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.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Agi4Fun

Today we had a 4Fun trial in Ljubljana. I ran with 5 dogs - I wanted to run with 6 but one of them couldn't come, however as it turned out, running 5 dogs can make you quite tired. I was very happy with most of my runs, even though I got DQ in most of them, but some of them were really nice apart from that one mistake. All of my borrowed dogs were really very fast and responsive, but they've never trained with me before, so this experience was new for all of us. I might be too quiet for one dog or too soft for another, which would be different if they were my dogs, training with me from day one. So I think I could handle a BC if I ever decide to have one. And another thing I learned is that viewing the course with so many dogs in your mind is pretty hard, so compliments to those who do it on a regular basis.

My first dog was Bode, who I think I "clicked" with the most. He was going so fast that he broke the weavepoles and he was the only dog who ran for no reward, letting him run is the most rewarding thing by itself. I still played with him before the start and he was playing like crazy, a really cool young dog - border collie, of course. I trained with him once a week ago and we bumped pretty hard, so I was kind of afraid of running with him again. But this time it was a lot better, specially in our first run.

I also ran with two other borders. Kate is an amazingly well trained dog and I also borrow her for Rally-Obedience, so she is used to working with me. I absolutely adore her. Apart from one stupid mistake we ran quite OK - but that stupid mistake of mine got us eliminated.



The last border I ran with was Buffy, also a very nice girl. Unfortunately, she found it very weird to run with me so she was constantly looking for her Petra. We also had some start line problems. Other than that we had two nice runs, and for a dog who had never ran with me before she did very well.

I also borrowed one small dog, a pinscher. Toy, like Buffy, had never ran with me before. We had a very nice first run with the wrong tunnel entry, but otherwise nice (he only wasn't sure if I wanted him to hit the contacts like his handler. I should have waited a little longer for him to stop). Unfortunately we couldn't understand each other well in the second run. That was really a pity. I was surprised to see how fast such a little dog can go, woooosh :)



Naturally I also ran with Xsara. She knocked two bars in the first run which really took me by surprise, but she did very well in jumping. We were 3rd in the combined Medium Open results. I hope it wasn't too weird for her to watch me with other dogs. I will make it up to her with a big dinner and a belly rub.

14 comments:

Lorenza said...

Sounds like you had fun with all those dogs.
The dog in the second video sure is fast!
Nothing better than a yummy dinner and belly rubs to make us happy!
Kisses and hugs
Lorenza

River said...

All those dogs are so fast. Sounds like Xsara did very well.

love & wags,
River

i said...

That sounds really fun! The dogs sure are fast! Glad to hear Xsara is doing well too. And yummy...she's going to have a good dinner!

Urban Smoothie Read said...

jealousy might be a good thing for xsara... she will say "i can do better than them!"

btw...breaking off weaving poles? oh gosh.. that must be extreme fast n furious..

Kess And Her Mama said...

5 dogs! Wow. I'm sure Xsara would have forgotten abt any jealousies aft a scrumptious dinner and a long belly rub!

Annaret said...

Wow! You really did great! Running dogs you don't train with can be quite a challenge, well done! That little Pinscher is like lightning, wow! :)

Beagle hugs from Emma & Levi for Xsara.

Patience-please said...

Isn't it good to run with other dogs? Though we bet Xsara did not like to see that at all!!!

wags from the whippets

Amber-Mae said...

Damn, that little Pinscher is like a rocket launcher!!! I've never seen a small dog that fast before. You handled both the dogs very well. Congrats to you & Xsara for getting a placing. Hope you had a splendid time!

Butt wiggles,
Solid Gold Dancer

Anonymous said...

Xsara is converting me into a beagle fan. Kharma is okay with that because she knows I love border collies best! Thanks for dropping by our blog.

JAZZ AND DIXIE said...

Wow working with 5 dogs must have kept you on your toes the whole day. Were does Xsara stay when you run the other dogs? IM sure dinner and belly rubs will do the trick for Xsara though.
J&D's mum

Girasol said...

training dogs is pretty hard work, you did excellent.

Anonymous said...

Great work Barby!
As for the border collies... don't join the dark side! lol

FleasGang said...

Great job! Apparently Xsara didn't get your pants muddy enough to come in first place ;-)

The FleasGang

Xsara and Tani said...

it was an "open" competition, so a dog from A3/J3 won - she is also in WC team, so she's a real pro :)