My princesses

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Sava Sara Brakada, AKA Xsara was born on 06-27-2004. She was raised in Kennel Brakada spending the first two months of her life on beautiful countryside Gorenjska (Slovenia) with her siblings and parents. As soon as she came to Ljubljana we started a puppy class, followed by an obedience class. She passed her B-bh exam with 96 points (instructor Agility EO winner Polona Bonač). We now continue with Rally-Obedience under Polona's supervision. Our biggest passion however is Agility. We started our first Agility class in October 2005 (club Agility Ilirija, instructor Silvia Trkman, two times agility world champion). When Silvia stopped teaching agility classes, we switched to Daša Zakotnik. We regularly participate in Agility trials in Slovenia and sometimes abroad. Xsara also loves to learn new dog tricks, you can see some of them in our videos. Her other passions include long walks, big meals and playing with dogs, specially her pyr shep sister Tani, her crazy agility pals and her sister Sena.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

TV Star

A little update on our jogging: until yesterday I kept trying off leash. And what happened yesterday? There were no other people or animals that I could see and our jogging route is far from any traffic, so I tried running ahead to see if she would follow me. Maybe the fun was in me chasing her and she would follow if I didn't do that. Well, yes - she followed, but only after rolling in something so disgusting until she smelled so bad that I had to bathe her twice. I think this was probably her April Fool's joke for me :)

So I decided to give the "leash-around-my-belt" a try. We tried it for the first time today, and we'll see how it goes. Since she doesn't have the running ahead of me in agility fully learned, we now jog on leash in one direction, and return sprinting with the ball (like before). This exercise is going really well, so I'm starting to include turns and changes of direction. I would, for example, run full speed until she was at least a couple of steps ahead of me, then say "left" or "right" and throw the ball in that direction. I really try to move my shoulders as well as my arms when I throw the ball, because this way my body language is more apparent to her (I don't want her to overthink it, I want her to just run, run, run). I'm definitely seeing progress, and I hope we will be able to get advantage of this on course.

And an exciting news: a lady with a golden retriever we occasionally meet on our walks told me today that she saw Xsara on TV again. They filmed her during the charity run for Repkov Sklad we attended (the journalist saw us doing cop-cop and asked if they could film it). You can see the TV show here - Xsara is on 12:56 for about ten seconds.

14 comments:

The Army of Four said...

Wow! Xsara, you're famous! That is such a great trick - and we like that you got a TREAT, too!
That looks like a fun event - There was even a Siberian Husky running by!
Thanks for sharing the link!
Play bows,
Zim

bosco said...

hello xsara,

thanks for dropping by bosco's blog. you're such a fit and healthy dog. and so clever too..

let's be friends! :)

licks & kisses,
bosco

p/s: can i link you on my blog?

Patience-please said...

That's great the walks are working out! Sounds like it's perfect.

wags from the whippets

Johann The Dog said...

How great you were on TV! Very cool, and loved the boot :) Congratulations!

The agility part in the beginning of the video - what type of flooring was that? Seemed like the dogs were really gathering and slipping...

i said...

Oh wow, Xsara, you are famous! That was a great trick!

Lorenza said...

Our friend Xsara is famous!! Sure it was nice to see you there!
Kisses and hugs
Lorenza

The Dog Man said...

Fame at last! Looks like we'll be getting charged just for looking at photos soon! :)

Anonymous said...

I think we'll all need to start collecting your autographs Xsara - I can't believe I "know" someone as famous as you!!!

River

William Tell said...

Ah, you are smelling lovely today, Xsara! hee hee! I've done that, too, and have no idea why I get a bath afterwards. :)

Happy Tails,
William Tell

Thor and Jack said...

Xsara! You are so famous!!!!
The doggies will make line to have your pawtograph!!

Thor

Urban Smoothie Read said...

xsara, u're gonna be a celebrity...

oh, sometimes we did try to running at full speed and when I halt and made a sharp turning, we will both bump into each other...

JAZZ AND DIXIE said...

Xsara you are a star! Glad to hear that the jogging is working out. yep we also love to roll on stinky things given half a chance! Dixie did that in a dog run once and mum hosed her down right then and there!
Licks
Jazz and Dixie

Amber-Mae said...

I saw the part where you did the trick! Too cute. And you had your shoe on, hee!

Love licks,
Solid Gold Dancer

Xsara and Tani said...

Yes, this was when she was still wearing her shoe :)