Holidays

Beni and I spent the holidays and New Year's Eve in great company. We had a visit from Simona, Nike and Benetton... First we took a walk at home, the next day we went to the seaside, the day after that we visited our friends Boštjan and Anja in Logatec and went for a long walk there. The New Year's Eve was really lots of fun, who on Earth would spend the most famous evening colouring Christmas decorations for next year?? Well, we did :D The dogs were really happy because they were close to us on such a horrible night for them. Most of them didn't mind the firecrakers and the fireworks outside, but poor big Benetton was really scared :( Then we went to visit another friend, Jean and her dogs Lyra, Oli and Bamm Bamm. Thank you Simona for your visit, and thanks to Boštjan and Anja for inviting us!

And some photos from our walks... more photos soon...

at the seaside...

Ruby, Molly, Nike, Little Ben, Big Ben in Logatecat Jean's place

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Ben and I wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays!

And especially a merry Christmas to a very special someone, who is no loger a part of our life, but Ben and I miss you so very much!

Ben's Tricks Part 4

Click on the link below, Ben's Tricks Part 4 (not really the best video, but Ben looks so cute!! :))


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g48M2_hltGg

Snoooooow(board)!

OK, this doesn't have a lot to do with Ben precisely, but I just have to share this. Since I am not a very rich person :) and I really don't like to spend money on expensive equipment, I went to have a look around on a skiing fair - second hand skiing/snowboarding equipment. And I got everything! Second hand winter clothes as good as new for 60e and second hand snowboard as good as new for 60e :) I learnt how to snowboard 2 years ago and those were one of the best days of my life which I will never forget. So this year, me and some friends (guess who - Simona and Maja again :)) decided to go on holidays, have some fun in the morning on the ski-slopes in the morning and some more fun walking with our dogs in the afternoon. So of course, Ben is coming too, can't wait!! :) He loves snow! And mountains! :)

Other than that, my small poodle with border collie turns is finally getting the idea of tight turns :D Or at least it seemed so this morning. It looks much better, still a lot of work on it, bars still on the ground, but hey, we have the whole winter to train (the only good part about not having snow in the coast region of Slovenia)!

As regards to turns after the dogwalk - well, they look perfect, what else did you expect from Ben on a dogwalk :) ? And again, we still have a lot of work on it, but I don't worry about it at all, I just know, those turns will look pretty in the end :) The only problem is that when there is a jump ahead of him and one on the left, he totally ignores my commands "left left" and runs crazily to the jump ahead, but we're working on it :) It's so funny, when he's on that dogwalk, he seems deaf :D

Tricks video is almost ready!! It only needs a finishing touch, will be out next week, hopefully.

Running contacts

Thank you Maja for these wonderful photos of Ben on a dogwalk!

OK, this is what I mean when I keep saying how much he loves that dogwalk. He's crazy about it, he could spend hours running over it, his eyes start to glitter and his feet turn into wings :)

Little Bens

Today I finally went to see "little Bens" as I call them :) How full of life they are, full of energy and so sweet! I am even more convinced now there is no better mommy than Dance, the puppies all have amazing characters! But I simply fell in love with Diesel. He couldn't rest for a second and didn't want to part from people at all, every time we put him in a crate, he immediately started crying, eventhough he was exhausted, he refused to go to sleep, when all the others were dead tired asleep, he was still jumping around, tugging with the polecat toy that I brought, and the way he fought for that toy, wow, a future winner for sure! :)

However, Big Ben was not that enthusiastic as I was, nor was his mom Dance enthusiastic about him, she didn't allow him to come near to the puppies at all, poor Big Ben, she totally didn't care Big Ben is her son too and growled all the time at him :) I guess he was a little relieved when we went home and when he realized I am not taking those "little annoying monsters with us" :D

No progress

The last photo was again taken by Maja Rokavec, thank you!

Lately, I've been trying to find a reason for a problem that we've had since the first competition on. In 90% of our agility runs at home, he runs full speed, but in 90% of our agility runs on competitions he doesn't run full speed. At first I thought this was because of new agility equipment, (and I still believe this to be one of the reasons), then I thought it was because of so many scary dogs around on competitions, then I thought of many other reasons and I think they are all partly true, but the process of overcoming this problem will take much longer than I thought, since our progress is very very slow. I tried to take him to every competition possible only to overcome these fears of his, but I'm not sure whether it helped much. Sometimes I just had to go home with a tear in my eye, it is really not a good feeling to drive a long way and spend your last savings only to see all your efforts fail.

Our second project lately has been to improve cik&cap. Again, no progress here, so I started the whole thing all over again, without bars, around the trees and jump wings. I never thought this could be so hard to teach, but I just have to find a way to make him love tight turns.

The only improvement on agility are turns after dogwalk. I've started with a jump straight after the dogwalk and then removing it further and further back to the left or right. It's looking quite chaotic, he only runs according to my body language, doesn't care about left and right at all, all he wants is to run and run and run over that dogwalk, but with a lot of tries, he learned to turn tight to the left or right after it. Of course, never missing a contact, oh my God, does he love that dogwalk, so funny :D

So I am not really satisfied with our agility lately (except for the dogwalk), but no, I am not giving up, I just know someday we will overcome this!

Other than that, we are busy with frisbee, new tricks (it's getting boring, he now learns a new trick with just two repetitions!, oh my, he is turning out to be too smart for me), hiking and fooling around with our friends. This weekend we had a visit from Simona, Bennetton&Nike and it was really funny to watch Ben&Nike playing togeher, tugging (Ben NEVER tugs with any other dog), and all three playing piano, doing tricks and running in the fields. They are a true dream team: crazy wrestler Nike, funky weirdo Ben and good old uncle Bennetton :) Since my camera is still dead and I have to buy a new one, I haven't been able to make any new tricks/agility/frisbee videos yet, and I have to thank Simona for all the photos. I have many videos in plan, but it might take some time...