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.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Our Crazy Weekend

We have so many news that I don't know where to start. I'll just go chronologically. We had an agility workshop with Anne Savioja on Friday. It was very interesting, she gave me some really good pieces of advice to improve speed and I can't wait to try them out. The most interesting two for me are: to have her follow a food tube on a rope to improve tunnels and to do a short sequence of jumps and have her outrun me - if she doesn't then I get to eat the reward and she has to watch me do it. Since I'm a vegetarian it means that we will be competing for cheese. But we won't try it until Thursday because she needs to rest a little, so I will train with my friend's dog (a poodle) today.

On Saturday it was trial time again and I could tell that by then Xsara was already very tired. I don't blame her - we had a trial on Saturday, RO on Monday, another trial on Wednesday (the photo on the right is from that trial), agility class on Thursday, workshop on Friday and another trial on Saturday, so it was a lot. She was very tired so we didn't run as fast as we could have, but it was still good enough for the third place. Here are the videos of our runs:

First Run (Agility)


Second Run (Jumping)


On Sunday we celebrated Xsara's 4th Birthday. We had a cake (healthy and delicious), presents and doggy friends (including Xsara's BFF Benetton), the whole package. We went only for a short walk because it was very hot, otherwise we stayed on the terrace where it was cooler. Xsara got quite possessive over one of her toy gifts and wouldn't allow other dogs to play with it, but the border collies preferred herding Xsara with the toy in her mouth than actually playing with the toy themselves, and Katka the poodle was to busy trying to jump into someone's lap so it was all good :)

Unfortunately, I also have a very bad news: Sena's people decided that they don't want her to do agility any more. They feel it's confusing for her to have several people teaching her. I was extremely disappointed than their decision because I don't agree with them, but there really isn't anything I can do. I just hope they will continue any type of work with her because she would really benefit from it.

8 comments:

Kess And Her Mama said...

It's great that you're learning new training techniques. Let's see whether Xsara or you will get the cheese! Sorry to hear about Sena. The birthday cake looks delicious.

Amber-Mae said...

Enjoyed the videos! Wow, lotsa trials coming up for Xsara. You both are gonna be sooo busy! That cake looks delish. Are those slices of apples or something? Sorry to hear about Sena. Hopefully her owners will change their minds...

Butt wiggles,
Solid Gold Dancer

River said...

Hi Xsara,
very pretty runs. It's most amazing to see you doing the pole weaving. Sorry about Sena. We beagles LOVE to run and jump and if someone has the time and the interest to teach us I think it should be done. Cake looked really good. Oops, drool...

love & wags,
River

Girasol said...

Xsara you are great doing new tricks and all this stuff.

Lorenza said...

Hi, Xsara!
I liked the videos too! I know how much you two enjoy the trials!
Yummy cake! Glad you had a great time!
Kisses and hugs
Lorenza

Rudy said...

You look like you're having fun Xsara! I went to an agility workshop last Friday, too. Mom is learning how to handle me better and this woman was very good. She'll get to try some stuff one me next weekend at another agility trials. I sure love agility, just let me run!

Rudy

Urban Smoothie Read said...

LoL... i don't feel good about my owner eating up my treats...

Johann The Dog said...

Interesting speed tips - we'll have to try them out! Cheese for us too....

Great pics too, love the ears!