Tani (Désirée de Loubajac) is my young dog entering into the world of agility competitions. She is always in a good mood and full of brilliant ideas. She feels an infinite desire to spread her joy around so having her in my life is absolutely amazing.
Tani ...
... was born in a litter of 4 puppies on December 25th 2008. She spent the first two months of her life in the Loubajac kennel in the French Pyrenees. Her mother is Pecquelette de Loubajac and her father Hob-Nob's Victor.
When she came to stay with me, we started Silvia Trkman's puppy school, followed by Sivia's tricks class and later on agility handling classes in LoLaBu training center. We do everything using only positive training techniques. We are very fond of Silvia and her dogs, specially the crazy little La who is Tani's 3/4 sister. We also attended handling classes with Daša Zakotnik and Polona Bonač.
Tani has many passions in her life. The biggest one is agility, of course, but she also loves playing with her beagle sister and BFF Xsara, hiding her toys in the most odd places, running through the fields and meadows, playing with sheep and eating.
I don't like cold. I think any temperature below 25°C should be forbidden. And yet, I love agility more than I hate cold, so I keep going to competitions where I know it will be cold. Well, this time I outdid myself, -17°C is not just normal cold, it's really cold! But hey, enough about cold.
I really like competing abroad. I love to test courses from different judges, find new challenges and new training ideas, gain experience and meet new people. But I have to admit, the competition in Slovakia was very hard for me for one simple reason: Tani and I weren't able to train for weeks before the competition due to extreme weather conditions. When she entered the hall and saw that pretty agility equipment that she had missed so much, she just wanted to be all over the place at the same time. And she was :) Luckily weather has now improved so we are able to train normally again!
I admit my handling wasn't the best eather, lack of training was very bad for me as well. But we got through some twisted parts very nicely, and I defenitely got tons of new ideas. Big thanks to Polona for advising me to change our startline routine and do a little bit of obedience before our runs. I tried it out and I think it's really good for both of us to concentrate a little bit. I think Tani was equally enthusiastic when I warmed her up with obedience, it really doesn't affect her desire for work, but she was more focused and easier to handle because she listened to me and didn't just run from one tunnel to another, LOL :))))
We met a cute pyrshep male from Poland, his name is Evo and he is with Roman Maruszczak. We took a picture together and talked a lot:
Big thanks to Lenka Wami Blachová for these fantastic photos of Tani!
I honestly believe every person interested in agility should attend at least one Silas Boogk seminar. For Tani and me, this experience was a true milestone. Silas seminar is hard to get into, usually working spots are full far in advance, but all of our asking around and harassing people really payed off. And so, we got a spot in Hungarian club TordasZoo!
Tani had a great time with Silas, she was her usual crazy self and a real joy to work with. I had to repeat some sequences many many times to get everything right, and she didn't mind at all. I love how she is always ready for action, she really is a great dog. Silas showed me how to teach her to be independent, how to improve her distance work, how to send her in order to get to my key position when needed and how I should predict Tani's ideal line and try to keep her on it. I never realised before how often I actually stand on her way. Sometimes it was hard for me to be in the correct position and to do everything right, but when I did it it was pefect! I really hope we will attend at least one more Silas in 2011 :)
Unfortunately, we weren't able to do any training at all ever since we got from the seminar on Friday. Our training facility is covered in snow and we don't have access to an agility hall, so we will have to wait until weather improves. We were stuck in Ljubljana due to bad weather for one whole week, but when we will get back on the coast, I hope we will be able to train normally as there is no snow by the sea (only rain). Tani likes snow, I'm sure she misses agility but she thinks running over snowy fields is pretty fun too. She has new winter gear to protect her coat from snowballs and I think she looks very cute in it :) We are attending a Christmas agility competition in Slovakia this weekend, I wish we could train a little before it but it's impossible. Well, at least we will get to do some agility over the weekend, I'm sure we will have fun (if we don't freeze, LOL). Weather forecast predicts -10°C! Brrrrrrrrr ...
On Sunday Tani had her first competition in A2 and it was also her first time running indoors. I admit I was more nervous than usually, I really just wanted her to feel comfortable in this new environment and didn't pay enough attention to my handling. The result was predictable: one very hyper and barky dog running all over the place, entering all of the tunnels on the way and having the time of her life :) So I can say she did absolutely great and I hope I'll be more relaxed next time and handle her better.
At the end of the day, there was another TUNNEL CUP - our newly discovered discipline, which gives so much joy to any tunnels-obsessed dog :) I think we both did very well in that 4fun run, she performed additional 2 tunnels (I guess 17 of them really weren't enough :)), both to my error for getting a little lost in the course. But in tunnel cup you just lose time, there are no penalties, so she was 2nd despite losing so much time there. Not bad at all! Thanks to Daša for the video and some photos from our walk on the beach.
And a group photo with Tani's niece Page and her Rolli, taken at his seminar in Ljubljana :)
Yes, we did it :) Tani made her final exam for A2/J2 level in agility! Once again, luck was on our side in Austria. She had the fastest times in A1 from all height cathegories, she was hyper and yet managed to follow my cues and even stop on the teeter, and she was so focused that she didn't even notice a little sheltie that escaped on the course while she was in the weaves and ran the rest of the path with us :) I sure am very proud of my supergirl - and I admit I'm pretty glad that we will get to sleep a little longer on weekends from now on. Competitions for A2 usually start about 3 hours later than A1, so ... :)
Special thanks to Josè M Davila for this sweet photo of us from Dog Olympics!
This weekend Tani and I participated on the first Dog Olympic Games in Lignano (Italy). The main reason why I wanted to attend this event was a discipline that has "Tani" written all over it - TUNNEL CUP! Tunnels are Tani's favourite thing in agility, she loves the sport and enjoys all about it, but tunnels have a special place in her heart ever since the first day she set her paw on agility field.
I entered her just for fun, I never thought I would be able to remember a course made entirely of tunnels. But our run was perfect, she had the best time by far in medium (over 4 seconds faster than any other dog) and even though we got 5 seconds of penalty for knocking the first bar (my fault for placing her too close to the jump), she still earned herself a bronze olympic medal. Of course, I am extremely proud of her, and the tunnel challenge was so much fun for both of us, we defenitely want to do it again!
Our friends did very well too. All of our 3 room-mates came home with at least one medal! We saw many interesting disciplines, maybe we will enter more competitions for the next Olympics. We also enjoyed long walks by the sea where Tani could play with her new friends. Thanks to Enes Halilovič and Veronika Valentin for these lovely photos! And thanks to Sandra Pavlović for the video of Tani's Tunnel Cup run!
I just have to share this awesome action photo of Tani taken by Sebastjan Saunig. I really love her dogwalk performance, a lot of hard work for sure, but defenitely worth it! And no, she didn't go fawn around her neck, she just needs a bath :) She really enjoys rolling in mud, so ...
Tani's life is so full of events, I don't even know where to start :) Our fantastic vacation in Corsica? Her new TV ad? Her second exam for A2? The wonderful seminar with Rolli Schiltz? I'll just go chronologically!
Corsica was wonderful, we're defenitely going back and both Tani and Xsara loved every second of it! Tani turned out to be a passionate swimmer, it became impossible to keep her out of water. She was jumping into it from rocks and cliffs, was fearless against all waves and just swam and swam in circles with the happiest look on her face. As I mentioned many times, I love to swim as well, so I'm very happy to have a dog that will go swimming with me :) We also enjoyed hiking and camping, the doggies thought it was pretty cool to sleep in a tent. We missed agility, but there was so much going on we honestly didn't have much time to think about it.
Swimming Video:
And some photos:
We came back just in time for Tani's handling class in LoLaBu Land and a competition in Ljubljana. Tani's always been a fast little dog, but after 10 days of no agility, she went completely crazy :) Our runs were a little chaotic, I was just not fast enough for her - but we still managed to have two clean rounds with best times in Medium, so she won the competition and we are now only one clean run away from A2!! Hurray :)
On Sunday after the trial we attended a seminar with Rolli Schiltz, who is not only a great coach and judge, but also the owner of Tani's niece Page, so he really understands crazy little barky berger des Pyrenees. He gave us some great advice and we are defenitely going to try it out. Among other things, I finally learned how to do the "catch", I learned that I have to be more precise with my handling and be aware of what I'm doing at all times. Tani is a young dog who is growing in confidence and speeed, so she's getting more and more independent (which is a good thing, but it means my handling must really be accurate and timely). We spent a wonderful day, it was a lot of fun!
The last but not the least, Tani's new TV ad came out. There are two versions of the commercial, each of them has one Tani close-up for a couple of seconds. She had to pretend to be in a hair salon getting highlights :) here's the video of one version:
Tani passed her first exam for A2 in horrible weather in Austria. She really ran great, specially considering the circumstances, so I'm very proud of her. In Austria, teams get points for each run, so we were also on the podium for combined results, despite being eliminated in one run. We are going on vacation on Friday, so this was a very nice surprise before leaving for Corsica, where we will enjoy sun, sea and mountains and forget about agility for 10 days. So before our departure, we will have to get a big dose of agility to keep us going - we will have our first private lesson in LoLaBu Land tomorrow and agility class (in the same place, of course) on Wednesday. We can't wait to start working on those turns after dogwalk we will defenitely need in the future!
Oh, and Tani filmed another TV ad last week. This time she just had to act like a dog, but she did have to be still for quite some time, which is not all that easy for her :) Once again, she totally charmed the entire crew and proved that she is a real star.
Thanks to Nina for Tani's video from Entschendorf:
We don't have any agility trials in Slovenia during Summer, so we try to attend those that are not too far abroad. A couple of weeks ago, we went to a competition in Oberwart. Tani did great, with a nice clean run and best time in jumping. Our agility run was also fantastic, but there was a tunnel next to the A-frame that Tani just had to get into, so we were eliminated :)
Our friend Maja Rokavec took some wonderful photos of Tani in Oberwart. Thank you, Maja - I am a big fan of your work!
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