Too Much Work, Too Little Fun

I haven't posted anything new in a while because I had a lot of work, so Xsara was a little bored. Out of protest she learned how to climb on the kitchen counter, which was a disaster so I had to remove one shelve from the room. Sometimes she does something to remind me she's a beagle, and that I should never take her nice behaviour for granted.

We haven't had any trials since the Eukanuba finale, but there will be one on Saturday. This will be our first trial in A3/J3, so it's very exciting. Naturally we regularly take time for our usual trainings and I'm very pleased with our work in both, agility and RO. We also visited a couple of nice places last week: we went back to Kamniska Bistrica and towards Kokrsko sedlo (man, how I love that place!) and to Bloke, where we saw bear traces!

Also we want to express our congratulations to all Xsara's friends from the Slovenian World Team for nice runs in Helsinki!

Hiking, Eukanuba Finale And The Ball That Was M.I.A.

Last week we had to repair the obstacles in our club. It was still sunny outside and we wanted to finish all the work before it would start raining. Once we started to work we realised that the obstacles were in a worse shape than we had suspected, so we couldn't repair them in time. But we did manage to give them a very unique touch. Do you think this will make it easier for the dogs with contact problems? Hehe, probably not! So we will paint them as soon as the weather improves :)

As I heard the weather forecast, I decided to enjoy the last sunny day of the week hiking with Xsara. We didn't actually even have the entire day as it would start raining in the evening, so we went from the lake of Jezersko to Češka koča mountain hut (1543m). This time I decided to go alone with Xsara and I really enjoyed it. It was so beautiful!

First we saw the lake:

... there were also beautiful meadows with cows and horses:

... and, of course - the pretty pretty mountains! Xsara was posing like a professional doggy model, so here are some of our best shots:

On Saturday we had the finale of Eukanuba Cup - our last trial in A2/J2. It was raining for the entire day and it was very cold. The judge was Bernd Hueppe from Austria. I liked running his courses, but I thought they were a little dangerous for very fast dogs given the weather circumstances. Anyway, we were 3rd (again with very nice contacts) and in combined results for the Eukanuba Cup 2008 we were 2nd. Xsara got a nice doggy sleeping bag from the sponsor, but the best reward for her came on Sunday - after three months we managed to find her green ball and I think she's never letting it go again :)

RO-II exam: Passed!

We had more trials this weekend. First we had an agility trial here in Ljubljana. Unfortunately I made a handling error and got us eliminated, but was very happy with Xsara's contacts, which were my priority for this trial. I am planning on moving us to the highest Agility 3 Level this season, so contacts are very important right now. We don't have any pictures from this trial yet, so I'm posting a picture from the last week, kindly sent to me by Teja and Luna.

On Sunday we had a RO trial and for the first time competed in RO-II cathegory. In order to compete on a higher level, a team must complete the exam for this cathegory. I wasn't very happy with our performance because Xsara started sniffing on the start and I couldn't get her concentrated on me. But the judge saw potential in us and was very pleased with some of the exercises that she really did well. So we didn't just pass the exam but also finished on the 4th place. I was surprised to see that we could score so high even on our bad day :) Maybe I'm too self-critical.

After the trial we took Xsara for a long walk. I had to work in the evening so we didn't have a lot of time, but I really wanted to enjoy at least a little bit of mountains. So we went to Kokrsko sedlo, but as we didn't have the time to go to the top, we just walked for a couple of hours and then returned to the valley. Xsara loves hiking so much, it's so nice to watch her jump around like an agile little ibex. And the mountains are absolutely amazing this time of year, so we will definitely do more hiking in the next moths.

Hiking Photos

We were in the mood for some hiking today. It was very hot in Ljubljana so the fresh mountain air was a good idea. We originally decided to go for a walk with Xsara's friend Ben and his Simona, but ended up going to Kamniško Sedlo. Since we weren't really prepared for mountains we didn't get to the top this time (we ran out of water and decided to return), but we will go back some other time and prepare for it. However we walked for about 4 hours and managed to escape from the heat weave in the city. Here are some of the best photos from the trip: