Date day🔗

Since my old poodle, Saladin, has separation anxiety, it's impossible to leave him alone without causing him extreme stress. It means that my wife and I can go somewhere together only if we take him with us. Which is cute, but:

• We can have a coffee or a meal together only in dog-friendly places, and enter only places that let dogs in.
• To keep him calm in crowded places with plenty of stimuli, I have to carry him. My arms are full of him, and although he is quite light for his size, being only 3.6 kg, it is still tiring to carry him around for hours.
• It's not fair to bring him with us while my wife's dog, Felhő (Cloud in Hungarian), is left home alone. We usually take her with us too. But she is two years older, so we bring a dog stroller with us. She also gets sick in cars and buses, so we try to use trains, trams, and the subway as much as possible.
• If they are with us, they are always up to something we need to check and control. As they grew old, they had less self-restraint than before. We have to make sure they don't eat anything from the ground, startle a kid, or make someone trip over the leash. We also have to be on constant lookout for other dogs to avoid them exchanging insults or having overexcited introductions... whatever dogs do on these occasions.

The point is, we cannot be together listening to each other.

The only ways to have time together are to find a pet sitter, which is quite a challenge, or take Saladin to a dog daycare on a weekday. Fortunately, he behaves well, and we have already found two places where we can take him, depending on whether we spend time in Helsinki or Espoo.

Yesterday was such a day. I took a day off from work, took him to a dog daycare, and we had a free afternoon.

We visited a contemporary exhibition titled Endless Light at Galleria Ruoti. Then we did some shopping together, which was a rare experience since usually one of us is at home or outside a shop with the pets while the other does the shopping.

My wife bought me a new toadstool-shaped glass mug from Flying Tiger, and she got new spoons with squirrel and acorn patterns.

We also had a döner. We haven't eaten at a Turkish restaurant since we moved to Finland.

All in all, it was a great day, just like old times, before my dog fully developed his separation anxiety. Of course, at the end of the day, it was great to hug the furry ones again.

The original version of this post is part of the Blaugust 2026 series on my blog along with:

• Five Curious Habits of My Poodle
• The Z323 said goodbye
• My very first blog
• A library without walls
• Memories Taken by the Heat
• Bombanana!
• Blaugust 2026