 159 centimetres tall.

I have loved animals longer than I can even remember. Family members have been telling how I was asking to get a real pony at the age of 2 years to replace my huge toy-box at home! Of course I didn't get one, only a bunch of toy horses to play with. I was crazy for horses the most of my childhood. I was riding them and had a bunch of hobby horses at home. Dogs weren't that important to me back then.
Everything changed when I moved with my mom closer to our family friends, who had two old Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. They asked me to take care of those dogs sometimes, so I did.. Till both of the Cavaliers naturally passed away within a month. I went to meet some breeder with that family and was helping them bring home two absolutely lovely Cavalier puppies from the same litter. Around those times I started a dogsitter course to become a dogsitter. I passed that course's final tests along with some of my friends and started working as a dogsitter. I loved those new puppies and I loved the whole thing that I was doing. I couldn't consider it as a work, for me it was just having fun with different dogs.

I wanted to get my own dog, no more horses. The dream came true after my mom agreed with the idea.

Why smooth collie?

First breed I ever got to think about wasn't a Collie at all. It was Saluki, so I contacted to some Saluki breeder and we went to see a four months old male puppy. The breeder was all friendly, telling about the breed and dogs overall. Still we - or my mom - came into a solution that Saluki is too much for us, the little apartment house we were going to move in Lahti would have not been enough for a sighthound's needs. She was right.
Of course I was angry afterwards, I couldn't get the breed I had liked for so long because of their gorgeous outlook. Without thinking further I then yelled that I want a dog like our neighbour had - a Smooth Collie. Our neighbours that time were Tytti & Antti Kankare with their family's lovely Smooth Collies: Vesimiehen Nahka-Natsa "Kalle", Dandinas Just A Prince "Uno" and Dandinas Gorgeous Golden "Konsta". I had been looking after those dogs once and been at the dog shows with Tytti couple of times before, she even let me to bring Uno into a show ring at a match show. My mom said that breed might fit well for us.

Simply because I liked Tytti's dogs so much, I contacted the same breeder, the owner of the kennel Dandinas. In a reply she told me that they were awaiting puppies from parents Sandcastle's Naked Gun "Nakke" and Dandinas Hot Chick "Panda". Panda gave birth to 3 male puppies, 2 of them survived. The breeder was offering both of those puppies for me but this time I said no, because I wanted a female puppy. They had a new litter coming anyways, from parents Kangasvuokon Put Up The Pow Wow "Risto" and Dandinas Dreams'N Wishes "Tiiti". Waiting for a litter to be born is probably the most awful time ever when you have a huge puppy lust! Later Tiiti gave birth to 5 strong, healthy puppies; 3 males and 2 females. My waiting time paid off.

Photos at the age of 2-3 weeks made me to fall in love with a female puppy. When the puppies were 5 weeks old, we went to see them. That female puppy who I liked already from the photos was jumping around and trying to climb into our laps all the time, so it was obvious that she'll be the puppy we would bring home in the following three weeks.
Almost 8 weeks old little female puppy Dandinas Put Up To Play "Titja" became a part of our family. She's absolutely the best gift that I've ever had in my life. Special thanks to Tytti for letting me know her awesome dogs, without her I probably would not even have known a whole breed better. Smooth Collies looked weird and ugly in my eyes back then. Now that's the most beautiful dog in the world you can ever find. Perfect dog for me.

JUCAIDES

I've got a lot of questions about my kennel name so far. It actually doesn't mean anything, but in the other hand it does - something for myself. I wanted a kennel name that's personal, doesn't mean anything and which is not close to any common word. First I tried to think of a name out of my pets' names, but I couldn't make up anything that pleased myself enough.
Then I started to think about important persons. I lost my own father around at the age of 5 years so he was the first one to think about. His name was Jukka, that brings the beginning to my kennelname. Jukka -> Jucca -> Juca.
Because I like kennel names ending with -s (without the english -'s), that's what I wanted to have aswell. So far the name looked like this: Juca-s, too short and something was missing in the middle. The missing part, -ide-, I made up fully in my mind and it doesn't have any meaning. That's how my mind built up the name Jucaides. I fell in love with the name along its hidden meaning. Jucaides got officially confirmed in Dec 2010.

Since I haven't had any litters on my kennel name yet, I don't see that I'm yet fully able to write what do I want from my own breeding. That's why I'll gladly skip explaining that part now and concentrate on writing it later on with a little more experience with me.

Other pets

Minus

I've said for a long time now that if I ever get another cat (had one before), it must be social and get along with all of my dogs. I really don't like cats who hide most of their time at home and you can't pet them at all because they're so shy.
Well, my friend apparently decided that my little home "zoo" wasn't filled yet and she brought me a kitty saying that it's gonna stay with me. Of course I couldn't say no and that's how I became the owner of a cat once again. Positive things about the kitty: he gets along with my dogs and without lying he is extremely social. I have never seen as social cat as him before, he's sometimes even driving me nuts because of his social character. I suppose I got exactly what I asked for and even more from that. This cat is just plain awesome and fits to our pack better than any other cat ever would.

Minus is exactly as old as Veila, both born in 19th May 2010. He's not a pure-breed cat, just a normal mixed "home cat" (in Finnish "maatiainen").
He's black with a white spot in chest and white in his paws.

People requested an own blog for Minus so nowadays he got one (only in Finnish): http://pikkukunkku.blogspot.com/

Vyylia, Fenja & Lilja

Vyylia is a Syrian Hamster. She's tricolor tortoiseshell -colored, born 5th May 2010.
Unfortunately she passed away 13th June 2011. We miss her even though she was one of the most annoying hamsters ever.

Fenja and Lilja arrived to me actually some time before Vyylia came. I've got four male gerbils when I was younger so I had been dreaming about new gerbils for quite a while, but my mom didn't like the idea of getting them at all when I still lived with her. The cage and everything were ready so once I moved on my own and had the chance I started to get some information about gerbils again and went to see some in the pet market. I was planning to get them a bit later, but the problem is that when you have already lost your heart to a certain animal that's in sale, you can't resist for long. That's what happened to me this time aswell.

These little fellows became a part of our family in May 2010, I bought them from a pet market called Hopeakäpälä in Lahti.
Fenja is argente cream -colored Mongolian Gerbil, born 30th Jan 2010. Lilja is around a month younger, slate pied -colored, born 9th Mar 2010.

Kalla & Melva

Kalla and Melva came to me during the springtime in 2011.
They are natal mice, or natal rat, however you want to call them. However in theory they're mice that are around the size of a gerbil as adults. I had been planning on getting normal mice but me and my friend happened to see a few natal mice and those definitely stole our hearts. So.. what happened was that we looked for more information about them, I contacted a breeder and tada - now I have two of those cuties!
A few people wonder how do I recognise them from each other. Kalla's spot on her back is a tad bigger than Melva's and their ears are slightly different, that's how. Also they're sisters, both born 21st Feb 2011.