7 months

I adore this little energy bomb! Sure we've had a tough beginning with her fears, but she just amazes me every day more and more. And it was a thousand times worth it! 70% of her fears are now gone, now I don't call her fearful anymore, I just call her unsociable :) No, she doesn't like people or dogs to interact with her, but she is really happy around anybody now, as long as they leave her alone. She still needs lots of confidence in new environment, but if she only stays like she is now I am happy with that. Afterall she is all one could wish from a dog. She is the prettiest girl in the world, the sweetest thing. She is absolutely crazy, fast and talented for agility. Very devoted and self confident. She may be fearful, but her opinion about herself is very high. She is still very tiny and thin, she is actually lighter than Ben although she is quite taller.
She still keeps on destroying my room. Every day I find something new. Working with her is nothing but fun. I simply adore her! Happy 7 months to my sweet crazy girl!

Little Ben says hi, he is alive and kicking, still chasing that ball wherever we go. We are now learning some new tricks again, but as usually he gets everything too quickly and the fun is soon over. I think he is turning into a human. He's always been smart and aristocratic in comparisson to "normal" dogs, but lately I just can't keep up with how smart he is. The other day when we were at Simona's place, the phone rang. I joked and told him to bring the phone eventhough we never learnt the trick. And he went to the bedroom and returned with .... a PHONE! Not mine, but nevermind. Then this weekend in the mountains he was thirsty and showed me a bottle of water with his paw, saying "I'm thirsty". When he's hungry and there's only food in the bowl, he usually spills the water and looks at me. There isn't anything he can't "say". I'm telling you this dog can speak! But it's actually his whole attitude, like sitting at the table, and his high-society behaviour that really makes me think he's turning into a human. He just stands out and behaves nothing dog-like.

Here's another video I made of Winnie's agility progress... Winnie - foundations2

I can't wait for December to begin! I love holidays, snow, celebrating, cold and everything about this month! I do want some snow for Christmas!!

A little bit of agility trainings

Looks like we won't have to cut of that little piece of pad on Ben's paw, as it suddenly stuck back and healed nicely. So he's been ok for a while, but he's still wearing a bandage, just in case, I don't want to take a risk for him to rip it off again somehow. However, he is still suffering from post-Winnie-depression, so I made myself a promise, to take him to some special places, only him. It must be really hard for him now. I was told pyrsheps are one-person dogs. Well, for sure they are, Winnie is a typical one, but for all of you who don't know my Ben as much as I do, I can assure you, Ben is more "mine" than Winnie. It may not look like that when you see him jumping on other people, playing with everybody, kissing you all over the face, but I can tell you he is way more depressed without me than Winnie, she is fine with other members of the family too, but Ben - NEVER. When I'm away he would lay sadly in my room, waiting for me on my bed. No matter how long it takes. He wouldn't play with my friends while waiting for me. Winnie forgets about me immediately after I leave the house and plays with everybody else (but only with my family and close friends), but is excedingly happy when I'm back. So I know it is very hard for him to accept her. He loves her, but also finds her terribly annoying.

Here is my crazy Winnie 6 months old, running her first agility steps. I think she did just perfect, what a crazy dog, the most important thing for her (which can't be heard) is to bark inbetween :) What a nice change after my quiet Ben. And what a nice change of Ben's contacts! After a total collapse of his contacts and after giving up on turns, here he is, with perfect contacts, perfect turns (although I gave up on them and didn't train that at all), but with some important retraining. I didn't like his high hits on the dogwalk and retrained the contacts, I couldn't be more proud of us both :)

Video: Winnie/Ben agilty

Holidays - Bovec

I love my job. I love working with children, I am myself just a big child, I love how different children are and each child is a challange, it is so nice to see their progress and development while growing up. I would love to see my youngest when they finish primary school. But one of the things I also love is holiday time :) Since we are enjoying autumn holidays at the moment, I took the advantage and went for a trip with Simona Limona. This time we headed towards Bovec, a beautiful small town surrounded by mountains and a river. Ben's paw actually isnt' healing very nicely anymore, but keeping him inside isn't helping at all, since the paw doesn't hurt him at all, and the vet said the only solution is to cut off that injured piece of his pad (the upper one, which is actually not really important). I didn't like the idea at first, but it's the only way and that won't really change anything. So after that vet check we took off. I just can't wait for that little paw to heal, I miss him running after balls and jumping everywhere. The lady of the house where we stayed at (the owner of the apartment), was quite surprised (or better said shocked) that we actually have four dogs, not one. But when she realized how well behaved they are (I was really careful not to give her a chance to get to know my Winnie a little better), she kindly invited us to come again and seemed really happy to see that some dogs are really well taken care of. Bovec is just beautiful, it's so nice to just enjoy the nature for a few days. At first the plan was to stay for 3 or 4 days, but the weather today wasn't very nice and we were forced to return earlier :( However, we had 2 really nice days of walking along the river and we took the opportunity to take some photos in that beautiful nature. In the end of the day the dogs looked really tired, even Winnie took a little nap (a very short one, but still...) Evenings were fun too, Simona actually got me addicted to knitting those keychains that are so popular among children now :)