Updates

We didn't get lost somewhere in Holland, we're back at the seaside and enjoying the Summer. European Open was a lot of fun and Xsara had some very nice runs. I'm specially proud of our team Fast Snails - we were placed 13th (among 87 teams) in jumping and 29th overall. Other competitors from Slovenia did very well too, and we were very proud to applaud them on the podium.


We're currently staying in our new appartment by the sea where I have a lot of time to work on my diploma. We are also working on many new tricks and hopefully will finally make a new video for Xsara - who is now a big swimmer, by the way. She never liked water too much, but now that we have Tani, Xsara likes to join us in the water as well. But sometimes she does get tired of the little hyper Tani, so she learned how to close herself in the crate. It took me days to figure out why the door was closed even when I left it opened, until one day I saw her closing it with her paw. She sure is one super smart little girl!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday to my sweet sweet little Xsara and her siblings!


We are a little tired after two trials and an all-day agility seminar with AWC 2009 judge Manuel Alff, all in the past 3 days. But we sure had a great time. Xsara ran very nicely, specially on the workshop and in her 2nd run on today's trial, when she got through a very twisted course with no faults and faster than usually.


We are having Xsara's agility friends over tomorrow, and of course there will also be cake and presents :)

Telepathic Little Dog

Our weekends are still full of trials and fun little trips. I'm happy with Xsara's runs this year - even though she doesn't run clean all the time, she is starting to be more independent on course, and I really hope she continues to do so.



We are also working on some new tricks, and she absolutely loves learning new things. She is a very very smart little dog. She is quite different from Tani who will try a thousand things with a new object and keep trying until she hears the click. Xsara will sit and think, and somehow figure out what I want her to do with it right away. I never know how she does it, maybe we're so bonded that she can telepathically feel what I want her to do. But she never needs more than a couple of tries to figure out what the trick is.

Here are some new pictures of my smart little girl, taken on our hiking trip yesterday:

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!!

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 :)

More Trials

Xsara had two trials this weekend. On Saturday we had an agility trial in Gornja Radgona. I am very happy with how we did as we had two clean runs. Her contacts have improved a lot and she seems very happy to be back to competing and training. We were 5th, running after 3 pyr sheps and a poodle. We had a lovely day there, it was a lot of fun. Even though Gornja Radgona is far away and we had to wake up very early in the morning, it's one of my favorite trials.

On Sunday we had a Rally-Obedience trial. Unfortunately I cannot brag with great results there, as Xsara was sniffing a LOT. She worked perfectly outside the ring before and after our turn, but wasn't so willing to cooperate on course. We still scored 161/170 and were placed 4th, but I know we can do a lot better than that. I hope we will do better next time.
I haven't made any new tricks videos yet, but I have some beautiful pictures to share. Big thanks to Iztok Noč who took them!

Xsara:


Tani:


I have managed to make contacts with Tani's sisters. Little black girl Rayas is in Switzerland and she has a very nice webpage. The fawn-merle girl is now known as Razz and she lives in Spain. All three sisters will be agility dogs when they grow up.
Razz:

Rayas:

A Little Bit Of Everything

I've become totally horrible with updates on this blog!! We had very bad weather for a week and couldn't train outisde, but it's been lovely for the past few weeks and now we're mostly outside.

We had a 4Fun trial a couple of weeks ago and Xsara won the open cathegory, making me very proud. Then yesterday we had a trial in Austria. Our first run was pretty bad because I forgot the course (it happens) so we got a refusal and knocked the long jump, but the second run (agility) was great, all contacts were super and even though the course was very difficult we were 2nd, so overall we finished on 5th place (but only missed 2nd place for 1 point). Not bad at all, specially since we haven't competed in so long. We have a lot of trials in the next weeks as well, plus some rally-obedience trials and a herding test for Tani, so we're super busy. Here are some pictures from Austria:



... we also filmed some of Tani's new tricks:


... and went to the seaside again:



Why am I a workaholic when it comes to my dogs? Because of this look in their eyes! When it comes to learning new things, they both get green sparkly eyes and wag their tails passionately - and I'm crazy about that :)


Tani and Xsara are doing great, they are still very good friends and I have no problems taking them everywhere with me. I thought I would have more problems getting Tani used to competitions (a lot of dogs, people and sounds), but she was totally fine and acted like a pro :) Xsara is constantly regaining muscles as Tani keeps her very busy, so she is in a very good shape now (but they are currently both on hyper calories diet). Will post again as soon as I have more time! Thanks to everyone for your comments, I always appreciate them.

We're Back!

Happy New Year everyone! We're back from the seaside where we spent one week around New Year. We had a great time, as always. Long walks, a lot of sunny weather, no TV or computers, just bonding, playing and relaxing. It was really great and we are already looking forward to go back!




On the morning after New Year, Xsara got a visit from Dedek Mraz. He brought her a Wubba and more natural treats (100% freeze-dried bison meat). She also got a new tugging leash, because she's obsessed with tug games lately. She really likes all of the presents. She is even more playful than usually, so I think that home prepared food really suits her. We might get another really big Christmas present, but it's to soon to talk about. I have my fingers crossed!

A couple of days before going to the sea, we went back to training for the first time in months. It was great! Xsara was very happy to be back, she jumped out of the car and started running around like crazy, making circles around her friends Bode and Gayo and herself. Once I managed to kind of calm her down, we ran a couple of very short sequences (a couple of contacts - all of which were great, and some turns and tunnels). I rewarded her a lot, mostly with tugging and a ball, but also with food. We didn't stay long and when we finished we went back home right away, with no waiting for everyone else (thanks to Daša who allowed us to do so). I was very happy with how it went. We're going back to training today and in the following days I will go there by myself once and run with Bode again. I don't want to run with him in front of Xsara because it could get her nervous, but I really want to run with him and Manca offered so ... :)

Anyway, here are some pictures from our vacation: