Is It Really December Already?

Oh wow, I just can't believe how long it's been since I last updated Tani's blog! Better start catching up :)

So since the last update we spent a very nice vacation on Corsica again. The first time we went there I wanted to try something new and different and I just fell in love with the island so much that I just can't stop going there :) So we're probably going there again next year, but we'll try to squeeze in another week or two of vacation somewhere else, so that we can try something new as well. I just love my life! Some photos and sweet memories on this cold Winter evening.

We attended a couple of local competitions, Tani is doing great, she and I actually run as a team more and more often and it doesn't feel so chaotic anymore. I really enjoy running with her, she is everything I hoped for and more. We take private lessons in LoLaBu whenever possible and the rest of the time we train alone or with our friends Maša and Maruša. One of our training videos in mud here:



Tani got a foster-pup in November. We are taking care of her cute little nephew until the end of the year when he will be big enough to travel to his owner. He is a very smart boy, we will miss him so much when he leaves. We all fell in love with him, Tani included. I wasn't sure how she would react to him because she is totally obsessed with me, but once again she amazed my by acting just perfectly, better than I could hope for. She is making me proud every day :)

Summertime!!!!

I've been sooooooo busy lately, summer is definitely my season so not nearly enough time to do everything one would like ... such as blogging for example. Anyway, bater late then never, so some updates on what we've been up to.

First we attended a Rolli Schiltz seminar and spent some time with Tani's sister Rayas and her Christine. Here are some photos by Jana Dretnik (thanks, Jana!!):

Tani was on the cover of Slovenian magazine Moj pes (My dog) representing the pyrshep breed. More about the magazine HERE:

We spent 17 days in July competing in Scandinavia. Tani did really well in Jutlandia Cup (Denmark), she set some best times, won some rounds, qualified for the finals and was 2nd in the end. I was really proud of her, she listened, she was in a great mood for running and we had a blast. It was a really special feeling to run in front of a crowd cheering for us, I've never experienced that before. I thought I'd be nervous but completely forgot about it as soon as we came to the startline. So we just had fun and it was great :) Unfortunately no videos, only some photos by Daša Zakotnik and Gitte Poulsen (thank you both!):

After Jutlandia we went to EO in Sweden. I wish I could say we did great there too, but unfortunately things didn't go quite as planned. I guess we must have left all of our luck in Denmark :) We had two nice disqualifications and two ugly ones, I could see that Tani was still tired from all of those runs in Denmark (5 days of competitions), swimming in the Northern sea, the excitment of camping and running around with other dogs all day long ... Well, we did our best to have fun anyway, we played a lot, cuddled more than usually and cheered for our team-mates who had some brilliant results - congratulations to Silvia and Bu for 1st place, Polona and Kiša for 2nd place in large and our medium team, woooooow! Thanks to Olga Kwiecień-Maniewska we have some nice photos from there too :)

After the long trip we took some time to relax, swim, play and run, just enjoy summer while it lasts. We're heading for Corsica again next week, Tani is improving her surfing skills so she's becoming a real pro, and she's mastering a few new summer sports so video coming after our vacation. And of course, we have some competitions planned for the future, so yeah - we will keep being really busy, the way we like it :)

Swimming photos by Katja Rozman :)

Slovenska Bistrica

Some videos from our competition yesterday. I really need to start running faster :D

Agility Workshop with Susi Novak and Bernd Hüppe

I admit we actually entered the seminar with this awesome judge and fantastic handler in the last minute and it wasn't planned. We are planning so many different seminars this year, so I didn't want to confuse her with new things just when the agility season is starting and she is hyper as it is. But it turned out to be one of the best workshops I've ever been to and I'm sooooo happy that we went! We learned a LOT about handling, finding the fastest solutions for the dog and most of all making agility as safe as possible for our furry little friends. We mostly did short but very technical sequences, we got to try and run them several times with different handling techniques and then we discussed what was best for each dog. What a great idea! In the end we ran the entire course and we did really well, but unfortunately I don't have a video of that. However I do have a video with some of the exercises:

Tani Is A Star

Tani filmed another commercial last weekend, as always she was brilliant on the set and charmed everybody involved. She was relaxed, her tail kept wagging and she was really happy to be filmed and admired. She's definitely not camera shy :) Here is the final product, the other dog in the commercial is her toller friend Wi.

Motešice (Slovakia)

This weekend we competed in Slovakia (that's actually another country, and it doesn't share a border with Slovenia:)). I'm normally a very humble person, but I think we both did incredibly well, I really ran as if my life depended on it and Tani, well - she was really happy to run, as always, but knowing where to go next of course helps a lot :) So no, we didn't win anything because I had to make some stupid mistake in each course we ran, but we did have some really nice runs I'm very proud of. And I believe a nice run with elimination can sometimes be even nicer than certain clean runs. Anyway, we had a great time, weather was perfect, company even better. Thanks to our dear friend Roman for the videos of Tani's runs:

Agility Open:


Jumping Open (wrong tunnel entry, but I'm soooooo proud of that FC after the straight line):


Jumping 3 on Saturday:


Jumping 3 on Sunday (very twisted course, but I'm really happy with the ending, it was just perfect):


Agility 3 on Saturday (of course, tunnel after the DW is waaaay too tempting, hihihi):


Agility 3 on Sunday (wooooow for that weaves entry after the DW, but I was too slow after the blue tunnel):

Happy Gotcha Day :)

It's been exactly 3 years since Tani and I met for the first time. It seems like it was yesterday, I can remember it so clearly. The smell of Spring flowers in the Pyrenees, the joy that filled my heart when I realized that my long time dream would finally come true, the sparkles in Tani's eyes when she was jumping up and down being such a cute and carefree little puppy ... I always get so sappy when I talk about her :) I love every second we spend together, and all I wish for is to have many many more happy and healthy years together and many many sweet little kisses that she will selflessly share. Can't get enough of those. Happy Friendaversary, Tani!

Winter Training

Although we have extremely low temperatures and we're freezing way below 0°C, we still regularly train and go for long walks. Of course, I make sure Tani is properly warmed up when it's so cold outside, but she would go nuts if we had more than an occasional lazy day once in a while. She really enjoys our training sessions with her dear friend Kaili and her Maruša. Here is a video of one of our very cold winter trainings :)

And Now To Some New Videos :)

Tani and I are taking Silvia's Long Distance Handling class this winter. At first, I was a little reluctant to take the class, I really love to train at Silvia's place in person and the thought of "only" being able to enjoy the fun long distance didn't make me too happy. Boy, was I wrong! Of course, I still love LoLaBu Land in person and I definitely can't wait to go back there in the Spring, but I just couldn't believe how much one can learn by taping their training sessions, watching them slow-mo and then letting an expert like Silvia comment on them! I'm really amazed by our progress and I strongly recommend this class to anybody who wants to speed up their dog, improve their dog's obstacle commitment and work on their own handling. I'm sure you'll love it as much as we do! Here are all the info you need to join: CLICK and some of our videos taken for this class:

Some Old Videos

We spent wonderful holidays with friends and 12 dogs in the house, 2 of which were puppies. We had some time to organize old videos so I'm posting them here, they're over one year old and even though I improved my handling a little bit since then, we had some nice runs back then as well.

This was a very eventful run - first she fell speeding up over the dogwalk and then we had a little intruder on course, but Tani doesn't really care about anything, she just wants to run and I really love that about her!



Another nice run from the same competition, a disqualification but with a really nice DW contact:

And a team jumping run - clean and REALLY loud, so you might want to put your computer on mute before you watch this: