Pictures from Selca

Xsara:

Kate:

Tnahks to Andraz and Iztok again.

Trial in Selca 2008

We had another trial on Saturday and it was held in Xsara's birth town, Selca. Unfortunately our breeder couldn't come because she was on a dog expo on the other side of Slovenia. But we visited her a couple of days before the trial to see their new puppies. The 4 weeks old Z-litter is really adorable - 4 sweet girls and one boy.

Anyway, the trial went very well. We had two nice runs and won in our cathegory, so I was a super proud beagle mummy. Seems like Xsara has gained even some more speed lately, so all the training is really paying off for both of us. I know we are still not running our full speed, so I'm working on it and hopefully we will improve our times even more this season. I have to admit that training with other dogs is very helpful to both of us. So no, I'm not "on the dark side" as someone suggested, but I don't want to hold Xsara back so I have to train a lot more than she does.



Dasa was on the same dog expo as our breeder, so I ran with Kate again, as "the white dog". We started very well but I was so afraid that she would hit her shoulder into the flat tunnel entry (which was placed in a nasty 180° turn) that I didn't call her enough, causing her to enter into the wrong tunnel. After that mistake I got a little distracted and made another little handling error and forgot to run faster than I'm used to, but all in all I think it was still a diecent run.



Our next trial is on Saturday and it's also a team trial. Unfortunately one canine member of our team hurt her toe and another one is pregnant, so it seems like our team won't run. I wish both of them a very fast recovery!

Agi4Fun

Today we had a 4Fun trial in Ljubljana. I ran with 5 dogs - I wanted to run with 6 but one of them couldn't come, however as it turned out, running 5 dogs can make you quite tired. I was very happy with most of my runs, even though I got DQ in most of them, but some of them were really nice apart from that one mistake. All of my borrowed dogs were really very fast and responsive, but they've never trained with me before, so this experience was new for all of us. I might be too quiet for one dog or too soft for another, which would be different if they were my dogs, training with me from day one. So I think I could handle a BC if I ever decide to have one. And another thing I learned is that viewing the course with so many dogs in your mind is pretty hard, so compliments to those who do it on a regular basis.

My first dog was Bode, who I think I "clicked" with the most. He was going so fast that he broke the weavepoles and he was the only dog who ran for no reward, letting him run is the most rewarding thing by itself. I still played with him before the start and he was playing like crazy, a really cool young dog - border collie, of course. I trained with him once a week ago and we bumped pretty hard, so I was kind of afraid of running with him again. But this time it was a lot better, specially in our first run.

I also ran with two other borders. Kate is an amazingly well trained dog and I also borrow her for Rally-Obedience, so she is used to working with me. I absolutely adore her. Apart from one stupid mistake we ran quite OK - but that stupid mistake of mine got us eliminated.



The last border I ran with was Buffy, also a very nice girl. Unfortunately, she found it very weird to run with me so she was constantly looking for her Petra. We also had some start line problems. Other than that we had two nice runs, and for a dog who had never ran with me before she did very well.

I also borrowed one small dog, a pinscher. Toy, like Buffy, had never ran with me before. We had a very nice first run with the wrong tunnel entry, but otherwise nice (he only wasn't sure if I wanted him to hit the contacts like his handler. I should have waited a little longer for him to stop). Unfortunately we couldn't understand each other well in the second run. That was really a pity. I was surprised to see how fast such a little dog can go, woooosh :)



Naturally I also ran with Xsara. She knocked two bars in the first run which really took me by surprise, but she did very well in jumping. We were 3rd in the combined Medium Open results. I hope it wasn't too weird for her to watch me with other dogs. I will make it up to her with a big dinner and a belly rub.

More Pictures

On Sunday we took Xsara back to Narnia. The Isonzo river is of the most incredible colour, no wonder why great poets wrote about it. We went for a very long walk by the river and Xsara enjoyed it a lot more than sea - it's not salty and it's very calm, both of which seemed to be big pluses for her. The water is also very very clean and icy cold, so it was very refreshing in these hot Summer days. The place we visited is called Most na Soči (Bridge on Isonzo).

We spent a wonderful day and here are some pictures of this trip:

We also have some new frisbee photos to share:

And I also recieved some agility pictures from Portorož, enjoy:

Gradisca d'Isonzo

We had a trial in Gradisca d'Isonzo (Italy) yesterday. Unfortunately, I didn't make any pictures of Xsara. We had a really nice first run (contacts), which we won, but unfortunately I made a handling error in the second run so we were DQ. Seems like all dogs and handlers in our class were too relaxed because of the holidays, since nobody qualified in both runs so there were no teams classified in the combined results. I was still very happy with Xsara's runs, it's so nice to run with such a great little dog, she makes me really proud. Our next trial is a 4Fun match next week, for which I borrowed 5 of Xsara's fast running friends to try out. Do you think I will survive running with six dogs? Should be interesting :)

I know that there are many Silvia Trkman fans reading my blog, so I'm giving you a little treat: the first look at her new baby girl, Bi. I'm sure Silvia will write an introduction of her little treasure for her website very soon, she just needs to make Bi very very tired first, and that might take a while because she seems restless :)

Also some pictures from our vacation:

The camp after the storm:

Home, Sweet Home

We are back - for now, at least. Our vacation was great, Xsara got to rest a little and play a lot. She even went swimming a couple of times, but she's not as crazy of water as I am. And I managed to take the best picture I've ever seen of Xsara with her favorite ball. This was during the first part of our vacation on the island Losinj in Croatia where my father is from.

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!

No, I don't have a new dog. Since I haven't recieved Xsara's EO pictures yet, I'm posting a photo from Portoroz with Dasa's poodle Katka. We are on our way to the seaside again and will return in two weeks. In the meantime I'm posting a video of Xsara playing with our new smart toy. This is her third encounter with Nina Ottosson's Dog Turbo. I have to say that I absolutely love this puzzle!

Portoroz and EO 2008

We have just returned from EO and Xsara is sooooo happy to sleep in our bed. Camping was a fun adventure but with all the rain, mud and very cold temperatures we are extremely happy to be home.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any great results to brag with. Xsara bumped in a double jump after a flat tunnel in our first run, and limped after the last jump. Most courses included A-B-C combinations which are rarely seen in Slovenia (we've never had it in any of our courses before), so many competitors from Slovenia had problems with this, including the most experienced ones. In team trials we had a nice jumping run, but in the afternoon when we had the second run it was already so muddy that I couldn't run in my snickers at all. To put it another way: I'm really not proud of myself right now, but I do try to appreciate every new experience including this one, and I hope we will do better on our next big trial. We also discovered that Xsara likes frisbee (specially if there are any border collies watching her), so we will try it out and see how it goes.

Before EO we had a competition in Portoroz and didn't do too badly there (2nd place). I will post some pictures of both trials tomorrow, right now I just want to hug my dog until she starts snoring and rub her tummy until I fall asleep as well.

News, News, News

We've been very busy in the past few days, but unfortunately not in the way that we like being busy. Xsara got sick. She was throwing up, refused to eat and was walking around the house like she was scared of everything. Of course I took her to the vet. He said she must have eaten something bad and gave her antibiotics, something to prevent her from vomiting, something for the diarrhea, rehydration powder and some probiotic liquid to equilibrate intestinal flora. He also instructed to put her on an easy digestive diet, so I'm cooking her favourite horse-meat-risotto every day. Luckily I got a Summer job that allows me to work from my computer anywhere I am, so I can be with her 24/7. She's feeling a lot better now, her appetite is back to normal and her playfulness as well. We have the last check-up appointment with the vet today and if she is OK we will go to the seaside for a couple of days - but I'll still keep her on the diet, just to make sure.

I also have a good news: I was informed that we won a photo contest by Red Dingo. I really love their products and as I had many nice pictures of Xsara wearing her RD collar, I mailed them. They will publish the photos in the next few days - and we will get to choose the reward by ourselves.

We had a trial on Saturday, when we still didn't know that she was sick. She was a little slower than usually, but I figured maybe she was hot and kept her in a cool place. She was still 2nd :) I have to say that the "reward on the rope" to improve tunnels (as the Finnish judge suggested) isn't working well for us. Guess what happens when there is no reward in the tunnel?! She entered the tunnel and almost got out, than turned back and went looking for the toy. We got one refusal and lost a lot of time, so I'm not using this method any more. I will still try with the "outrun me to the food" thing and let you know if it's working out.

If Xsara will be completely OK by Saturday, we will go to the trial in Portoroz. Portoroz is by the sea and it's very hot there, so this is a night trial. There are always many tourists so they organize some fun shows for them - there will also be frisbee and dog dancing shows, working dogs and more fun stuff. I will try to take some pictures and post them when we come back from the sea (we will be spending almost a week near Portoroz)!

Isn't She Lovely

I have some new pictures of Xsara in action, thanks to our Iztok and Andraz again. We are so lucky to have two photographers among agility enthusiasts in Slovenia, so we always have many beautiful pictures of our dogs on trials. Isn't that the coolest thing ever?!

Also I was asked to write a post about working dogs for Halo Pets. Since I really loved the topic that they proposed, I agreed. They also published some pictures and a video of Xsara :)