Winnie the Maniac, Winnie the Brainiac

I've always been saying she's a talented girl. But she's a lot more than that. When she was two months old, I took her to agility with me, when I wanted to train with Ben. While setting the course I looked away for a second and I found her in the middle of the dogwalk. Then the next minute she was on the A-frame, and within the next few seconds I found her climbing the see-saw, that's when I needed to cut it off and run to catch her before it  bangs the floor. Every time we went to agility field, she would try to climb any of the contact-obstacles. She also wouldn't let Ben run, but would run after him into the tunnels, on the contacts, just everywhere, and try to get ahead of him, ever since she was little, she's been trying to tell the world she should be the only one and always the best one. I thought it must be a pyr-shep thing to climb anything one can reach - dogwalk, rocks, furniture or my head, whatever. But as she grew bigger, I realized these are not just her funny ideas, I realized she was born for agility, it's her passiosn, her job, something that makes a meaning to her life, she looked like she only lives for agility.


When I started to teach her running contacts, I just couldn't believe my eyes. She would do a few repetitions and then I stopped, as I didn't want to train too much, but she just wouldn't stop, she went back to the tunnel and run over the plank again and again and again, no reward, she would just run on her own. When we took Silvia Trkman's foundations class, she mastered everyhing with ease, cik&cap, contacts, serpentines, outs, whatever... And she was just getting crazier and crazier every day, to a degree when I couldn't get her off of agility field, as she wouldn't come to me when I wanted to end the training. She is so funny, when she runs on her own, she is incredibly intelligent and she runs all by herself, you just need to show her what to do and then she doesn't need you anymore, as you can remember from the end of this video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CjonEBfZG8&feature=autoplay&list=HL1340978076&playnext=6


But today was the biggest surprise ever. Lately, we've been running some corridors with poles in a slightly narrow corridor which wasn't even close to what is called slalom. I decided not to close it for a while as I wanted to train entries and other things first and I really didn't want to hurry with closing it. And then after a 2-weeks-break I went with Simona Limona to Postojna to train A-frame with Winnie and Simona wanted to train contacts with Nike. I did some A-frames with Winnie and the we were standing on the fielnd with Simona, talking and chating about something, when suddely I saw Winnie doing the weaves all on her own. She got bored as I was chatting and as usually she decided to run on her own and she just started weaving, how on earth did she learn that?!?! She looks fast and furious, like she's been doing it all her life! That is one genious of a dog! 


But she is not only intelligent on agility, she is incredibly cute and intelligent elswhere too. We went to Bohinj yesterday, with Simona and her dogs again, to take a swim in the most beautiful lake in Slovenia. Winnie disappeared in the woods for a second, I called her and whe she came back running, I gave her a treat. She then again went to the woods, I called her and gave her a treat once again when she came back running. And again, she went to the woods, I looked at her and I saw her standing there, looking at me, and then I learned she is doing it on purpose, we started laughing and called her and she ran to me like crazy for her treat. It was so funny that we just had to let her trick us a few more times :) If I could just give her another pedigree name, I'd call her "Life is too short to be boring".


Other than that, I gave up on her growing up. She still chews all my clothes, all food containers, all plastic objects, everything she finds, she still bites me on agility out of hysteria, I'll soon be left without any clothes, she still doesn't sleep, she still can't be left alone for 5 minutes if not in her crate, she still wakes me up in the middle of the night. I don't think she'll ever grow up, in fact, she is getting crazier everyday, now she is getting crazy for water, she wants to work 24/7, her energy has no limits. Just what I wanted! 

At School

Some children really love learning, it's such a pleasure to see children eager to learn! You would think children long for holidays, especially at the end of the school year, but you might be surprised how enthusiastic they are about learning, if only marks aren't involved. Children love learning, but they don't like being evaluated. During the first week of holidays we organised a kind of a workshop for children at our school (OŠ Komen). The workshop mostly included English lessons for small children (6, 7, 8, 9 years of age), but pupils also had some Italian and some sports, art, dancing and singing lessons inbetween.

I just couldn't help myself brniging my little Ben to school with me. Ben is just brilliant with children, he loves everybody and everybody loves him. All he needed to do was to stay with us all day until 4.p.m. and do some tricks with children, play and pose for the camera. A piece of cake for little Ben. I've always been saying that if Ben was a pupil, he would sit at the first bench, with glasses on his nose, the geeky one. He's sure proven me right :) Just look at the pictures of him, what a geek :)

However there are some things to be taken into consideration before taking a dog to school.
A very important thing is that the dog is comfortable with children, that he enjoys being around them, that he enjoys being cuddled and that he enjoys working with them. Children don't have a good self-control, they would all gather around the dog at once and try to cuddle him and boss him around. Ben enjoys attention, he would work with any child and he feels very comfortable and happy around them. It's also much easier if the dog is small, for a simple reason - children are less afraid. Big dogs can be a lot nicer than smaller ones, but big dogs are more likely to stir fear than small ones and I've never seen a child being terrified of little funny Ben. Another quality of Ben's is his coat. Poodles don't shed hair and their coat is hypoallergic (allergen free), so eventhough we had an allergic girl in the class, she was completely fine working with Ben.

I think Ben was born to work with people, children, to play a clown, to be cuddled, to be a mascot. I really enjoyed the whole week, but it felt kind of sad when it ended, knowing I'll never teach these children again, they are so special and so good. But it makes me happy to see how much fun they had and how much they loved every minute spent at the workshop. The whole week was very full and stressful, I needed a lot of preparations, but it was worth every extra minute of my free time.

Happy birthday, Ben!!!

Life is too short to be boring :) I know I'm late with Ben's birthday, but it's impossible to keep up with all the things right now. Lately my life has been a big mess, I could really use some organisational skills! Some big downfalls too, here and there, but I just don't give up on smiling that easily! This one sure fits me well: "I'm too positive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful and too determinate to be defeated", I guess I've always been a dreamer, not that I do not face reality, but I always make reality a dream. 

Right now I have a LOT of work at school with my children, and I love every bit of it. I also work in the afternoon sometimes, and in the meantime we go for a walk and train in the evening. Thank god, the days are long now.

At the weekends we spend all the time with friends, mostly with Simona Limona & co., and others too. Every weekend we have a competition, we still have a lot of off-courses with Ben, but he is finally jumping better and running faster. His contacts need some revision, though, so do his weaves... But aactually he is doing pretty well, but we both need more training. We could also get the opportunity to run on EO in Sweden, but I had to turn it down right away for several reasons.

No, that's not even half of it, we're also learning lots of new stuff with Ben, mostly distance training and new tricks for some commercial purposes, so actually we're never home. Alive and kicking.

And now happy happy birthday to the sweetest dog in the world, my little monkey, my Joey Tribbiani, my biggest admirer, my curly little clown, my soulmate, my everything. He sure is one of a kind, they don't make dogs like this anymore... :)

And don't worry, an update on Winnie coming up soon, too :) I'm planning to make a video of Winnie running agility soon, but it's so difficult to find the time!

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