Another Fun Walk / Photoshooting

Yesterday we went for another walk with Polona, her toller Wi and Polona's fantastic camera :) We were very lucky because we had nice weather, even though it's raining all the time otherwise. But somehow we managed to even catch some sun! It's hard to imagine that only one day before our walk it was snowing like crazy. This weather is really gone wild. Here are some photos from our walk and from Xsara in snow:

Hiking, Eukanuba Finale And The Ball That Was M.I.A.

Last week we had to repair the obstacles in our club. It was still sunny outside and we wanted to finish all the work before it would start raining. Once we started to work we realised that the obstacles were in a worse shape than we had suspected, so we couldn't repair them in time. But we did manage to give them a very unique touch. Do you think this will make it easier for the dogs with contact problems? Hehe, probably not! So we will paint them as soon as the weather improves :)

As I heard the weather forecast, I decided to enjoy the last sunny day of the week hiking with Xsara. We didn't actually even have the entire day as it would start raining in the evening, so we went from the lake of Jezersko to Češka koča mountain hut (1543m). This time I decided to go alone with Xsara and I really enjoyed it. It was so beautiful!

First we saw the lake:

... there were also beautiful meadows with cows and horses:

... and, of course - the pretty pretty mountains! Xsara was posing like a professional doggy model, so here are some of our best shots:

On Saturday we had the finale of Eukanuba Cup - our last trial in A2/J2. It was raining for the entire day and it was very cold. The judge was Bernd Hueppe from Austria. I liked running his courses, but I thought they were a little dangerous for very fast dogs given the weather circumstances. Anyway, we were 3rd (again with very nice contacts) and in combined results for the Eukanuba Cup 2008 we were 2nd. Xsara got a nice doggy sleeping bag from the sponsor, but the best reward for her came on Sunday - after three months we managed to find her green ball and I think she's never letting it go again :)

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!

Teaching Tricks

We are getting a lot of questions about teaching tricks, so I posted some indications in Xsara's Forum. If your dog knows any fun tricks, you can share them with us, we would love to read about them.
One of the most difficult things we had to learn (besides the destroying-things-is-NOT-good lesson) was how to play. Some dogs always love to play, you just show them a ball or start tugging and that's it. Xsara is not that kind. I had to intentionally teach her how to play (I used the food tube because she likes food). She's crazy about her yellow toy now and training is a lot easier this way. However some dogs might never get toy crazy and that's fine, they just need another type of motivation. But I guess the more ways you can get your dog's attention, the better.

Back From Vacation

We are finally back after successfully passing my last exam on the faculty and now only a half of an easy project and the diploma separates me from becomming a journalist. Xsara was the main attraction on holidays. People even asked us if they could take pictures with her on the beach and her tricks were always accompanied by loud a applaus. But she was very happy to come back home. She doesn't really like the sea itself, she only went swimming a couple of times and she only did it to get a cookie. Otherwise she loved laying on the beach, going for walks and developped an infinite desire to catch and retrieve a ball or any other toy. Finally!


Unfortunately we weren't able to include this new talent in our performance on 4fun trial and agility training. I just couldn't concentrate. Even though I never check the combined results during the season I accidently came to know that we were in the lead for National Champioship (Our Sašo wrote it in a famous slovene canine magazine Moj Pes and of course I had to read it). Well, there are three more trials and the situation could change. But it doesn't really matter, as long as Xsara likes to work I'm happy. I can't wait for the trial tomorrow! I missed the trials so much over the summer that I built a course with legos. It even has the timing devices (alge timing). I'm not very talented for arts but I just love to be crafty!