Winnie amazes me every day. She is getting crazy for working with me, she loves shaping tricks and tugging, and she loves Ben. They now often sleep together, if Winnie is not in a crate. She would chew anything, just anything, so I can't keep my eye off of her not even for a second. She gets crazy when doing tricks and her paws are all over the place. But we have one big problem. She is really terrified of men, for no particular reason, but she can't stand a man touching her. And she is terrified of big dogs. Normally on walks she would just ignore all dogs and people, to her, me and Ben are the centre of her world. But if the dog comes to her to meet her, she bites. She needs a loooot of time to relax outside and would not play with a toy, she gets very distracted. I try to do all of the tricks outside and I try to spent most of the day in parks and in the city. I often take her in my lap and talk to men, to show her nobody will harm her and that she is safe, but I first tell them to strictly ignore her and not try to pet her, because it makes her feel even more uncomfortable. So yes, I just spend time talking to men with her in my lap or sitting next to me, and eventually she forgets about her fears and she even went to my friend's lap today, by her own choice. But it's going to take some time for her to really relax and forget about the surroundings. But you just have to love her character, she blows you away with that funny face and her furry head full of crazy ideas. She is getting more and more beautiful every day, but to me she looks like she stopped growing, I sometimes joke that's her final height. She is really tiny.

I really think I am so lucky to have Ben in my life. He is so good to Winnie, I usually take him with me and Winnie, because he is the best example when it comes to socialization. He ignores dogs or sometimes only sniffs them, and he loves all people. He is one happy dog, who thinks life is just beautiful. To Ben, the world is so beautiful as long as I am near. And he accepted Winnie so well, they play a lot, but you can see already Winnie is the boss. She doesn't take him seriously at all, and he doesn't seem to mind. Ben was never a dominant dog, he has the sweetest temper, like I said, he is just to aristocratic to fight and argue with other dogs :)

Here comes Winnie's first video.. big thanks to Simona Limona for filming and production, and for your company :). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpOjiqjlKzs&feature=channel_video_title

Holidays

Photo: Maja Rokavec

Photo: Maja Rokavec

Photo: Monika Pl

Photo: Gregor Raičevič

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Maja Rokavec

Photo: Janja Erjavec

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Photo: Polona Železnikar

Winnie is growing up, and she is doing it really fast. Her legs are longer every day and it seems like they are double size now. I just love having two dogs, I thought it would be much more difficult and demanding, but it's actually better than before. I wouldn't have any more than two dogs, but two is perfect! They are becoming best od friends now, I love watching them play, tug and run. Beni is like a big brother to her and he really has a great heart. Winnie can be very annoying sometimes, she loves to bite him and pull his hair and he bears it with so much patience.

I have holidays now and we are very very busy. I just love summer so I want to live every second of it. I take my dogs swimming as often as I can, they love swimming so much. Ben actually loves retrieving toys from water more than swimming as such, and Winnie actually loves me more than water as such, but they both go into the water after me, so cute, both of them.

We play a lot, Winnie is a growling thief, she lays down in the grass like a border collie and then waits for the innocent Ben to come with a toy. Then she attacks and tries to steal it, and she often succeds. And Ben, well, Ben is Ben, very gentle and sweet, he is just too aristocratic to fight, he's a poodle afterall, I think he must believe that blue blood runs through his veins, he always acts like that, it looks like he's way above all the other dogs, like he's a member of royalty and they're just peasants. Well, poodles used to be very popular in courts as companion dogs years ago, a coincidence :) ? It's the same when he walks into a puddle or mud, he heaves his legs up so high, so that they barely touch the ground, hilarious.

We also do some tricks in the mean time, but I must admit I pushed Beni aside a little and I am so ashamed of it. The only real reason for that is that I am running out of ideas for Beni, he knows so many tricks that I don't know what to teach him anymore, and Winnie, well she doesn't know any, so it's very easy to think what to teach her. So I only do some old tricks with Ben, with Winnie, I am working on circling the bowl with hind feet, recalls, focus, and anything with paws. I just love paw-tricks, I think there is nobody in the world cuter than Ben and his paw-tricks, so I decided to teach that to Winnie, too. She is learning really fast, she just learns things by the way, and she wants to do all of the tricks in my lap, she keeps on jumping on me :)

With Beni, I am starting with some obedience, will try to prepare him for BBH exam. And I am starting with turns after dogwalk, this time more seriously. He is running more confidently on competitions now and his jumping got a little better, so if it stays like this, I might as well move him to A3.

And finally, some great photos, thanks again to all the photographers, but especially to Polona Železnikar this time, for taking your time to capture these moments of me and my dogs!

Agility exams and puppy news

Photo: Daša Zakotnik

Photo: Janja Erjavec

Our agility reached a point where there was no progress, and we had a big downfall, I guess. Beni has some serious jumping problems, he jumps very early in order not to knock the bar, but then he actually lands on the bar and it looks really ugly. He is still not confident on competitions and that is why he does things like that. Those bars look really terrifying, they are so different to those in our garden :S He also likes to run past the obstacles for the same reason and we often have refusals.But after a year of competing I can finally say his dogwalk is almost as confident as on training, and I am really proud of that, you can see immediately it's his favourite obstacle. Besides knocked bars, our agility is a real chaos, one big confusion on the course. It looks like Beni and I live on different planets :) He is really very unpredictable and he always surprises me with some strange ideas on the course. Of course, it's not all that bad. His see-saw looks great, sometimes even perfect! He runs right to the very end of it and then waits for the bang. I tried a different method and it paid off.

Oh, yes, and even when it all fits, I manage to foget the course :S Sometimes I am one big mess, a clumsy clown, which is not even funny. Maybe it's all the result of not training, we took a break from training agility because I have to repair some obstacles and add some new ones, so we haven't trained for quite a while, but I am really looking forward to start training again, until then, I am just going to train contacts.

After some really bad runs, we finally had a good day. On Sunday we went to agility exams in Hungary and Beni had two clean runs and won both of them. Ironically, I am the most proud of our second run, which ended with elimination, because Ben took one extra jump after the dogwalk. I didn't call him early enough. But that was a really fast, confident run, I loved it! So now we can move to A3 whenever we like, but I will wait a little longer to fix these jumping problems and turns after dogwalk.

Ben is still jealous of Winnie, but I can see he likes her already. I knew he was going to give in :) He really misses those moments with just the two of us and his favourite part of the day is evening, when I put the little monster in a crate and he gets to sleep on the bed. I try to make those moments more common, and take them for a walk separately. And I spend more time cuddling him, it means so much to him.

Winnie is a sweetheart, a monster and a clown, all at the same time. They are so different, and yet so similar! It took me three months to teach Ben to jump into my lap and with Winnie it only took me 5 minutes. Or actually, she just learnt it by herself, it's her favourite thing to do. She is one little jumpy frog. She is getting more and more confident in new environments, but she is afraid of men. It's unbelievable how smart she is, and what I love most about her is that evil smile on her face. She is always after some mischief. She is constantly under my feet, just like Ben, so I really have to watch where I step. And she likes tugging and destroying my clothes and attacking my arms or feet. She has to sleep in a crate, if I want to get some sleep. She is never well behaved outside the crate, so it would be impossible to sleep with a puppy destroying your room, biting your hands or even your hair or face. Tonight was the first time she slept with me on the bed, but she was so dead tired that I could afford it :) Her recalls are really good, she just learnt them by the way, I guess. I think she fits so perfectly with me and Beni, life is never boring with having those two clowns around.

Photos Beni & Winnie

Thanks to Anja Gubanec for the photos!