‘Uh-huh. Well, they belong to the resort, but yes, I look after them, and I train them.’
He’s searching in his black padded jacket for a big bunch of keys to open the metal door of the shed. ‘You ready for this?’ he grins, gripping the door handle. His barley-wine eyes are gleaming.
‘How many dogs are in there?’
‘Thirty-six, and there’s seven pups.’
A lesser man might have blanched at the squeal I let out, but Stellan seems excited too somehow. I’ve never met a dog I didn’t like, except for that big German Shepherd that snapped at me in the street when I was a kid, but I like to think he was probably just confused and didn’t really mean it.
The excited barks build as Stellan opens the door and I hustle past him to get a glimpse of the animals. The shed is warm and well lit. There are large cages all around three walls and in the centre there’s an area separated off with bales of straw where I can see a very tired-looking husky bitch lazily wagging her tail. She’s lying down surrounded by her tumbling puppies.
My words must have been unintelligible to Stellan, since they came out in a jumbled rush, but he made a decent attempt at trying to decipher them.
‘That’s Kanerva. She gave birth almost ten weeks ago. She’s a really good mother. Go ahead, she won’t mind you petting them if you give her a good fuss and let her sniff your hands first.’
‘Kanerva?’ I ask.
‘It means heather.’
‘Heather,’ I repeat in a whisper. ‘She’s gorgeous.’
I approach her, sitting by her side on the bale wall, scratching her ear. She simply reclines and lets me fuss over her whilst Stellan, smiling placidly, makes his way to the back of the shed, unlocking each cage door as he passes them. Dogs rush out and crowd around him rubbing their heads against his knees and almost knocking him over in the sheer joy of seeing their master.
He unbolts a sliding door that takes up half the back wall of the shed and heaves it aside revealing a fenced exercise enclosure covered in snow. The dogs bound outside running in every direction, but always excitedly looking back towards Stellan and barking.
One of Kanerva’s pups, who seems less timid than the rest, clambers up over the tumbling bodies of his brothers and sisters in order to get as close to me as possible.
‘Can I give this little one of yours a cuddle?’ I ask Kanerva, who’s dragging herself up and making her way towards the long food trough at the other side of her enclosure. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
The puppy is probably the cutest little thing I have ever beheld. Except for Barney, of course. I sigh as I lift the little black and white panting creature up onto my lap. He has one shocking blue eye and one ice white. I’m just expostulating on how he’s the best boy – ‘yes you are, yes you are’ – when Niilo leads Nari in through the door behind me. She’s not a dog-lover like me, but her face lights up with glee.
‘Nari,’ calls Stellan from over by the big open door. ‘Come help me with this?’ He holds out a plastic trug full of tennis balls. Nari doesn’t have to be asked twice and within seconds the huskies are racing out into the snowy yard chasing the balls she’s pitching for them. Their happy yelps are excruciatingly sharp and loud. Niilo joins her, offering to hold the trug.
I watch as Stellan lifts a sack from a shelf before reaching into his snowsuit pocket for a long curved knife to make a slit across the top. There are wide bowls for dog food all around the shed and he fills each one.
‘These huskies eat a lot, five times a day they get fed,’ he says as the dogs rush back into the shed, jostling each other for prime position. Then, joining me and Kanerva’s pups in the enclosure, he fills their long food trough and sits down directly opposite me on the bales.
I wonder why he hasn’t sat closer, and I feel an achy little niggle in my chest at how much I resent his reserved conduct. It’s not the frigging eighteenth century, Stellan Virtanen!
I look over at Niilo and Nari, surrounded by happy wagging tails. Niilo’s showing Nari how to hose water into the big drinking bowls by the door and they’re still smiling animatedly at one another. How come Stellan’s got all the famous Finnish formality and Niilo’s so vital and alive with warmth?
‘Do they have names?’ I ask, placing the puppy back in the enclosure so he can eat alongside his siblings.
‘That one’s Finn, he’s easy to recognise with his white eye, just like his mother Kanerva. And that’s Cáhppe, Miyuki, Lumikki, Aleksi, Yanni and, erm…’
‘Bob?’ I joke, but Stellan seems confused.
‘Bob?’
‘Yeah, Bob McLuskie the festive husky.’ Oh well, at least I made myself laugh. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just high on puppies. I can’t believe this is your life.’
‘Yeah, I’m in here a lot, morning and night. They spend the days playing in the yard with the tourists or out on the sledding trails. That’s why they eat so much; they work really hard.’
I watch Stellan lean into the enclosure to lift the smallest of Kanerva’s litter away from the food. He’s already eaten his fill and is nodding his little black and brown head and falling asleep. ‘This one’s Toivo. He’s a little scraggy one. How do you say it, he’s the…?’
‘The runt of the litter?’ I offer.
‘That’s it, the runt. Poor baby.’
