I Am Smad!

It's official - people are crazy! I riecently found a German blog in which some of the readers were discussing Xsara's videos. My knowledge of German language is next to nothing, but I think one of the readers accused me of having Xsara under high doping mixture containing cocaine, cocoa and toothpaste! I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my life, anybody who knows me will tell you I'm even careful about giving her vitamins because I think her high quality dry food contains enough of them. And I certainly don't give her any sort of doping. I can't believe people can be so cruel, I don't even know this person! I love Xsara and I would never do anything to hurt her, if I thought agility or tricks were hurting her, I would stop doing them right away.
This accusation really made me sad and mad (smad?), because I am putting so much energy and work in Xsara's training. So I wrote an article about working with low motivated dogs. It can be found on Xsara's Forum. I will be adding more tips to the article and you can add things to if you have any ideas.

A Weird Trial

The trial was almost a week ago but I've been in Italy this week and I just came back. I don't know how to describe this trial adventure, words like weird and unusual come to my mind. The first surprise was waiting for us before we even reached the event: we ran out of gas! I've never ran out of gas before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.
The other unusual thing was the list of competitors. Less than 100 dogs partecipated in the trial, partly because there was an instructor's seminar on the same day and partly because the trial was very far away. I think I've never attended a trial with so few competitors. Since we finished both runs very quickly, we (the crazy agility enthusiasts) decided to run another course for fun. The judge was willing to do it and he quickly made up another course, which was very sweet of him.
It was good for us to pratise on the carpet since we almost always run on the grass. Xsara didn't like the floor at all, which resulted in some mistakes, mostly refusals (very unusual for her). Since there were so few competitors we were still 2nd, but to be honest we didn't actually run well.
However the training on Monday was just incredible. On the grass she could find weaves entrances from the most impossible angles, she was running like crazy so that it was hard to keep up with her, no knocked bars, no refusals, no missed contacts, all fast and clean runs with very difficult courses. I think that training session made me fall in love with the sport all over again, I just can't wait to go back!

Dog Expo And Birthday Gifts

Good news and bad news. The bad news is we couldn't participate on the presentation of agility on dog Expo here in Ljubljana. The show lasted too long and I had to go to work before it was our time to run (unfortunately I work on Sundays). But the good news is, during the short time we were there (we attended the practise before the presentation) someone made pictures of Xsara. And they are published on the most popular website in Slovenia. There were about 5000 dogs at the expo, he took 15 pictures of the dogs and two of them are of Xsara. The man's got good taste, right? You can view the pictures here.
On thursday the human part of our team has her birthday. I ordered myself a gift from my favorite store CleanRun. The gift has already arrived and Xsara was happy with the content: a wide selection of dog toys and treats and some clothes and trial gear for me. We just can't wait to use all of it on the trial on Saturday - there are so few trials in the winter time, we really miss them.

New Collar

Guess what was in our mailbox today! A couple of months ago we sent a photo of Xsara's floor decoration (I'm sure you still remember it) to Patience who was writing an article to educate people on the bad idea of puppies as presents. She asked her readers to send her photos of doggy disasters, much like Xsara's job on the floor. Every dog who got their picture published won a custom made beauteemous Holiday collar:

Isn't it beautiful?!
By the way: you can read Patience's article here. I know Christmas is over but I think this topic is really very important. Thanks again for the collar, Patience!

Winter Vacation

As promised, I'm going to tell you more about our vacation. We went to Strunjan which is on the Slovenian coast. Our boyfriend's family has a house there, just above the salt pans. The weather was perfect, about 12°C (in Ljubljana it's about -2°C right now). We had no TV and no computer so no distractions - we just walked for hours and hours and I'm so glad we got to spend so much quality time together. I also started teaching Xsara two new tricks, so I think we'll film the part 3 of her tricks very soon. I was kind of happy that it started raining the day we had to go back home, otherwise it would be so hard to say goodbye. But we did miss agility a lot so in a way it's good to be home. We have a presentation of agility on the biggest dog expo in Ljubljana (CACIB Tromostovje) on Sunday. I hope we will find a way to participate since I have to work Sundays.

Skating Going Well

We are finally back from our little vacation. It was so warm by the sea, we spent the entire days on the sun walking and, yes, skating, which is going along quite well. I would love to move there someday, I think Xsara would love it. Anyway, I will write some more tomorrow because unfortunately I have to go to work now. Thanks to all of you who wished us a happy new year - you have a great year, too!