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:

A Trial and a Trip to Bohinj

We had another agility trial yesterday, this time in Ložnica. Xsara made me very happy with two nice runs and 4th place. Once again she was running a little better than before her illness, so apparently she didn't need much time to regain her confidence after all. I know this is still not her full speed, but as long as we keep improving I'm very very happy.

Today, we decided to go for a trip because weather was perfect for a loooong walk. I've never been to this beautiful lake not so far away from home, so we went to Bohinj. Xsara doesn't like to swim, but I wanted to see if Tani would enjoy water so that at least one of my dogs would swim with me in the Summer (and Tani liked water a lot). We had a lovely time together, enjoying the beatutiful surroundings and each other's company. When we got back home, the girls were both exhausted and happy, and now they are both sleeping on my bed :)

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.

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 :)

More Pictures

On Sunday we took Xsara back to Narnia. The Isonzo river is of the most incredible colour, no wonder why great poets wrote about it. We went for a very long walk by the river and Xsara enjoyed it a lot more than sea - it's not salty and it's very calm, both of which seemed to be big pluses for her. The water is also very very clean and icy cold, so it was very refreshing in these hot Summer days. The place we visited is called Most na Soči (Bridge on Isonzo).

We spent a wonderful day and here are some pictures of this trip:

We also have some new frisbee photos to share:

And I also recieved some agility pictures from Portorož, enjoy: