A Very Fun Morning (Specially For Xsara)

Yesterday we went for a walk with Polona, her toller Wi and Bamm Bamm, who is staying with Polona for a couple of weeks. We had a great time together, but Xsara got me very scared. She was behaving very nicely, came whenever I called her and played nicely with other dogs, when suddenly I heard the familiar beagle-scream that they produce only when they find a trail. I tried to run after her, but my neck got stuck in Tani's leash so I had no chance at all. I tried to follow her anyway, while Polona and the other dogs waited where Xsara left. I called her and followed the barking, but she was moving way to fast for me to follow her through the bushes. Then I couldn't hear her any more and I got really scared, so I decided to return to the others, hoping that she would come back soon (beagles should know how to return to the spot where they left). And she did come right after me. The entire chase didn't last long, maybe 10 minutes - but it seemed like ages to me. I was soooo happy to see her, I think I hugged so hard that she lost her breath for a second and then I kept her on leash for the rest of the time. She is my sweet little girl, but deep inside, there are instincts that she cannot resist. I will be extra careful from now on!

Polona took some amazing pictures of my girls, so BIG thanks to her! Here are pictures of Xsara, while Tani's pictures are on her blog:

Merry Christmas!

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 :)

Never Boring!

I am happy to report that Xsara keeps getting better and better. We had a check up at our vet and he was very glad to see her doing so well. We now know that the meds are definitely working, so he prolonged this therapy until the beginning of December. We are taking it easy while she's on two strong antibiotics and acid inhibitors, but resting totally bores her :) So I am doing my best to occupy her with easy but very fun stuff while she is recovering from this illness. Thanks to Azu for a great toy idea you can see on the picture. It's a maze made out of PVC pipes. You put a ball in the maze and the dog's task is to get the toy out, using his paws, mouth and, naturally, brain. We are having a lot of fun with it.

This weekend we had a very nice weather and we spent most of the time outside. The vet said she can run as much as she likes to, as long as it's relaxing and she doesn't get overly excited. So we had two fun outings. Yesterday we were doggy sitting Xsara's niece Luna. We took the girls to the spring of river Krka where we went for a long walk and they could play in the meadows. We really liked having Luna around, she is a very cool dog.

And today the weather got even better, the sun was shining and the day was perfect for a hike. Of course, hiking would still be too much for Xsara, but we know that she absolutely adores the fresh air and long walks where she can be off leash, so we decided to take her to Velika Planina. It's a big Alpine meadow and you can get to it by rail car. We went for a very long walk up there and there was even some snow on the top, so Xsara had a great time. You can see how she learned to ice skate on a little frozen lake:



And here are some other pictures from this walk:

Together Again!

I've been back at home for 3 days now but haven't been able to post much because I've been busy bonding with Xsara. Many people asked me how she deals with my absence and I haven't really been able to answer because I've never been away for an entire week without her. But now I can tell you that she actually took it very well. She would mostly sleep while Gas was at work and they spent the rest of the time taking looooong walks, even though it was raining all the time. They went to a beagle convention organised by our breeder and Xsara had fun seeing many of her siblings and other relatives. But by the end of the week she was getting a little nervous and would watch the door more than usually.

I missed her like crazy, but the trip I took with my grandfather was amazing. I've always wanted to go to Africa and now I was able to see a little piece of it. I really hope to experience more of this oncredible land some day, and it will be easier now that I know that Xsara would be OK with me gone for a week or two. Anyway, I took many pictures and here are some of the most interesting ones:



As I said, I missed Xsara like crazy and was really anxious to see her when we landed. When we got home she jumped in my arms, gave me a big wet kiss and then went sniffing around our room to see if everything was the same. She really didn't make a big hello out of it, but I think it's because she knows that we belong together and that I would never leave her. However for the next 3 nights she would sleep so close to me that she almost pushed me off the bed.

To reassure her that we will now continue to do all the fun things together, I immediately took her out for a long frisbee session and yesterday we went for a nice trip. Gas wanted to go to the sea and I wanted to visit my beloved Isonzo river, so we went for a hike to waterfall Boka and then to watch the sunset and have a dinner by the beach in Lucija. Luckily, Slovenia is small enough so that you can do all of it in one day :)

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!

Long Time, No Sea

This weather is absolutely crazy! It's raining all the time and it got quite cold, so we haven't been on any interesting roadtrips. Last week it was still a little warmer so we went to Iski Vintgar with Ben. Xsara couldn't wait to go swimming, can't you tell from the photo?! I hope she will be in more of a swimming mode when we go to the sea because I would really like us to go swimming together (but I won't force her if she decides against it, of course).

On Saturday we had a Beagle Reunion, organised by our breeder. It was cloudy and cold, but the dogs didn't mind. They were so happy to play together and steal human food from the tables. Whenever food was involved, Xsara was the loudest and the bossiest one. Because of her athletic figure, some people thought she really was starving, so I know they were feeding her behind my back (I could tell by the smirk on her muzzle). Anyway, we saw many Xsara's relatives, including both parents and two dogs from the same pack.

Luckily, the weather is always nice when we have training, so we haven't missed any lessons. We have three trials and an agility workshop (with the WC judge Anne Savioja) next week, so we won't be bored or anything. We will also celebrate Xsara's birthday next Friday (June 27th)- I absolutely cannot believe that she will be 4 years old!! She is still a puppy if you ask me, so playful and full of life. But at the same time I don't even remember my life before her, it's like we've always been together. Anyway, we will have a party, doggy guests, the cake and everything, and I promise to post about it. Just, please, don't make any HB wishes in advance because it's bad luck ;)

Beagle's Stuff

Unfortunately, our agility class on Monday was cancelled because of the storm, but it stopped raining by the evening so we didn't have to cancel the Rally-Obedience class. We decided we would be doing courses on Mondays and new things on Fridays. Xsara did horrible at first, she refused to heel and acted as she had never done any obedience in her life, but after a while she became her normal self again and worked very well for the rest of the class. I guess it's just "beagle's stuff" - I think she is very reliable for a beagle, but sometimes she has to remind me that she is a beagle, and I believe it's best to deal with this issue with a lot of patience.

We had agility training today, and she did quite well. You can see how sad she was while she had to wait for her turn. She knocked one bar and analyzing the video I think I probably made her turn left too quickly, while she was still in the air. The rest of the training was quite OK, I think our running-in-the-mornings is starting to pay off, which makes me extremely happy (but I still have to work on MY running a lot!). I'm posting two videos of our runs - the quality sucks, but you can see the dog and most of the obstacles, which I guess is the point :) Unfortunately you can't see the weaves, but the entrance was very difficult, so she did a really good job finding it right away. You will notice I was out of breath - in my defense I have to say that we had to move all of the obstacles (including the contacts) to the other part of the ring before our class. And they were heavy. Thanks to Simona for filming us.