From the end of Cajo's leash one can usually find a 21-year-old student girl and who knows the name Katja. I moved from the little village Äetsä to the ooh-so-big Turku (the 3rd biggest city in Finland) in August 2004 with Cajo. After that we have moved for three times (latest time in June 2006), we are now living in a nice apartment in the studen village where there are lots of other dogs (and a toller living in the same house) and nice possibilies for walks :) My first year after the student examination went in Turku polytechnics where I was studying biomedical laboratory science but soon I decided that it really was not my stuff and decided to start reading for the entrance examinations of the University of Turku and I got in among the 34 other lucky ones willing to read biology! So now I'm studying biology for the second year and have genetics and fysiology as my main subject. I have a great interest towards genetics in overall but I'm hoping to someday be able to work in some dog related study, perhaps. Genes, heritability and all that are just so interesting - and very challenging as well.

I have had a dog in my family since I was 4 years old, so dogs are definitely always going to have a big role in my life. Our mixed breed female Viiru introduced me to the world of dogs and in 1998 my first own dog moved to stay with us; she was a toller female Bella. Because Bella's life became awfully too short, stepped Cajo into my life in the last days of December in 1999. And he has had been more than one could ever even expect from a dog. I had gotten familiar with obedience training, agility and junior handling already with Bella and Viiru but the enthusiastic and open Cajo got me to try blood tracking, dog shows and hunting tests as well. Besides that I have swang around in a mental test, water rescue trainings and even tried tracking for service dogs. I suppose my problem is mainly that I'm interested in everything and really can't make up my mind with what to do ;)

I love handling dogs and handle willingly also other dogs than my own. For a big surprise to everyone I also like throwing the carcasses to the dark woods (you could also call it hunting test training) even though animals are extremely important and dear to me. To talk about the hobbies that didn't quite knock on me; blood tracking got nearly forgotten after a couple of years "now and then" training because my passion for bloodthirsty mooseflies, slimy snakes and getting lost in the woods wasn't after all enough big. I'd rank agility as my absolute favourite dog sport; it's just marvellous when a dog moved to the right obstacle after seeing only one small movement of his master's hand or body.

I passed a show ring official course with high points in March 2006 (but haven't done the practise in field yet) and been to the agility trainer course for some years ago (probably in 2001). I haven't, however, got the competence of an agility trainer yet since I haven't done the conmpulsory practise in field. It is because I haven't been willing to start training beginners before I really feel that I do have good skills for that. I feel that it's after all really important that the beginners learn everything right from the beginning (in any dog sport but especially in agility). Since November 2004 I have also been a member of the goverment of the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever club of Finland and during these two years in the goverment I have seen and experienced interesting things :)

At the moment I feel that my life is mostly spinning aroung studying, studying and studying (yep, I'm the one with examination books with me in the dog conferences and the one who's always having an examination tomorrow ;)). I do, of course, have spare time too and most of it goes with Cajo. However, I have been dreaming of a second dog for a few years already and I'm hoping to find the right one in a couple of years. It would be nice to have a puppy in the house after a long time and get her/him as an active companion to different hobbies and of course also to be Cajo's friend - and naturally mine, too :) Besides puttering around with Cajo I use lots of my spare time to surfing on the toller pages, also meeting friends and entertaining my boyfriend. The rest of my life shall this time remain as a mystery - don't hesitate to come and grab me on my sleeve if/when we meet at some place :)

If you have any questions about Cajo, our homepages or something related, please contact us via email: katjast @ gmail.com.