... and so is our snow. I'm not snow-crazy but Xsara loves it very much, so it's nice to have it - for a couple of days at least. We also made another trip to the sea (I know, I'm obsessed), so we actually had both: the pleasures of snow and sea in one weekend.
Unfortunately the weather was kind of depressing most of the time, so I spent an entire day planning our summer holidays in Tuscany. Long walks among beautiful hills, vineyards and fields full of sunflowers are just what we need (well, who doesn't, right?). I can't wait :)
We are working on a new trick. I'm not revealing what it is, I'm just telling you it's something awesome and also kind of complicated. We are making great progress with it, so I'm really happy about it. Xsara likes it, too - she gets so excited and I just love to watch her learn new stuff.
We also started to jog. For the first couple of days Xsara seemed to be the perfect jogging partner. Being a true beagle however, she soon discovered that I wasn't keen on making stops and she decided to take advantage of this. She would slow down, let me go on, and when I would be far enough she would roll in something delicious or even try to eat it. The whole jogging thing would then turn into me chasing her around the fields, which she thought was way more fun. I don't want to jog with her on leash because it took me years to convince her to run at least one step ahead of me in agility. So now we jog with a ball in my hand. It's not even jogging any more, it's more like sprinting as fast as we can and in a certain moment I say "go on", throw the ball ahead and then reward her if she outruns me to the ball (she always does). It's fun but I would still like to jog, too. If you have any ideas, I'm opened to suggestions.
We have no trials for two more weeks, so we are just doing our usual training. When the season starts we will have trials every weekend, and hopefully the weather will improve by then. Our biggest challenge this year is to get accepted to European Open 2008. Last year it was probably my favorite trial because we were camping there for the weekend and we got to see many excellent handlers in action - even a couple of very good beagles, which is always a wonderful experience for both of us.
Happy Holidays everyone! Apparently Xsara was a good girl this year, so Santa left her something under the tree. Her gifts were ordered from our favourite online store for agility enthusiasts :) She knew it was for her right away, so she jumped on the package and started to unwrap it - with our cat closely monitoring her every move. With one move she opened the gift and the baggy of natural treats for active dogs, so the treats fell out of the baggy and it took us some time to clean up the mess. Then we proceeded with the other present: a tug toy with real rabbit skin. She went crazy over it, so this year Santa really got her the most perfect presents ever. We also celebrate New Year in Slovenia, so next week we're expecting another nice old man with a bag of gifts. We call him Dedek Mraz (Grandpa Cold).
Today we had a very relaxing morning after a real drama. Xsara's sister Sena ran away two days ago, chasing an animal in the woods. We spent an entire day looking for her, we even went there in the middle of the night in case we would be able to hear her in the silence. Xsara helped us as much as she could, but she got very nervous in the woods so after a while we took her home and went to continue searching for her ourselves. We were soooo worried about Sena, it's really cold outside and she had been out for 24 hours! But then her people called us and told us that someone found her and saw a poster of her missing, so she was reunited with her family on Christmas Eve. She is very tired, but otherwise she's fine. I hope Santa gets her a GPS device so she won't get lost again :)
Do you think she doesn't look scary? Well, she's horrifying ... to a hamburger :)
I've always admired this village and it's nature, and I was really happy to be able to enjoy it with Xsara.
For the second part of our vacation, we went back to Strunjan, where we relaxed a lot. I missed agility super hard, but I think Xsara really needed to rest. They say that you sometimes need a chance to miss what you love the most, just to remember how much it means to you. We have training tomorrow and we'll see if this will reveal to be truth. But even though we didn't do agility, we kept ourselves busy with other activities. Such as frisbee. Frisbee is still fun for Xsara, so that makes me very happy.
We also trained running to the visible target on the ground and Xsara outran me every single time. I really didn't have a chance. And one evening we even took her to a concert where she met my favorite band, unfortunately only the lead singer was missing.
We had sunny weather for the entire time. There was just this horrible storm on Friday night and it destroyed many trees, boats and tents in the nearby camp, so all the unhappy campers had to sleep in their cars. We were so lucky to be in the warm house where it was safe! Everything else was as close to perfection as it gets, although Xsara is very happy to be back at home. She loves adventures but is always happy when we return. I haven't managed to upload all the pictures to my PC yet - I will do so in the following days and post the best ones here. Right now it's already late here so I'm wishing sweet dreams to everyone!
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