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!!

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:

National Champion 2008

Yup, that's right! For the second year in the row, Xsara won the combined National Championship in Agility on A2/J2 Medium level. Even though we have been competing in A3/J3 for the past two trials and missed the first trial of the season due to her nail injury, we still had enough points from 9 out of 12 trials. I am super proud because the competition was a lot more difficult this year. It really gives us a nice closure for A2/J2 and now we can set new goals for the next season.




In the final trial of the season we also competed in A3/J3. In the first run we missed the teeter contact, and in jumping we were disqualified due to the wrong tunnel entry and had one knocked bar. Xsara wasn't in a great mood for running, she had an upset tummy the day before and is on a risotto diet. But looking at the videos I think we did some parts of the course quite well. Courses of this type are very difficult for us because the handler stands still and sends the dog around the same jumps, while Xsara performs her best when I run with her and pull her ahead with my movement. We need to gain speed in situations like this, so this will be our main working focus in the next weeks or months. I really hope that we will soon be able to bring the attitude she has in training to the trial field, because we do a lot better in training (well, most teams do). Here are the videos of our runs:

Agility

Jumping

We also had another Rally-Obedience trial last week. Xsara did very well, but she missed the entry into her favorite agility obstacle - the weaves! It was funny to see that many agility dogs had problems with agility obstacles in obedience, because they don't really expect to see them there. She got a very nice score considering we didn't get points for one exercise. We were 5th, but without this silly mistake she would probably have won.

We also have to tell you that we are now driving around safer in our new Hyundai Getz! Well, it's not completely new, it used to be my mom's, but she bought a new Getz this week (she is a huge fan, what can I say), and gave me a really good price for the "old" one (well, at 5 years she is not really "old" yet, but she's older that the new one). Pictures to follow!

RO-II exam: Passed!

We had more trials this weekend. First we had an agility trial here in Ljubljana. Unfortunately I made a handling error and got us eliminated, but was very happy with Xsara's contacts, which were my priority for this trial. I am planning on moving us to the highest Agility 3 Level this season, so contacts are very important right now. We don't have any pictures from this trial yet, so I'm posting a picture from the last week, kindly sent to me by Teja and Luna.

On Sunday we had a RO trial and for the first time competed in RO-II cathegory. In order to compete on a higher level, a team must complete the exam for this cathegory. I wasn't very happy with our performance because Xsara started sniffing on the start and I couldn't get her concentrated on me. But the judge saw potential in us and was very pleased with some of the exercises that she really did well. So we didn't just pass the exam but also finished on the 4th place. I was surprised to see that we could score so high even on our bad day :) Maybe I'm too self-critical.

After the trial we took Xsara for a long walk. I had to work in the evening so we didn't have a lot of time, but I really wanted to enjoy at least a little bit of mountains. So we went to Kokrsko sedlo, but as we didn't have the time to go to the top, we just walked for a couple of hours and then returned to the valley. Xsara loves hiking so much, it's so nice to watch her jump around like an agile little ibex. And the mountains are absolutely amazing this time of year, so we will definitely do more hiking in the next moths.

We Haven't Lost Our Mojo

This weekend was a lot better than the previous one! We had an agility trial in Slovenska Bistrica on Saturday and we were playing it a little more safe. We finished on the third place with two clean runs, but our times weren't as good as they could have been if I weren't so afraid of mistakes this time. However they (the times) weren't bad at all, so I was very happy with our performance. We also had luck with the weather, so we spent a really nice day with our agi-friends.

But today Xsara even surprised myself. We had a Rally-Obedience trial and I wasn't expecting anything at all, so I really wasn't nervous. Xsara worked very well and won the trial, even though there were 32 dogs in our cathegory (some of them incredibly good). We got 147 out of 150 points. Now I have to check out the exercises for RO-2 and if we know all of them we will probably try to pass the exam for the higher cathegory before the next trial (if we do pass it, we will be allowed to compete in RO-2 on our next trial).

I'm posting the video of our trial, but it's very bad quality because "our" boyfriend Gas can't seem to understand the whole "zoom in" concept :)

The Sun Is Shining :)

The Belgian Shepherds World Championship is over and although it was fun, it was also very exhausting. But the week we've been waiting for has finally arrived! On Monday I went to pick up Sena who is staying with us for the entire week. I took the girls to agility and RO, and they both worked really well. Sena could already do a sequence of eight jumps, two tunnels and the teeter and Xsara also ran really fast. However they were really jealous when Daša let me run with Kate and they destroyed one of my transporters. I really have to find a way to keep them still while I work with another dog.

Running with Kate was absolutely awesome. I think I did quite well for the first time with a dog that really pulls ahead. She also worked very nicely in RO and so did Xsara. Since Polona wasn't feeling well she put me in charge of our class, meaning that I even got to play the instructor for a while :) So all in all, it was a very successful day.

The next day I decided to take the girls for a little trip. We wanted to go to the lake of Cerknica but ended up by the sea with Xsara's friend Ben and his Simona. Funny how that happened! We went for a walk and stopped for coffee, but unfortunately we couldn't stay more than a couple of hours because I had big plans for the evening: I decided to make another one of my childhood dreams come true so I picked up horse riding. And discovered that I am a natural at it! I know my life sounds a little bit like a fairy tale, but I worked really hard to get here and now I really need some time for myself. So tomorrow I'm taking the girls for a little hiking and then it's back to the stables. I haven't felt so good in a really long time!

So Much To Do

We are working on a lot of things at the moment. First of all we are trying to improve our turns using Silvia Trkman's famous Cik&Cap method. You can read all about it on her very cool and educational website which can be found clicking here. We're still in the inital part of it because I don't want to rush her. I want her to be 100% sure what I want from her before I start including it in our agility training. I don't want her to be confused about anything - plus it wouldn't really help our training since the main goal is to improve times and you can't do that if the dog is unsure.
Other than that we are working on changing position from distance for our RO class. It's going very well - she can now go from lay down to sit, from sit to lay down and from sit to stand from about 10m to 15m away from me, which is quite good for two days of training it.
Of course we are also working on some new tricks but I'm not giving out anything - it will all be in Xsara's new video which I will hopefully manage to make very soon.
For those who haven't noticed I also posted Slovenian agility regulations in Xsara's Forum. Check it out if you are interested. That's it for today - have fun by

Our First RO Trial

The first Rally-Obedience trial went surprisingly well. We lost most pts on the table since I wasn't confident Xsara would do it from 10 metres and I went closer. We also lost pts on other agility obstacles - the jump was the 1st exercise and Xsara thought this was an agi trial and wanted to run over it. Later on there was the exercise where the dog must heel while you are making circles. On every right turn the dog had the entrance into the tunnel right in front of the muzzle. My agi doggy wanted to go in so bad - she didn't but she kept looking in that direction. Other exercises went well - we gained 65/75 pts and finished on 8th place out of 21 dogs (but only 3pts after the dog that placed 2nd which is probably what we lost on the table). Meaning we passed the RO-I exam and are now allowed to compete. We both definitely prefer agility but it would be fun to do RO trials every now and then.

Another Trial in Ljubljana

On Saturday we had a trial here in Ljubljana. The course was very weird, I made myself really dizzy running it but Xsara took it pretty well. I was happy because the contacts were done as I wanted and trained them. We had two clean runs and managed to run them fast enough with no points on time. We finished on 3rd place. I was incredibly happy with Xsara's performance. The main problem is in me - I know I should trust her more and run faster, just like we do on training. I'm working on it. Patience ...

We have the introduction meeting for Rally-O tonight, I just can't wait!

P.S.: The entire blog is now in English.