Happy happy 1st birthday little Winnie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx5lM0rwLt8&list=UUez0_epfFZI1yJu6_K5Xjtw&index=1&feature=plcp

With a little delay as I've been so busy and lazy lately - here comes a video of Winnie, 1 year old already. She is doing absolutely great in every aspect. She is getting more and more confident, she behaves really well at home too, which is a miracle, she hasn't destroyed anything for two months at least, she loves working and she loves agility. She's learned the concept of running contacts with ease, althouh we still have a lot to work on. But her contacts with straight exits are 100% and when I took her to try on different dogwalks, she did just great, a bit more careful, but every next try was better and her contacts on new dogwalks are still 100% except for the first try.

The weaves are looking great too, we still have a wide corridor, but she understands the entries very well, so it's time to start closing the corridor slowly.

I love her obstacle focus, she's pretty amazing, she's very handler focused and obstacle focused at the same time.

See-saw or "bamm bamm" as I call it is still in progress, but this one looks good too.

So I guess everything looks very good, waiting on the startline isn't that bad either, getting there...

All in all she is a great wonderful amazing girl, a dream come true. I love it when she crawls near me when I go to sleep, when she cries with joy and jumps on my head when I come home, I love her hyperactivity, her craziness and her ego, she certainly has a big one :)

Ben and children

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Late with updates but so many things going on lately... Good things :) Here come the pictures that I promissed myself I will put on... It's my lovely loving dearest Ben bringing love to the children. Probably a month ago or so, but I still have to share them. We had a tricks-show with Simona Limona and of course, the kids loved it. No need to say little Ben was the biggest star as he is just so fond of the children and people, so eager to work and show all his talents, so so happy to be around people, to be admired, to be loved and cuddled... Winnie showed some of her tricks too, but was totally overshadowed by Ben :) Interesting, Simona's Ben totally overshadowed Nike too, must be about the name, I'm telling you! :) Anyways, I love how my dogs are so differently talented - Winnie for example is incredibly smart and fast on agility, but Ben is incredibly well balanced and talented for tricks and a born TV star, a circus clown.

Oh, I hope it's not a must to say that I'm wearing a costume, I don't normally dress like that :D :D :D (though not much better either :D )

October Foundations…

Little crazy Winnie successfully graduated from Silvia Trkman's Agility Foundations. We enjoyed the class a lot. With all her fears and unconcetrated mind at 5 months I realized it would be wiser to work on her drive at home, so we took Silvia's Long Distance class via internet. The class started in October but we joined it in November, another thing I love about long distance classes - no problem if you're a bit behind, you can always post your videos later. I decided to progress slowly, very slowly, my goal was actually to make her crazy to run, not to master all the things we had for homework. Crazy to run, and forget about those fears, that's all I wanted from my little puppy. I started with tunnels, only straight tunnels, as she loved them so much. And with fetching ball, tugging and other ways of playing. That's basically it, we spent time playing a lot and running like hell. I don't even know when she mastered all those things as we trained so little and played so much! Watching a video of what she's learned so far keeps me open-mouthed, I hardly believe it myself, her progress in only 3 months is amazing! And we really trained so little, but she mastered it all with flying colours! What a cool little pup she is!

I'm very satisfied with her ball-fetching, she is crazy for a ball (though not as much as Ben :)) and would always bring it back to my hand. She is not so crazy for tugging, will need to work a little more on that one. Another thing she loves is biting me when excited. She would bite me everywhere from excitment, well that's the price of owning a crazy dog :) Unfortunately she can't really bite gently, so I need to be careful with that :) I know this might seem odd and wrong to my not-owning-a-dog friends, but it's her way of playing, she won't bite anyone because she were mean or something, she only bites me, and only when I put her in her excitment mode. When excited she also LOVES to bark :)

October Foundations…

And the link to our graduating video of Winnie's Agility Foundations, big thanks to Silvia for everything and to my sister for filming :)

Fladnitz

Fladnitz was the coldest competition I've ever been to. I was absolutely freezing. But it was a great opportunity to spend time socializing Winnie and an excellent surface to run on with Ben, so I went anyway, plus I had no idea it was going to be THAT cold. Anyways, we had such a great time and the people in Austria are so great, to them it is obvious that dogs can go everywhere, even in a restaurant and since there was a restaurant too, we spent quite some time there with the doggies by our side in a really warm and pleasant place. Here's a video of Ben's runs: Ben Fladnitz.

Little Wi had lots of fun too, I tried running with her shortly after the competition and she just didn't care about anything else but running and barking :D Oh my, she is LOUD.

Well, I just have to share this song that I found on the internet, how funny :D My Dog Ben

Updates...

Hello again :) Some updates of my doggies...

First the funny one: We had a performance on a dog show in Ljubljana and Ben did really really well. It was a lousy performance on my part as I didn't even know what I was going to show, so I just improvised everythig :S I do need to get more organised! We had a performance together with Simona and in the end we decided to shedule a programme next time, with music and everything. However, the dogs did a GREAT job, little Ben was so charming and impressive that people wouldn't let me go home at the end - asking me questions how I teach that or another thing, where he is from, etc. He did not only charm the audience, but the photographers and reporters to, so later I found some pictures of him in the newspaper and the children in our school told me they saw us on TV :D

We went to a competition in Prestranek, and again, he was just great and I was just lousy. I forgot the course twice, I didn't really go off-course, but I was always too late with my commands and with being on the right place, and the result were big lines and turns. But I was so proud of Ben, he really ran nicely, with a nice jumping style after a loooong time, fast and focused. And happy, too! We did go off-course right at the end of jumping, a very silly one though, otherwise we would have ended 2nd in A3! Not bad at all! The courses seemed very difficult to me, especially as I had to wait all large, medium and small dogs to fininsh and I of course forgot the courses inbetween. It's really difficult to run in A3 with Ben as I train so little with him... As I said... all faults were on my side, the little one was great!!
I don't really want to show the videos as they're embarrassing, but I would like to share a video of Simona and her Ben, so very proud of them! Simona & Ben

And now the crazy one: My Pretty Girl celebrated 9 months yesterday! What a cool doggie she has become, so crazy, hyperactive, full of life and always wearing a smile! Always ready to do something wrong, and yet so innocent :) But she definitely is a heartbreaker, all my friends would know that :) She is the sweetes thing, that Bono's song has always reminded me of her :) She is doing really well on agility and LOVES working, she loves tricks and agility. Here are some videos of her on agility... contacts; foundations 3/4, weaves, serpentines

And a video how to teach dogs to skateboard as I got lots of questions how to teach that: Skateboarding dogs

Christmas Card 2011 and Winnie's progress

Just sharing our Christmas Card that we made together with Simona Limona, Benetton&Nike, and another video of Winnie's progress. She is one amazing little girl <3

Christmas Card

Winnie Foundations3

Rain

One of my all-time favourite songs, a masterpiece actually, it reminds me of my sweet Ben so much. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZhQOvvV45w&ob=av2e

I usually hate rainy days, but today I just love this lousy weather. It gives me a great excuse to stay in for the afternoon, and get some rest, because I need a day off really badly. It's not a real day off, I still had to work in the morning, but at least it's an afternoon off. Lately I've been so busy that I can hardly stand on my feet. So I guess I'll just play with the dogs inside today, do some tricks and I'll try to engage myself with the Christmas tree. Oh yes, a rainy day every now and then really feels good! Little Winnie burns all my energy away, she is restless and hyperactive, nothing can tire her. Nights are getting better, but she wouldn't sleep for a minute during the day. And since I try to keep her mind occupied very hard, I also have to work a lot with Ben or he feels pushed aside and that's definitely something I don't want. So lately we've been doing lots of walking, running (8 km three times a week), agility, tricks, chasing balls, hiking, filming tricks, etc. So no wonder I feel like crashing on the bed at the end of the day. But I love this life, I love being active, I love Winnie's energy and I love little Ben's enthusiasm for working with me. We went to a competition on Saturday. Little Ben started really happy and full of enthusiasm but unfortunately the carpet was slippery and he was slipping more than any other dog and his run was slower every second. It was pretty much the same in the second run, he was really crazy on the startline, but then started slipping, he didn't finish the weave poles, which is really not something he would do if the surface was grass, so I just sent him over the dogwalk again and finished the course, praised him a lot and made him really happy. I was determined never to enter him on a competition with a carpet again but then I got some advice from a friend, which really might help with slipping, so I might try it. If that doesn't work, I really don't want to run him on a carpet ever again. Anyways, I am not any less proud of him than if he had finished with a medal, seeing him trying so hard made me prouder than any best time or clean run. Little Winnie was a little absent from time to time, she looked stressed around so many loud dogs, but when I took her a little farther, she concentrated really well and was again her crazy self. I should really go, she's just tying out one of her crazy "ideas"...