More Trials

Xsara and I had a very nice weekend. On Saturday we had an agility trial in Slovenska Bistrica. We had great two runs - unfortunately with one disqualifying mistake (tunnel under the dogwalk). But I was very proud of her because we got through some very difficult sequences with no faults, and quite fast as well. The courses were very tough and only a handful of dogs got through with no faults while many excellent dogs got DQ. I was veeeery proud of my little girl!


On Sunday we had a Rally-Obedience trial. When we saw the courses, I first considered pulling us out of the competition. There was my least favourite excercise in the world: there are 4 bowls of food on the ground and the dog must heel around each of them! And as if it weren't enough, this excercise was in the straight line from the tunnel - it would be so easy for the dog to run ahead :) But I decided to go through the course anyway, taking it as an opportunity to train. We started extremely well - even the judge said that the beginning of the course was absolutely perfect! She did sniff the bowls though, but not as much as I feared she would. However, once a beagle starts sniffing, it's hard to convince them to stop, so she was a little distracted by smell for the rest of the course. She still did the excercises very nicely, but with a little bit of sniffing now and then - and in the last excercise I accidently stepped on her foot :/ We were 4th, but with muuuuch nicer work that the previous time, so I was extremely proud of Xsara again She sure is one special little girl!!

Photoshooting

Xsara and Tani had a photoshooting in Hrušica on Wednesday. Big thanks to Iztok Noč for the pictures! Here is the result:



For some action pictures of Tani visit her blog: CLICK.

A Trial and a Trip to Bohinj

We had another agility trial yesterday, this time in Ložnica. Xsara made me very happy with two nice runs and 4th place. Once again she was running a little better than before her illness, so apparently she didn't need much time to regain her confidence after all. I know this is still not her full speed, but as long as we keep improving I'm very very happy.

Today, we decided to go for a trip because weather was perfect for a loooong walk. I've never been to this beautiful lake not so far away from home, so we went to Bohinj. Xsara doesn't like to swim, but I wanted to see if Tani would enjoy water so that at least one of my dogs would swim with me in the Summer (and Tani liked water a lot). We had a lovely time together, enjoying the beatutiful surroundings and each other's company. When we got back home, the girls were both exhausted and happy, and now they are both sleeping on my bed :)

Monza - Frontline Combo

Italy was great: the weather was perfect, we saw some really good handlers and dogs in action and we also got the opportunity to see some other interesting canine disciplines, such as goose herding, flyball and freestyle. Xsara ran beautifully, I was so very proud of her. Unfortunately I made some handling mistakes (or to be honest, they were all the same mistake) - she was in a great mood for running and trying to speed her up even more, I called her too soon, so we got a couple of refusals. I have to work on my timing, apparently :) She was very responsive, so I was very very happy with both our runs. We also had a lot of fun outside the course, camping and watching the rest of the trial with our friends, so all in all it really was a wonderful weekend!

European Open 2009

We got accepted to European Open 2009 :) It's one of my favorite trials because it's an opportunity to run courses from judges we don't see every weekend and see so many excellent competitors from around the world. And it's also a lot of fun to camp with our friends and talk about agility and dogs until very very late every night.

Here are some Xsara's pictures from the trial in Ptuj.

Regaining Confidence

First of all, I made a new blog for Tani, so from now on this blog is back to being full-time about my amazing little beagle :) I think each of them deserves her own blog, so to read about Tani's progress you can click HERE. She's doing great, by the way!

Xsara is also doing amazingly well. With every trial she is gaining back her confidence and I am very proud of her. She's been out of training and competing for quite some time and it's so nice to see her be happy and healthy again! In yesterday's trial she ran her full speed again, agility even faster than her average speed before illness, so I was jumping through the roof! If she hadn't knocked the last bar in jumping, she would be third. It was all my fault, of course - I was so happy with her run that I started praising her a little to soon, causing her to lower her hind legs. But nevertheless, all contacts were perfect, she was in a great mood and a joy to run with.

I have some new pictures of her trials. Looking at them, I am often amazed by how high she actually jumps sometimes. She is often 65cm in the air, like large dogs - and sometimes she takes off metres before the jump (and yet she hardly ever knocks them). I think we might need a technique to regulate her jumping a little, but right now all I care about is boosting her confidence so that she will be more independent on course again. I want her to just run and have as much fun with me as I am having with her.


This is the smile I love so much :)