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.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Happy Holidays

Xsara and I wish happy holidays and all the best in 2011 to all our friends.



Thanks to Maja Rokavec for a lovely day on Lake Cerknica and a new set of fantastic photos of my dogs!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Beagle Agility Championship

Last year, Xsara and I didn't have much luck in agility championship for beagles in Slovakia because she fell off the dogwalk in her final run. This year, luck was on our side, so I'm proud to say that she won :) She was in a great mood and ran really well both days even though we had incredibly cold weather: -17°C! I wasn't the best handler she could have, it was hard for me to run two dogs on different courses, having to memorize both at the same time as I only had about 10 dogs between Tani and Xsara. But all turned out well and it was fun.


There is a lot of snow in Ljubljana and we spent a couple of days there for the girls to enjoy snow for a while. Now we're back to the coast where weather is much better. Xsara really likes it here. I am teaching her many new tricks, we go for long walks, we play together and train when we can and we also cuddle a lot. Thanks to Lenka Wami Blachová for beautiful photos of Xsara from Motešice (Slovakia)!


And here are some photos from one walk in the snow:

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Is it a Cat? Is it an Owl? No, it's Xsara Catching a Mouse!

Beagles are full of surprises and you'd think I've learned that by now, but my little Xsara still amazes me.

This week she stole some dog food from the counter which is nothing overly surprising, although the task required a lot of strategic planning as she had to do some furniture moving. But apparently it was a no brainer for her since the dogs were only alone for a couple of hours and were already happily asleep when I came home.



However, since I decided to skip their breakfast the next morning (thinking they'd eaten enough food the night before), she apparently felt she was way too hungry to wait until dinner. And so, on our morning walk she totally shocked me by catching a mouse, apparently thinking that a little snack would tide her over until dinner.



She'd never done anything similar ever before, so I still can't believe it! Maybe she was just playing with the little creature, I honestly don't know. She has been extremely playful lately, I think she just can't stay indifferent towards little Tani constantly inviting her to play. Anyway, I told her to spit it out and she did, the mouse was a little disorientated but she wasn't limping or anything so she managed to escape far away from my little predator who continued the walk on leash.



I don't usually take a camera on our walks, so I don't have any visual documentation of the event. But thanks to Maja Rokavec and Monika Pleterski for these cute Xsara photos from our competitions!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Updates

I really became horrible updating Xsara's blog! But well, Summer is our favourite season and we love to spend as much time as we can outside.



Xsara is doing great, she has very nice times on trials lately (4.4m/s, which is great for her). I measure her excitement on trials by the level of her barks and howls and well, she's very loud :)



EO was not her favourite thing this year, it was cold, muddy and it rained all the time. She has a strong preference for higher temperatures. But we were together and she really likes agility, plus most of her friends were there, so it was OK.



After EO we seriously needed to defreeze so we went to Corsica where she met tiny little rabbits. She was only interested in them if they were moving, once they stopped she didn't know what to do with them any more. She doesn't like to swim, but apparently the places we visited were just too tempting so even she decided to get a little wet :) She also loved hiking, camping and being outside all the time, so we're defenitely going back!



She and Tani are best friends, they play together, sleep together, cuddle together, they are inseparable. I'm very happy that they get along so well, and Xsara is defenitely very happy to have company.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

New Photos

Here are some new wonderful action photos of Xsara, taken by French photographer Valerie Teppe (thank you, Val!). Xsara is doing great. She really enjoys summer and extremely hot temperatures. I must constantly monitor her sun exposure and make sure she doesn't get too much of it. Every time I look away, she sneaks to the terrace and tries to catch some sun before I urge her back into the house. I find this obsession very funny. Anyway, here are the photos I was talking about and I guess I'll see some of our readers on EO next week :) Can't wait for the Czech adventure to begin!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Happy Birthday, Xsara!


I can't believe it's been exactly 6 years since Xsara's breeder called me and told me she had a puppy for me. It seems like yesterday. And yet, Xsara and I have been through so much together, that at the same time I feel like she's always been with me. I only have one wish for her birthday. I wish she would stay exactly as she is - my healthy, happy and sweet little dog who likes to cuddle under the blankie even when it's 40°C outside, who howls like crazy when I bring her to the startline and always gives her best, who loves all people and animals, specially her family, who has the cutest puppy-like expression in the world and who would trade anything but her green ball for a piece of cheese :) I promise I'll do everything I can to keep that tail wagging for many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many ... years to come!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Summertime

Summer is defenitely Xsara's season. She loves hot weather and wants to be in the sun all the time. Of course, I don't let her do that. Every time I tell her to go in the shadow to cool down a bit, I get an annoyed look from her. But she's a good girl and she listens to me. She's having some really good runs this season, and she obviously enjoys every second we spend doing agility - and so do I :) Here are some beautiful pictures from one of our summer walks. Thank you, Polona!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Season 2010

Agility season 2010 has started in Slovenia. Xsara is in a very good shape. She is extending nicely and is jumping much better than she used to (her specialty is jumping 65cm high over bars that are only 45cm high, but it looks much better now). She really likes having alone time with me when we do agility, rally or tricks. Don't get me wrong, she absolutely adores Tani, but she used to be my only dog for so long and I think she is really happy when we have some special alone time together. I guess that's why she loves trials even more now. She gets to play with me while Tani has to stay in her crate and wait for us to come back from the run.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Another TV Commercial!

Our German friends might see Xsara in another TV commercial soon (if the director managed to get all 3 dogs in the same shot) ... In any case, she worked really hard yesterday and I am very proud of her, no matter the outcome. Tani was also supposed to be in the same commercial, but we had to replace her due to her leg injury.

Other than that, we are quite busy with agility, rally-obedience, tricks and long walks. Weather is perfect for outdoor activities and Xsara loves every second of it :)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Recall

Xsara really amazed me today so I want to post this on her blog. We were on our morning walk, as suddenly a rabbit crossed our path. Tani barked a couple of times, but wasn't really interested in the animal, while Xsara has a very strong hunting instinct, specially for rabbits! She was out of my reach so the only thing I could do was to use my voice. I yelled "freeze" and she actually listened :) She stopped, waited for me to come to her, still looking at the bunny who was running away in panic, but didn't move a bit! I was really impressed, Xsara has a good recall for a hound, but anybody who has experience with beagles will know that they forget about everything else once they find a trail, it's like some sort of trance. And if they can see their prey and not only smell it, it's even more difficult. Since I had a full pocket of treats she got a BIG reward, but had to continue the walk on leash, to be really sure. Anyway, I am incredibly proud of her today, she really is one special little girl!!!!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Xsara's Commercial

Xsara's commercial came out, you can see it here: CLICK
Once again, she had to pee :)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Xsara's First TV-Add

Xsara filmed another commercial last week. This was her first TV commercial (and 3rd advertisement overall - she also did one newspaper add for charity as a puppy and was on a billboard for a TV show last year). I must say she did a wonderful job. Tani was originally picked to perform the task and Xsara was only supposed to be her backup, but then another agency took over the project and the new director liked Xsara better. I was very proud of both of them, working in a weird environment inside a studio with so many things going on around them, and they both behaved like true professionals. I will post the video when the commercial is officially released.

Otherwise Xsara is doing great, she is in a very good shape and very playful lately. She loves having Tani around and I am very happy that they are such good friends. She is not too crazy about winter temperatures in Ljubljana (and neither am I), so we try to spend as much time as possible by the sea where weather is a lot friendlier.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Voghera

We have very few trials in the winter. That's why I was incredibly happy when a friend asked me if I wanted to go to Voghera (Italy) with her. 4 trials in 4 days + agility seminar sounds just crazy enough! So we started this new year the way we love the most: on a beautiful ranch by a river in a winter wonderland. I only ran with Xsara on 2 of the trials because that's just enough to keep her craving for more. In the first run I managed to fall when I was performing a front cross, but all of our other runs were clean. So we got 2 3rd places combined and one 3rd placement in agility plus one r. CacAg - far more than I expected in such a tough competition. I really enjoyed seing some amazing runs by far more experienced handlers than myself and people were all incredibly nice, so it really was a wonderful experience.