My princesses

My photo
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.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

She's A Star

I haven't posted in a while but things have been quite crazy here (mostly for me). Xsara is well enough to train, but unfortunately bad weather is now keeping us away from our training centre. We do some flat work, obedience and theraball tricks, but can't wait for some actual stuff. However we have some very big news to share:




Xsara was invited to be the poster-girl of a TV show here in Slovenia. We had a photo-shooting on Friday and her pictures turned out very nice, so she is now on jumbo billboards! I saw two of them yesterday but didn't have my camera on. Aša was able to make a snap with her phone on her walk with Sena and they sent me this picture, so thanks! Xsara had to pretend that she's a boy peeing on her neighbour's door for the poster (the title of the show is "It's nice to be a neighbour"). She got a little confused because the photographer couldn't decide if he wanted her to lift her right or her left foot and I had to stand behind her back so I couldn't help her much (and we only had one day to prepare for everything). In the end she would try to lift all her paws at the same time. She still lifts her back legs whenever I tell her to do something, it's really funny. Anyway, since it was a paying job and she did so well around all the cameras, lights, people jumping around and everything, I bought her a very fancy new fleece overall coat the next day (which was also my birthday, by the way). The hair on her tummy hasn't fully grown back yet, so she's very cold outside. She looks very cute in her outfit.

In my previous post I was talking about a potential big Christmas present for us. It looks like it's really going to happen! I'm so so happy. I don't want to share all the details until we're absolutely sure about everything, but it rhimes with Schnappi :) Shouldn't be too hard to guess, right?!

Monday, January 5, 2009

We're Back!

Happy New Year everyone! We're back from the seaside where we spent one week around New Year. We had a great time, as always. Long walks, a lot of sunny weather, no TV or computers, just bonding, playing and relaxing. It was really great and we are already looking forward to go back!




On the morning after New Year, Xsara got a visit from Dedek Mraz. He brought her a Wubba and more natural treats (100% freeze-dried bison meat). She also got a new tugging leash, because she's obsessed with tug games lately. She really likes all of the presents. She is even more playful than usually, so I think that home prepared food really suits her. We might get another really big Christmas present, but it's to soon to talk about. I have my fingers crossed!

A couple of days before going to the sea, we went back to training for the first time in months. It was great! Xsara was very happy to be back, she jumped out of the car and started running around like crazy, making circles around her friends Bode and Gayo and herself. Once I managed to kind of calm her down, we ran a couple of very short sequences (a couple of contacts - all of which were great, and some turns and tunnels). I rewarded her a lot, mostly with tugging and a ball, but also with food. We didn't stay long and when we finished we went back home right away, with no waiting for everyone else (thanks to Daša who allowed us to do so). I was very happy with how it went. We're going back to training today and in the following days I will go there by myself once and run with Bode again. I don't want to run with him in front of Xsara because it could get her nervous, but I really want to run with him and Manca offered so ... :)

Anyway, here are some pictures from our vacation: