Maija (pronounced 'My-ah') was the puppy we couldn't part with when we mated our 2 adored dogs Neka & Keskiyö.  She was the one who was easy to spot in the whelping box because of her bright white legs, the one who learned her name by the age of 5 weeks and the one who looked just like a miniature version of her dad.

 

She's the sweetest and most gentle of our dogs, the most cuddly and the best behaved as a youngster.  Even through her adolescence, she has never once run off and refused to come back ... to date, anyway!  In spite of her kind nature, she is definitely in charge of the canines in our household and doesn't let her father get away with a single thing.

 

She loves everyone and everything and is at her most content lording it over all the toys and bones at once while everyone else has to wait their turn.  She will lie on a small mountain of doggie possessions and chew the best one, not letting the others take anything until she's good and ready to part with it.

 

We don't show Maija, although she did attend a couple of shows just for fun.  However, she does love all the attention and grooming that goes with show preparation.  And she certainly doesn't want to be excluded from any outing, even if it means an unscheduled visit to the vet in the company of one of the other members of the household.