Xsara's Personal Chef

We had another vet appointment yesterday. Her blood work and ultrasound are a lot better, but some parts of her intestines are still inflamed. She cannot digest processed food well, so we will probably have to cook for her. We can try different brands of kibbles and cans to see if there is any formula that suits her, at least for our shows abroad it would be a lot easier. It will be a little complicated, but with the right diet she'll be totally fine. We just need to find out what the right diet for her is, and that might take a while. It seems like she's always had sensitive digestion, so it's not stress related. I never considered her to be under stress, so this diagnosis makes sense to me. I'll be more than happy to learn how to cook for her, if that will make her feel better.

We can slowly start to include our normal routines back into our life. Since her intestines are still a little inflamed, we will start in baby steps. We will go to a trial as spectators on Saturday, where she'll be able to see her friends. But we won't stay there for too long. I also ordered a theraball DVD to learn some easy exercises that will help her to regain muscles before going back on course. And after consulting with our vet I also decided to try an Ayurvedic medicine that is supposed to help with digestion. When we will go back to training, I will reward with tug games and balls more than food, and I will try out some home made treats recipes that will be even more tasty, easy on her digestion and chicken free, as she is allergic to poultry. If you have any recipes to share, please let us know. We would really appreciate it!

The Greatest Wealth Is Health

First of all big thanks to everyone sending us "get well" wishes and the first Christmas cards. It's nice to know that there are so many friends who think of Xsara and wish her all the best. We really appreciate the support!


Our girl seems to feel fine most of the time, but mornings are still a bit of a problem. She wakes up at 5 a.m. feeling sick, throws up a little bit of gall and goes back to sleep for a couple of hours. She then wakes up again at 7 a.m. feeling great. This started two days after we switched to soaked kibbles, so our vet says it's most likely related to the change in diet. Which means we're back to cooking. I normally never cook for myself, I always make things explode or I hurt myself in the process, so it's really best for everyone if I stay far away from the kitchen. I even managed to cut myself with cheese two times (no knife, just cheese), so you can see it's clearly not the best idea for me to cook. But somehow I never mess up when I cook for Xsara (OK, maybe I got a little burn a couple of times, but nothing big). And to be honest, I like cooking for her. It's something I can actively do to make her feel better, so it's comforting for me as well. Being such a nice little girl as she is, Xsara loves to help out in the kitchen. As you can see, her job is to do the dishes.

Oh So Hungry

The past two days were very full of events in our house. And Xsara was equally very full. I had some errands to run on Tuesday and Xsara was home alone for the entire morning. Somehow she managed to steal my backpack from the top of the closet, open it and eat the entire 0,5 kg bag of dog treats (1.1 lbs). She was so full that she could barely scratch her ears! I took her for a long slow walk, gave her water to drink and called the vet who said it was too late to make her throw it up. So I had to give her some cream and milk to cause the diarrhea. Yesterday I took her to the seaside for a very long walk and her tummy seams about normal size now. And would you say the little furry thief felt full or regretful about her actions? Of course not - she even had the nerves to beg for food when I was eating a yoghurt!

And it totally slipped my mind the other day: we had a "4fun" trial on Sunday. Since it wasn't an official thing we ran in the "open" cathegory (levels 2 and 3 combined) and were 3rd. I was very pleased since the two dogs who placed higher both run on the 3rd level, which is for the pros. So I think we did quite OK.

Sena's People Are Back

Yesterday we had to give Sena back to her people who returned from vacations. Of course we miss her a lot, but I think Xsara is quite happy that she has the entire bed for herself again (the king-size bed is definitely to small for two spoiled beagles). But it bothers her that I have to learn for an exam and she doesn't really understand why I'm staring to the stupid laptop instead of doing something more fun. Fortunately the weather sucks so going outside isn't so inviting. We wanted to go to obedience course for the first time after her virosis but I don't think jumping around in the rain is just what she needs right now, she is still not that well. Today we will give her the first half of her meal next to the risotto. I hope she will take it well since I recently discovered how dificult is teaching tricks with risotto!

Double Achievement For Brakada

We had a trial in Gornja Radgona on Saturday. We had a very nice sunny day. There was a hunting dog expo next to the trial where they chose Xsara's mom Ella for the BOB beagle. The day was very successfull for the kennel Brakada since Xsara also celebrated 3rd place in agility, but I guess it was more luck than anything else this time. An Austrian judge was judging the trial and his courses were a little different from ours. I was particularly nervous because of that and I ran like a chicken on the course. Xsara understood my weird signals unbelievably well and the first run was clean. Which means he acchieved two conditions for the next level in only three trials which is pretty impressive. She could have made all three of them if I weren't so silly. We're not rushing there anyway, we just got to the 2nd level. We had some problems with weaves in second run so we gained one fault and it also showed in timing that we repeated the entire weaves. Since most dogs didn't Q we still finished 3rd. On Sunday I regretted going to this trial. She had had digestional problems already on Friday but it wasn't bad and I decided to go anyway. I misjudged the situation or she got worse because she was running. She's on antibiotics now and has a diet which requires her to eat horse meat risotto. She was feeling bad for a couple of days, but now she's much better. I'm so sorry but on Saturday she really looked well enough, she was jumping around like always. Tomorrow we will get to babysit her sister Sena for a week, I'm sure that will cheer her up