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So, first competition of the year was Magna Racino (yeah, we like to start big... ;)). It was great as usual, great venue, some awesome courses which gave us lots of new ideas - Sandra Deidda was as usually a star and lots of good competitors. It was quite succesful for us as well, Brava was on a podium a couple of times, Evo had a bit of bad luck with the bars, but qualified to the final as well and Brego was my little hero, being in the first 15 out of 270 large dogs and securing a place in the finals easily. It's so cool to run him now, we reached the stage when I can trust him more and he is a smart boy, always trying his best :). 

We had bad luck in the finals with really stupid mistakes - but both of us had quite a bad cold so weren't really focused.

We also met with Zookie and Brie and I'm still very proud of Brava's puppies, they are just really awesome dogs, not only in agility, but also in everyday life which is even more important. Zookie is still perfect clone of Brava, just bigger and in black, but she makes the same faces and is the same type of good girl, whereas Brie is more like Evo and always trying what he can get away with, but being so cute when doing this that you can't even get mad at him ;). 

Flaszek was running in spot of Kaira, so unofficially, but he was also enjoying himself and even barking a little on a course :). It's always so cool to see him being more and more relaxed in various situations :). 

So enough of talking, time for some videos now :)

Brego Friday's agility -13th place

Brava's Friday's agility 1st place

Brava's Saturday agility - 2nd place

Brego's Saturday agility - not the best choice of lines now that I see the video, but I still enjoyed the run

Brego's Saturday jumping - that's my favourite run with him :) again 13th place or sth like that

Evo's saturday jumping securing him place in the final

Flaszek's agility

Flaszek's jumping

Another great part of the competition was that we had really nice hotel with great Greek restaurant this time - oh, the food :D. Definetely one of the best pleasures in life :) especially in a good company which we also had :). 

So here goes a story.

We got her totally by chance - we were waiting for another litter of another breed and then there wasn't a puppy for us. We wanted the dog so much that we couldn't wait anymore so I did the most stupid thing: got a dog magazine, opened it on puppy advertisement page and an ad caught my eye: "Particolour cocker spaniels puppies for sale". I didn't even know what a particolour cocker was at that time :P, but we went to see the puppies and after first look into puppy pen we knew she was the one. No puppy tests, no questions asked. This one. 

When we brought her home, it turned out she fears nothing, she retrieves to hand (as an 8 wo puppy), she tugs and she's almost house broken already.  

That's how our journey started. 

People told me that cockers are not good for agility.

People told me that it's the most stupid breed ever. 

We knew better than that. 

But it's not her achievements, and there were many, that made her special. She was the only dog that I would ever own that could go to an agility competition and win 6 runs out of 6. She was the only dog that people would look at and then come to me surprised after her run: "Wow, that cocker is great". She competed 6 times at the World Championships, she was Polish Agility Champion, she won many competitions and had many pefect runs and she was really extremely easy to teach and to handle . She played in a TV series and was hosted in TV programs because she could do so many tricks and she did them with energy and joy and barking. But it was her joy of life, her naughtiness sometimes, her unpredictability, the way she thought she was so smart when she was so silly, the way she barked on the course all the time that made people notice her, smile and remember her. She helped me get to know so many people that for many of them I am "Olga from Sunday" and that's how they would put my name in their mobiles. 

Today I want to share those stories for all the people who wrote me yesterday, expressing their condolences and sadness.

Once let her and Vigo out of their crate on agility competition and she was immedietely gone somewhere. I called her and looked for her for several minutes... and then there she comes, with her tail wagging and the ears sweeping the ground and you could see that she was SOOOO proud of herself. When she came closer I saw that she was carrying a big piece of BACON in her mouth that she probably stole from someone's bag :))). But I couldn't exactly go asking "Hi, is this your bacon?", so in the end I let her eat it.

The other time we started an agility run and someone was feeding their dog just next to the ring. So Sunday took first three jumps in the line and then I turned left and she turned right and went straight to steal the food from the bowl :). 

And when we went for walks and she found something to eat she would either try to hide it in her mouth to bring it home and eat it where I wouldn't see it - and that was so cute, because you could see she thought she was so smart and yet it was so obvious from her demeanor that she was hiding something - or she pretended she didn't see it, I walked on... and then she stayed a bit behind - "I'm just sniffing something here!", "Oh, I'm just peeing, I will come right away when I finish" - and then when I wasn't looking she would race back to the food and there was no chance I could catch her :). And she could remember for weeks where the food once was.

And she always wanted to poo after exercise or when she was a little overexcited, so I always tried to make sure she does it before agility run. And we were waiting for our turn at Agility World Championship 2010 in Rieden and she didn't do it, even though I was walking with her and playing with her for what felt like hours and my team captain was like "You have lots of time, I will call you" but then finally we needed to go in. And then the dog before us was running and I was so stressed that Sunday might poo in the ring and that would be a shame at AWC... and then she decided to do it in the preparation ring and while the other dog was running :). I was so relieved that after this I knew I could do everything and we had a cracking clean run.

And she was so hysterical at the vets. She started screaming the moment we got in their office and then she only got louder and louder until everybody in the waiting room would think we are skinning her alive when all that happened was cutting her nails or giving her rabbies shot :). The bravest vets' hands started shaking when she did this and she was so loud that I think everybody around should have protective headphones. 

And she was such a princess. Not only she wanted to lie on the sofa, she also needed additional pillow to lie on. And she was fussing with it endlessly, until it was just right.

She was the boss and always got what she wanted. Evo would lie on a couch and she would come and sit directly on him. And he would protest and growl and then would just go away, at which point she just lied on the warm spot, totally happy with herself. 

She was really perfect with other dogs, usually just ignoring them, but it happened a couple of times that bigger dog attacked her thinking she's small and vulnerable. Each time they regretted it, because she was fearless and would fight back, no matter how big they were and after a moment the big dog was like "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it was a mistake, please accept my apologies". 

She loved chasing birds. She never chased any other animals like rabbits or deer, but she was crazy for pheasants and sometimes she ran away and ran in wild circles, flushing them out one after one, with that crazy barking and ears flapping. She never went far, I could always see her and she would come back after a couple of minutes of doing this. 

And she loved squiky balls, the ones that have little faces drawn on them and make horrible noise. It was her obsession, best reward ever. 

She loved food and was always hungry. She ate many things that once touched food or had food molecules on them and she grabbed every opportunity to find something edible. She once ate a whole kilogram of sugar when we left it on the table and drank almost a litre of milk with that. She eat amost whole package of coconut bars together with the wrappings and was pooing with blue wrappings days after. Normally we feed the dogs around eight and each day she thought it was her duty to remind us that it's almost eight and almost eight started at about 6 pm. I'm sure she was convinced that eight comes later every day. 

And here is a link to my favourite video with her, the one that lots of people shared in order to promote positive dog training. She is not perfect in her obedience exercises - I didn't care to teach her to do them EXACTLY right, but she is so happy in it that you can't find a better reason for reward-based training. And for owning a cocker.

Thank you, Sunday, for everything you gave me, for many happy years together, for forgiving me my mistakes, for being the best first dog one can dream of, for being gentle with all the creatures and humans, for bringing up our other dogs and teaching them manners and being loud :P. 

You gave me so many smiles that now you deserve lots of tears and I can't stop crying, but the pain means the joy of our life together was real.

I love you. I always will. Mikhail Bulhakov wrote that there is a theory, no worse than others, that after we die, we get what we hoped to get. I hope to meet you again.

As we're having a bit down time right now - lighter training, no important competitions for a while - we decided to have some additional fun and exchanged dogs for a couple of small competitions. As a result Evo is now MA3 also with me (Olga), Flaszek got his first leg in A1 with me and Brego achieved A2 with Roman :). Brava with Roman are also A2 and have first leg towards A3 :). Here are some videos from recent competitions:

Roman and Brava - MA2, 1st place

Olga and Flaszeł - LA1, clean run, 4th place

Roman and Brego - LA1, clean run, 1st place

Unfortunately, no videos of me and Evo :( but we got 1st and 2nd place (after Brava) and clean runs :). 

And now for some pictures from our walks:

We've moved to a new place :) Which means we have awesome places to walk the dogs all around and everybody is enjoying it a lot. I guess that covers our winter condition training as we're taking longer and longer walks every day :). 

Roman competed a bit with Brego when I was away on a seminar and got two legs to A2 already :). They have one more competition together this year, so who knows :). People told Roman that Brego is faster with him than with me, which is possible since Roman is faster than me :) - see the video below.  But still I'm not giving Brego to him! :P He's mamma's boy. 

Apart from that, we've been to competition in Kladno, which was really nice as usual. I had lots of fun running with Brego who was really good boy, qualified into the final (and than I run into a jump and eliminated us). He's getting crazier too, so we got some funny eliminations with one tunnel / one jump too many :P but I take it as a good sign of more obstacle focus :). We need to work a bit on reacting to opposite arm on threadles though, also with Brava - looks like I've been overusing double crosses a bit ;). 

Brava was awesome and won the entire thing in a cracking run :) 

Flaszek progressed to A3! Can you imagine that? <3 He's just getting cooler and cooler.

Roman didn't have much time for training with Evo recently and it showed a bit ;) some great runs and some messy runs. Unfortunately one of the messy runs was in the final ;). 

Our oldies... well, Vigo refuses to admit he even is an oldie, still has more energy than everybody around, which he uses to terrorize everybody around (well, he would like to terrorize everybody, but nobody gives a damn, so in reality he is just growling all the time at noone in particular) and destroy toys and other things.

Sunday is not that well... There are still some lasting effects of the vestibular syndrome, which makes us think she also suffered a minor stroke as well. Her balance is not so good. She sometimes seems absent, sometimes pees in the house (although it got better since I started treating her as a puppy and just watch her and let her outside each time she wakes up, gets excited, after eating and so on). She has better days and worse days. Sometimes she is happy to go for a long walk with us and is happy and active as ever. Sometimes, especially when it's cold and rainy, she just sleeps all day and doesn't want to go for a walk - and we let her stay at home than. But all in all, it's hard for me. It feels like I'm loosing her bit by bit. I don't mind the extra care that she needs, I don't mind the extra visits at the vets, but the fact that sometimes she seems not to recognize the place she's in or people around her is heartbreaking. 

Her bloodwork is mostly good, although she has a bit high levels of urea, so we started with special food and she is getting drips to flush it out. I'm administering them at home myself, since they are being given just under the skin. Well, those are moments in which she turns into her old self, whining all the time. Never thought I would miss her making a total racket at the vets with even the most minor, totally painless procedures... but since she's been QUIET at the vets at several occasions when she felt really bad, now I'm kinda glad each time she isn't quiet (mind you, I'm not enjoying her being in discomfort, just the fact that she is strong enough to protest against it...). Oh well, we'll do anything to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. 

Ok, it's been a while :), so I don't even know where to start... So, instead of detailed report, just a summary of the most important things:

- Sunday is still doing great, despite the fact that she had a freaking scary episode of vestibular syndrome. She managed to recover fully though and is still enjoying walks as well as wining about the food all the time :). 

- Belgium / France - we had some seminars / holidays and finally a pyrshep competition there. It was awesome, totally different from the other competitions we took part in (well, maybe the fact that there were ca. 150 pyrsheps had something to do with it). Evo won the Best Pyrshep title and huge trophy :). All in all it was fantastic and again we met so many great and crazy people with awesome dogs <3.

- AWC 2015 in Bologna... we brought home another two medals for medium team jumping :), bronze this time. Apart from that, both Evo and Brava have been great, Evo brushed against the podium and Brava had awesome runs with great times and not so awesome handicapped handler (but I'm taking care of my spine right now, so should be as fit as a fiddle again soon). In addition we tasted lots and lots of delicious coffee, pastries, pizzas and other gifts of Italian cuisine <3 and we loved it. 

- Norwegian Open 2015 - well, I love Norway more and more. Wonderful people, beautiful places and really great competition :). Brava was weird... some runs felt like I was running left and she was going right,  she knocked a bar in one run, missed the contact in the final run, which cost us a victory since she had best time of all the great teams there <3... oh well. I hope it means she is preparing for her heat a bit early, but who knows, maybe she just had a worse weekend or something. Brego was awesome, did 7 clean run out of 8, qualified to large final among really great dogs and handlers and was pure joy to run with as usual. I love him, he is trying his best and just has the best attitude in the world. It's not possible not to have fun with him screaming on the course :). Evo almost won again ;) but due to Roman's handling mistake lost some time and came second in the end. Not bad either :). 

In the meantime Brego managed to get three excellents from dog shows, which means he fulfilled the requirements to be a stud dog :). So - handsome pyri ladies are welcome - he is healthy (HD A, ED 0, healthy patellas and eyes), lots of attitude, tons of drive plus a pinch of good sense of humour :). He carries black, fawn and merle. 

And well, now we're having a bit of break - no important competitions for a while, enjoying long walks and regrouping for next season. We also might have some interesting breeding plans, but all in due time... :). 

I love EO, even though normally it's not the best competition for us - Brava always comes in heat about May, which means about end of July she is having imaginary puppies ;). This year on the last training at home before EO she dug a hole under a table and lied there on empty plastic bottles, so well... my hopes weren't high. 

But I was happy just to be there - the venue in Rieden is perfect, all the rings were close together which meant watching others run and running on different rings was easier than normally. The camping site was also very close as was our stall with tunnels. Add to this lots of space to walk the dogs and I think for the first time even since I'm competing at EO enough showers (with hot water! and not shared with other people in the same time!) and toilets (clean!!!) and it doesn't get any better than that. Except it did, cause I got a nice suprise with my friend Barbara Rozman coming :) and then also Silke (du Mourioche breeder) coming unexpectedly and spending an evening with us and then of course we met some other friends from different countries. I really love the part when on the first day you walk through the camping and can't really get through, cause every minute you meet another long seen friend and have to chat for a while before going further :). 

I was running both large and medium for the first time ever, but the organization was perfect and apart from the fact that I had to learn 4 different courses on Friday morning, it was really easy for me, as none of my runs or course-walkings overlapped. I liked most of the courses, really fast and yet with some challenges and different handling solutions. Friday was team runs - after one last minute cancellation from Polish competitor our medium team consisted of siblings Evo, Brava and Eyt plus one fawn Norwegian pyrsheps with Simon Noel  :). We had really nice agility in which we were placed fourth overall I think and Evo was 9 out of 400 dogs (Brava 10th :)). Then unfortunately we had two eliminations and one refusal in the jumping, so again no team final for us... Some good runs and a bit of bad luck, but I think we're getting closer to actually running also good team runs as well :). 

Here are our agility runs:

Evo team agility

Brava team agility

And jumping runs:

Evo team jumping

Brava's team runs

In the night we hardly slept at all, there was a huge storm and almost all the commercial stands were destroyed, so we spent some part of the night helping others to collect their things (our tent was broken but luckily tunnels are rather resistant to bad weather so we weren't as badly affected). So that made our individual runs just a tiny bit more difficult ;). Roman and Evo were unfortunately eliminated in individual agility and then had a bit messy run in jumping, causing them to lose lots of time (so not good enough for the final). Brava fortunately qualified already from agility run and then had a rather nice jumping run as well, ranking 6 overall.

Brava's individual jumping

Evo's individual jumping 

On Saturday evening we had a really nice pyrshep-people gathering with Silke, Barbara, Tamara, Ivo and Veronika :) Nothing better than good laugh, lessons of weird languages, sharing countless dog stories and some peculiar alcohols with a bunch of kin spirits, so I was definetely in good mood for the finals next day. I wasn't actually counting on anything, just focused on having a clean run :). I found a perfect place in the inside riding arena, from where I could see the runs and hear the speaker, but which allowed me to have some time alone with Brava in the shadow before the start. We had a little talk in which I asked her to do a nice see-saw and promised to run as fast as I could to show her the way ;). I remembered my lesson from Guld Agility final - never to doubt her in important moments. And then we ran - and she was as pyrfect as usual :). It's such a great yellow doggy, she never ever lets me down, I can run so relaxed with her, knowing she will do her job with the startline, contacts, weaves and keeping the bars up... We had a clean run and I heard the speaker saying it was the new best time, so I was happy we did the best we could and the rest was behind my control so I just enjoyed watching the rest of medium finals... We ended up on third place with two of my favourite teams - unbeatable and inspiring Martina and Kiki and Werner with Esmeralda - on first and second respectively. I can't even say what it means to be there with them... it's not just that I think they are great teams, but I really see the partnership, the joy of running together, the love and trust between the dog and handler in both those teams and that has inspired me for years. Martina once told me that success in agility is forged outside the course and this day that truth prevailed I think :). I'm so proud not because of the place on the podium, but because I have a great dog that trusts me and does her best for me and I just hope I will keep deserving it. 

Brego did great as well, even though he didn't have any clean runs - but he had all the contacts and weaves and just knocked one double jump throughout the whole competition, so I couldn't ask anything more from a baby boy. He is the sweetest funniest dog ever and has the most enthusiasm for everything, so I enjoyed running him a lot. I still have some problems switching between him and Brava and finding the right balance of where I need to help him and where he is ready to do things indepently... but in the meantime we have lots of fun together. I also think this surface is a bit hard for him, so he had some problems with commiting to jumps that he normally doesn't have. 

Here is my favourite of our runs, just a bit of miscommunication over this jump (I didn't even notice we were eliminated, he he). 

Brego individual agility

Some final thoughts: for me it was really EO to remember, mostly for great things. There were lots and lots of awesome dogs to see and for the first time in a long time I actually enjoyed watching small dogs run - in team jumping, where the results for small and medium were calculated together, three best results were from the small dogs, in team agility two best results were from small dogs :). Even better that some of those were really young dogs, so I think we'll have the reviwal of this class finally (which is a great thing, since I'd like to have another small dog some time in the future...). 

As much as I loved the event - the atmosphere, the venue, the courses - I have to rant a bit about the judges. I know it's tough. I know they were standing in the burning sun for hours, with blazing sand blinding their eyes and getting into their respiratory tracks. I know it requires lots of concentration to be able to do this, I really admire the agility judges as such - so much responsibility, so much depends on them.  Having said that, I've never ever seen  such horrible contacts judging especially in the individual finals - it was a complete lottery. Some contacts there were done were faulted, some contacts there were obviously missed were not. As for what was the criteria for see-saw I can't even begin to guess, definetely not the ones described in the FCI regulations. The judge who was judging large final had a new rule I think - that contact much be touched with hind feet, as he faulted each and every dog that did the down contact on the A-frame or dw with front feet... I'm under the impression that the results might have looked a bit different if the judging was accurate... And well, running contacts have been around for a while, maybe it's time to actually learn how to judge them? And maybe some judges should remember that if in doubt, they should decide in the competitor's favour, and not the other way round? 

I don't want to end on the bad note, so let's switch to positives :). Thank you, my friends, for being with me, sending messages on FB, making videos of our runs (special thanks to Marcela Francoso! :)) and taking great photos, some of which are below (hopefully more to come). It was awesome meeting you, especially the pyrshep people from around the Europe - I've seen some cool dogs and puppies and I'm looking forward to see some more in the autumn :). 

From Denmark we headed to Sweden to beautiful Oland, where I had another pyrshep seminar - great occasion to meet some FB friends in real life :). Again - some absolutely lovely dogs, delicious food and great atmoshere. Just after we arrived we had a little adventure ;) - we had lunch and then I headed to the course, but Brego didn't follow me. I was surprised since normally he is never far from my side, so I started calling him and he didn't come. I thought maybe he went to the bathroom with me and then I shut him there, but no... I was calling and then I heard him barking somewhere... Turned out he was under the terrace - no idea how he got there, because he had to crawl under whole house to get there. We think maybe some bits of food fell there. Anyway, he couldn't get out, so Roman had to destroy a perfectly good terrace a bit. Brego jumped out like a jack in the box and was really happy :D. Silly boy :). 

And all the pyrsheps from the seminar :). 

After the seminar, we had 1,5 free days and thanks to courtesy of the club that hosted us, we could spent it on beautiful Oland. We found just a perfect place: a sandy beach for dogs with crystal clear water (The Baltic Sea! Really!), where we all (but especially Flaszek and Brego) had a great time swimming. I actually managed to get sun burnt in Sweden, he he. 

Then it was time for Guld Agility. We arrived in Kalmar on Wednesday, set up our trailer at the campsite in the little island and then strolled to the stadium where the competition was going to be. There were lots of people there, we inspected all 9 (sic!) rings and then thought: "Let's set up a tent here", so I sat on the grass and waited while Roman went for the tent and the crates. Suddenly I realized that the atmosphere was getting somehow thick around me and I couldn't get why people are looking a bit hostile at me. So I asked somebody and it turned out that it is not allowed to set the tents before 5 pm (that was in the info in Swedish that we got for our e-mails... we were promised the English version but never got it, so we had no clue, hahaha) and before that you're not allowed in the tent area either, so everybody was standing a couple of meters further and staring in the chosen patch of grass. And I sat on the part that someone was staring at for an hour or so :). I apoligized for not knowing local customs :D and then we learn that you could actually set a tent a bit further away,, but under the trees in the shadow, so we did that and later watched great battle for tent space :D. It was really sort of weird and funny. 

Anyone, the lack of info in English was symptomatic and the organizers also had some problems with the server, so we only found the starting lists and numbers in the morning of each day. Some of the obstacles were also not nice, like really wobbly A-frames (seriously, under large dogs it looked almost like the video with the goats), but otherwise I really enjoyed the competition. The organizers invited awesome judges, like Gabi Steppan, Sascha Grunder, Kees Stoel, Veronika Herendy, Zeljko Gora and Stefanie Semkat (I didn't know her before, but really enjoyed her courses), so the courses were in general really challenging  yet fluent. The stadium was just by the water, so even though it was quite hot, we could always let the dogs swim before and after runs. Flaszek really loved it and he was faster than ever, so Roman sometimes couldn't catch up with him and they were eliminated like that in at least two runs, LOL. Brego was doing great - we had one fantastic run with rc (that was kinda funny, since when I was at the startline, the speaker said something like "And this is Olga Kwiecień, who is having a lecture on running contact on Friday which you are all welcome to attend"... no pressure, LOL), one great run with 2o2o and one run with 3rd time out of almost 200 LA3 dog (yesssss! my little figher <3), unfortunetely he missed the dw contact in this one. He also had really nice jumping run and in his clean runs was always placed within the best 10% of competitors so I'm really pleased with him. Brava and Evo had lots of great medium dogs to compete with, so it was not easy to get on the podium :) However, both of them managed to do it and both qualified to the final on Sunday (only top 3 dogs from each run qualified, and since there were more than 150 medium dogs in A3 class that was not so easy...). The final was a bit funny - first 19 dogs run agility course and 6 best qualified for semifinal, which was also agility run. From this run only 2 passed to jumping final. 

Before the final run we had another J3 run in which both Evo and Brava seemed to be really tired, Brava was really slow in the weave poles and I was even afraid she would pop out. She was clean but it was not our best run, so my plan for the final was to push her a bit more, be always in front and cheer a lot. Well, I learnt my lesson - NEVER ASSUME YOUR DOG WILL BE SLOWER THAN NORMALLY :P. I was trying to help her with the weaves so I messed it up and then of course she was not slow, but her normal crazy self, so she got so much in front on me that she got eliminated by taking the jump after the dogwalk instead of turning (but I think my timing was lame there). Oh well. Evo also run great and then was 3rd in the next agility run, so he almost made it to the final final... Anyway, we're both really proud of all our dogs, they did great and we had lots of fun. Since we were running with 4 dogs on like 6 different rings, we don't have many videos, but here are some of them:

Brava jumping 3 (course by Gabi Steppan)

Flaszek jumping 2

After the final it became really hot, so we decided to skip the rest of the runs for that day and went to the sea side again :). And then we did a bit of sightseeing in beautiful Kalmar. 

After that it was just vacation - Anne-Mette and Daniel invited us to stay at their place for a couple of days and we just enjoyed walks in the forest, barbecue and piwo as well as visits to Tivoli and Legoland :). Lisbeth and BB also joined us for one evening, so we chatted long in the night. I am truly happy about "my" first puppies, they grew out to be fantastic dogs. When making a litter I wanted dogs that would also be great family dogs, reasonably easy to live with (of course bearing in mind that they are particularly active and require lots of physical and mental activity) apart from having good potential for sports - and I'm really happy to see that they are like that, enjoying really special bond with their owners and families :). 

Many many thanks to everybody who  gave us their hospitality and company - Sylvia Fahsel and Frank Burkhardt, Lisbeth Jensen, Anne-Mette Klink Christoffersen and Daniel Elling Eichler, Anna-Lena Nilson, Birgitta Hermansson, Veronika Thoresson, Sanna Karlsson and other Guld Agility organizers and of course all the participants of my seminars as well.  

Our qualis were a little bit untypical this year, because just before the first ones we're learnt that there will only be two quali weekends, not three as usual, so the regulations were changed a bit to adapt to it. As the first one didn't go so well for me and Brava, it was our last chance, while Evo had already all the criteria met, so Roman was playing safe. Anyway. We were a bit surprised with the organizers' choice of judge, to put it mildly, especially that the courses of the said judge that we found on the web were just horrible, showing that she has no understanding of dog's lines whatsoever... the reality proved to be as bad as we expected.

I have my favourite types of courses and I have my favourite judges, of course. Still, I'm able to run pretty much everything as long as it makes any sense, is safe and in accordance with FCI agility regulations.

Well, this judge apparently never read them. Crazy distances I don't mind. The fact that the approaches to tyre and long jump were not straight, I could tolerate (because I have medium dog, who turns well and is smart). But the fact that almost all the entries to the contact obstacles were just plain dangerous was really too much and we protested a lot and actually CHANGED the courses, which I would think was outrageous, if it wasn't for the fact that they were dangerous, full stop. 

I had to withdraw Brego from the competition due to some minor injury and was really sorry about that until I saw the courses... because for a young and crazy dog like him they would have been really dangerous, so in the end I was no longer sorry he isn't running. 

Brava had clean jumping on Saturday and one refusal in agility run, which meant that the situation is not bad (I could still fulfill the criteria of no more than 25% eliminations), but I was still lacking one clean agility run that I needed to qualify. Evo had elimination in agility which meant that Roman needed to withdraw him from other runs, as he was the only one with all the criteria for team qualis met and couldn't have another elimination so as not to loose it ( our regulations say that if at least one dog fulfills the criteria for team quali, the others can be added to fill the team, but as one of the criteria is no more than 25% eliminations, one has to be careful not to get one dis too many... I really hate this rule, agility should be about running as the devil, not playing it safe... and with a small number of dogs competing it really leads to pathologies that sometimes it's better not to run than to run). Anyway, on Sunday morning I actually felt quite good, but got really tensed before the agility run as it was THE LAST CHANCE to meet this criterion. The course was again quite stupid, with crazy distances like 12 meters between the obstacles (which is not allowed by our regulations....). But what friends are for? I kept reminding myself what Barbara said that I actually can run better under pressure and fortunately Monika reminded me words of one of my favourite trainers, Jenny Damm, that my dog has all the skills needed, I have all the skills needed, so only bad luck could stop us... Fortunately, we had GOOD luck - it wasn't a perfect run (because the course was stupid :P), but it was clean, which meant I had the points and clean agility, so Brava already secured herself the spot for individual qualis. After that I felt confident that we can also run clean jumping, which we did, winning both individual and team qualis in all the categories (and who's the best yellow doggy on the planet? <3)). 

So, in the end: both Brava with me and Evo with Roman qualified for Agility World Championship 2015 in Bolonia for both team and individual!!!! 

So, enough of rant, now for the videos:

I am also very proud of one of my student's dog, who had her debut this weekend in zero class and was as awesome as a beginning dog could be :) Perfect sit stays, really nice turns and nice A-frame contact :).  And fast as a lightning :). Way to go Robert and Kissy :). 

And last but not least, I have to brag about Roman and Vigo :). Vigo is over 10 years old now and is as nuts as ever, but he really did his best this weekend :). Here is his clean agility run from Saturday: 

So, this time we went to Czech qualifications in Kromeriz (really cool little town, I recommend visiting and sigthseeing :)). We went with a trailer, which was great, as we could sleep just by the ring side and were woken up in the morning by the announcement that coursewalking starts in several minutes :). Plus it really gives you lots of comfort in cold and rainy weather.

Brava has started her heat finally, so she is running a bit slower, but I was really happy to see that apart from that she is her normal self, not doing weird mistakes like missing the last obstacle :). She had some nice runs, was 3 times 3rd and had one agility run with two  mistakes (one was see-saw, which REALLY used to be better...). 

Evo had lots of bad luck and some misjudging as well (for instance a bar fell when he was already in the tunnel and the judge still dictated a fault, even it was quite windy that day...). 

Our large boys were just plain awesome :). Brego had three clean runs with perfect contacts and one run with perfect contacts but I was too late and he missed a really difficult weave poles entry. Flaszek had 3 clean runs as well, in one of them he was placed 7th out of over 160 great teams :D. We were also extra lucky to get some lovely pictures again - thanks Lenka Wami Blachova,  Jirka Wassenbauer and Katka Tercova for the photos <3.

We also got to meet Evo's puppy Cox :). He is so funny and extremely similar to Evo - same expression, same behaviour, same tail, light fur like Evo used to have :) The only thing he is a bit smaller :). 

And finally some videos :)

First of our qualis is behind us. We have only two weekends this year, which adds some more preassure... the first weekend was not very succesful for most of us, apart from Evo, who did great with three clean runs and one run with a refusal. This gives him enough points already to qualify, so he has pretty much secured his spot already. The rest of us still need to fight for it though. Brava is in really strange pre-heat mood, she really wasn't herself this weekend and did really stupid things like missing obstacles for no apparent reason etc. So two dis, one clean run and one really nice run with a refusal on the LAST jump which somehow seems to be our fate on Alice Bohacova's courses... some sort of Alice curse (but we're going to run some more of her courses soon, so I will fight and win with this eventually!). I'm really happy with Brego though. I realise he's not running his full speed yet and even not as fast as in training, but he really listens well and is pretty consistent with contact, weaves etc. I'm pretty once he gets more muscles and more confidence he will be even faster. He had another two clean runs in LA2, both on the podium, so he is officially LA3 now :) and that just four months since he started competing :)). Flaszek was just the best, actually finishing all his runs and he would be first in agility and jumping combined on Friday. He didn't even noticed when there was a football match on the next field with crackers banging ;). 

The place, organization and prizes were really good :) There was an adjoining park and I really appreciate it when I can go for a normal walk with my dogs between their runs. I think it's really like the most important thing we can do for their physical health but also I feel it helps them mentally to chill out in between the runs. 

The atmosphere was also pretty good apart from the fact that some people were pretty depressed about not doing as well as they hoped... at some point we had several motivational talks with some handlers willing to quit from the next qualis and one really weird conversation when someone told us we're lucky some other (quite good actually, but no luck in this competition) handler was not going to the second quali... and we were like "WTF, why would we be happy about it? First of all, there are four places on the team and we want the best possible dogs on the team. Secondly, the better competitors there are the better your runs are, as you need to really try to get an advantage". 

And well, what we (me in particular) need to do now is to keep positive attitude and try our best in our second quali which would be in the end of May. 

Below you'll find some of our videos:

The curse of the last jump...

And Evo's winning run :)

Brego's clean jumping open and exam in LA2:

And finally our brave Flaszek <3

As you know, I also do a little obedience with Brego and it's turning to be tremendously fun. This is my "side" activity with him, so I don't treat it very seriously and don't really train much, but still want to do it right, so we attend seminars with Joanna Hewelt, obedience trainer and competitor, from time to time. I really like her methodology, as she uses the same approach as I do - that when we need control, it needs to come from the dog rather than be imposed from us. We've also found our support group to meet and train together from time to time and practice chains of behaviours, distractions and such. I would like to compete one day in zero class, and then maybe in class 1, we'll see. I don't have any serious plans, but I really love my little doggy and it's just so cool to do anything with him :). 

Here's a little video from our training with Asia in the middle of April (thanks Natalia for recording it!). We tried to do all the exercises as in competition, I have lots of problems with listening to the "steward" etc, because lack of experience, so long way to go :) But I like his expression nevertheless. The video is over 6 minutes long, so it's for those of you who actually enjoy watching boring obedience ;). 

We were again long time away from home - first we spent a couple of lovely days with Tamara and Ivo in Belgium on seminars and competition. Tamara and Ivo's place is perfect, nice hosts, lots of space to train, nice place to walk the dogs and a bar with good spring beer - couldn't get much better :). The competition was somewhat funny, haven't ran this type of courses for years ;) nevertheless our dogs had their share of wins, among them Brava and Evo winning estaffette together :) and little Brego winning jumping 2 :). Flaszek had lots of fun on some easy jumping courses, which is really good for his motivation, so all in all we were quite happy with the competition. 

We got some pictures from Caroline Huart :). It's always funny to see Brava and Evo, they look so similar yet their expression is so different (Evo the crazy boy and Brava the good girlie). And smiling Brego :). 

After coming back from Belgium we had just one day break and then we went to Prague to another competition. We wanted to run some courses by Alice Bohacova, as she will judge our qualis in 2 weeks (plus I actually like her courses although usually I get some stupid elimination at the end...). The competition was just two exams each day, so we also had some time for sightseeing and just relaxing. Evo had some nice runs with really good contacts and so did Brava. I also decided to try 2o2o with Brego for the first time in competition and he did great :). On the second day I tried running, first one wasn't so perfect, the other was much better, all in all he got two legs towards A3 and 2x first places. He also had an "almost perfect" run with one refusal at the LAST jump, but I'm really really pleased with him so far. Still long way to go, he needs experience with different obstacles, surfaces etc as well as some more muscles, but it's great fun to run him :). 

I'm getting more and more in love with this brave little doggy :) and could watch him move for hours :). And also this time we were lucky to get some wonderful photos from Arceas Photography <3

We spent a fantastic weekend in Terezin on the final of Fitmin Cup 2015 (that was a series of competitions but we just attended the last one). Sascha Grunder, who is one of our favourite judges and favourite people in the world, was judging and Jakub Stybr was organizing, and add to this lots of great competitors like Terka Kralova, Martina Magnoli-Klimesova or Petra Hamsikova and you'll know it would be an amazing event and so it was. 

It took place in one of the most beautiful riding halls I've ever seen:

There were four open runs (agility and jumping each day) from which the best dogs qualified into the final and on Saturday evening there was also one exam (A1, A2 or A3). The sandy surface was quite soft and quite difficult especially for little Brego, but he coped with it really well although you could see that jumping was more difficult for him than usual (and so was running for us and OMG, our muscles feel sore today...). The courses were perfect, really challenging yet fluent in the same time and we really enjoyed them a lot. 

Evo and Brava were eliminated in the first jumping course, but our large boys were clean and Brego took 3rd place and qualified to the final already from his first run :). 

Flaszek was a bit unsecure in this hall, because he couldn't see what is really happening in the ring and he was stressed by the sounds around - still, he coped better and better with each run and his confidence grew  so all in all it was another succesful weekend for him :). 

In the agility runs on Saturday our yellow doggies proved to be perfect, they both had clean runs (Brava 2nd and Evo 3rd after Martina with Kiki) and qualified for the final as well. 

In the A3 exams I wanted to go with my son Sergiusz to see some military museum and I thought I won't be back in time, so Roman run with Brava instead :) The course was really awesome and I will set it for myself in training cause I would really like to run it. Roman and Brava had fabulous run (except Roman decided to just let her run straight after the dogwalk, because he rarely trains with her so wanted to let her have fun on the dogwalk instead of doing difficult turn). 

Last run of the day was LA1 for Flaszek and Brego. Just as we were preparing for the run, Brego was attacked by a mallinois :( Fortunately Roman was there and managed to chase him away, as the owner was totally helpless and didn't even come to ask whether Brego was fine or to apologize... I'm lost for words how perfect Brego is though - he got really scared but the moment the mallinois released him and I checked he is fine (fortunately he was still wearing his harness that took some of the impact and he wasn't hurt, just wet from saliva) and offered him a toy, he shook and took the toy and was totally fine. The organizers gave me more time before my run so I can walk him and calm down and check if everything is fine and then we had our run:

And with this run we progressed to A2 :) I was wondering whether to stay in A1 a little longer, but since he is coping with the open courses so well, I think it's time to advance him :). 

Flaszek also had another clean run in A1 and he will also start in A2 on his next competition. 

Then we went for a pizza and spent a lovely evening in the company of friends, which is definetely one of the coolest parts of agility competitions :). 

Sunday started with jumping runs - the competition was really fierce and I can't remember many competitions with so many awesome medium dogs :). Evo did great and took 2nd place after Kiki, Brava was a bit slower and behind the podium this time (she was smartly saving up energy for later ;)). 

Brego and Flaszek both had problems with slalom in this run as it was facing the flat tunnel... well, something we need to train more often ;).

Brava won agility run, Evo was second after her :) and Brego was third in large - I'm really proud of my baby dog, coping with difficult courses and still being on the podium among many other really awesome dogs :). 

Then it was final time :) Again, the course was quite challenging with really difficult entry to the weave poles, lots of out+blinds which require your timing to be really good and tricky a-frame etc, so I thought Brego will be my champion even if he manages to run this course clean. It was a nice course for Brava though who is experienced and can cope with things like that :). 

Roman with Evo had were eliminated on jump before the weaves, as Roman pulled Evo too early from the jump, and then this type of A-frame is still really difficult for Evo (the handler couldn't really be in front to support and there was no other obstacle in the front to help the dog focus forward). But look at those weaves <3. 

Brava had a fantastic clean run, so she won the final :))). I'm really happy with my handling of the weave poles, it was a bit risky but she could do it :). 

Brego did great - I chose slightly different handling to help him with the weaves, but he surprised me with doing everything else so well :). In the end he was third in the final which was a nice surprise, I really didn't expect that among so many more experienced and fast dogs. 

In the end both Brava and Brego were also classified as 2nd and 3rd in the overall ranking of Fitmin Cups, which means they manage to win lots of food for themselves :). Good doggies :). 

In the end, we were really satisfied with this competition. After some problems with muscle, Evo seems to have his speed back thanks to massages and exercises, Brava had really nice see-saws which also proves that my repair program seems to be working, Flaszek is gaining more and more experience and confidence in various venues and well, Brego is such an awesome little doggy with a big heart, giving it all :). We couldn't wish for better dogs :). 

This time this is not to brag about some competition successes or to celebrate any special occasion... This is to show how well our 12,5 yo Sunday is doing :).

I know that I'm not writing about her much here, but I still want to assure you - she is still doing great, she is still my little monster princess (Princezna Potvora Prvna) and she still knows how to have fun! 

She is a bit stiff in the mornings, is as deaf as a post, has some memory lapses (like for instance she keeps forgetting that she already had her supper... hm...) and claims that 8 p.m (which is the time we usually feed them) is later and later everyday so she starts whining at about 6 p.m. that it's ALMOST EIGHT and haven't I forgotten something? Like feeding poor starving cocker? All in all, she is her usual sweet, annoying, noisy self, hopefully for many years to come :). 

So, last weekend we organized a competition in Czeladź. It was really quite big event with almost 160 competitors from 7 different countries, 2 great judges (Sandra Deidda and Petr Dostal) and lasting from dawn till night ;). Well, everybody who has ever organized a competition knows that organizing and running do not necessarily go well together, but still we managed to have some successes. We were 3rd in medium team agility, medium team jumping and team medium combined with our Pyrfection medium team (four pyrsheps Evo, Brava, Eyt plus Dorka from Czech Republic). Brava also won individual jumping and individual agility runs on Sunday, Evo was third in individual jumping. Flaszek and Brego also did great, they weren't on a podium but had nice enough runs to qualify in the final large :). Brava had really nice run in the final and then missed one jump after the dogwalk - I was a bit too much behind and the jump was pretty close to the wall and she has problems in such situations. So we didn't win a pink tunnel :( but won lots of cool other prizes :). 

After a small break cause by some minor injuries plus crappy weather, I managed to start in a small competition 20 minutes away from our place. The weather was really perfect, considering it was an outdoor competition, we ran 3 A1 exams. For the first time ever, I competed with Flaszek and I'm so proud of our special black boy :). We didn't get any clean runs: I wasn't in perfect shape and constantly misplaced myself on the course, Flaszek had a "bad A-frame contact" day and Brego had weird day in general. He really jumped dogwalk contact in the first run and it looked so weird to me that I just continued and decided to wait what would happen in next run. He also knocked two poles and missed one slalom entry (that was because of me, I pulled him too much in the wrong direction and also I think I gave him the signal too late) - none of these is typical for him, so perhaps he was also a bit out of shape, as we haven't trained much recently. 

But now to positive things: I really enjoyed the courses. Flaszek was really relaxed and happy (apart from the moment when he got scared of the judge near the down dw contact, but he survived and was a bit better in next runs), he chased his ball and tugged with me, which is really great, especially that normally he is much better in indoor venues. He was running well and his jumping technique is improving too :). Brego was great on contacts apart from this first dw, I really loved his see-saws in particular and he is getting crazier and faster on every competition :). So all in all, despite lack of successes this time, we all had nice time and some new experiences :). 

Plus, well, the competitions are meant to show us weak points as well, so I'm thinking of plan B concerning Flaszek's contacts to make him faster and more confident (and not miss A-frames of course)... we'll see :). And maybe it's also time to start with Brego's 2o2o? I'd love to have them as backup plan same as I did with Brava... 

Magna Racino was mostly great and a bit annoying in some aspects. The great part was the hall itself with great restaurant with delicious food, meeting some of my favourite judges and running their challenging courses, seeing some friends again (and we had a lovely surprise of seeing Barbara and Momo and Momo is like the cutest little monster on the planet). Funny part was a lot of people came to ask whether Brava is Zookie's mother ;). The annoying part was the hotel :P with really weird landlady and the fact that it was allowed to smoke in the hall. After a day everything smelled, my clothes, my hair and even the air outside (or so I felt). As for the results: our large A1 doggies were awesome again :). Brego won  LA1 run on Friday  - it was nice course with lots of straight lines, perfect for a young dog - and Brego was really able to look for his path and speed up on this course, he was already much more confident then on BACK :). He also finished quite a difficult jumping open course, although he was slower as the course was much more complicated and then he had really nice elimination in agility open. Then he injured his toe and I pulled him out of the Sunday runs. Flaszek managed to finish some really really challenging courses and was focused and quite fast (he had the speed of almost 5 m/s in one of the A1 jumpings <3). Brava was just pyrfect :). I eliminated her in her first MA3 run, because there was a really stupid approach for dogwalk that I didn't want her to take, so I just skipped one obstacle :P. Apart from that, we ran clean in all the other runs, usually being the 2nd after Silvia with Le ;) (as both Silvia and Le are totally from a different planet, that doesn't even count as being second ;)). We qualified in the final and had absolutely cracking run there, taking second place :). Evo is a little bit out of shape recently due to lack of training, still had some nice runs and qualified into the final as well (and then the demons of the past have woken up so he missed contacts and had one stupid refusal). Definetely he needs some conditioning and a bit more training now to get him prepared for a new season.  

We spent New Year's Eve and a couple of next days in Rieden in great company. We came there for B.A.C.K. competition which I think is one of the coolest trials in Europe - super surface, lots of great competitors, 3 rings. On January the 1st we had a little training in the hall, all our dogs did great :). On 2.01.2015 the competition started and it was really meaningful for all of us. 

First of all, it was my real debut with Brego - he competed once before in Polish zero class, but BACK was his first "adult" competition on full height and with all the obstacles. I was really excited and looking forward to that. I think of first trials as an investment in future, so I wanted him to have fun as much as possible, but also was hoping for nice contacts, sit-stays on the startline and maybe getting one nice clean run. The courses in A1 were mostly really nice, fast and fluent, with straight approaches to contacts and I was really happy for that, because I want him to get some confidence before running on more technical courses. Brego did great, even better than I expected: all his dogwalks were just perfect, all see-saws really nice as well, he held all the sit-says and just missed one A-frame (but that looked weird and not typical of him at all, so maybe he slipped or something like that). He had 3 clean runs, all within the best 10% (not bad for probably the smallest and the youngest competitor in his class), 2 really nice eliminations (just one additional jump each time ;)) and one really nice run with missed A-frame contact. I'm really really proud of him <3.

Another great thing was Flaszek competing in the same class as Brego. When we were at BACK two years ago (competing with just Evo and Brava), Flaszek was too scared to work in the preparation ring and not even close to start competing. A year later he debuted in our zero class and in the beginning was easily distracted with people being too close to the ring and various other things. This year he was PULLING on the leash to get on the preparation ring, wagging his tail high, because he knew he would be running agility there <3. He's still not the fastest dog out there, but he is enjoying himself and that' makes us both really happy :). 

As for Brava, it was a little bit weird weekend. Perhaps my decision to start running with 2 dogs again at a really big competition happening at 3 rings simultaneously had some drawbacks after all ;). I think I just didn't focus on her as I do normally, and we had 5 eliminations in 7 runs, which really does not happen often for us (those were still mostly nice runs with stupid mistakes on the handler's part). But my perfect yellow doggy was great when it really mattered, so she managed to qualify to the final in last possible run (2nd place in jumping 3) and then in the final she was just AMAZING and won 2nd place at BACK 2015 :) I'm really so proud of her (and a little bit of myself as well ;)).  Funny thing is, that when we were driving to BACK I said that my objectives for Brego are good contacts and some clean runs, and my objectives for Brava are qualifying for the final and having a great run there, so I can say I did it (I didn't ask for many clean runs after all :P). 

Evo had some nice clean runs as well and some nice runs with stupid mistakes (like a knocked bar, which is really not typical of him). The surface was a little bit softer than last time there and I think for Evo's style of running and jumping it was probably not the best, so he was a bit slower than normally. Anyway, he also qualified for the final and had a great run there. 

Another great thing about B.A.C.K. was meeting Laura with Zookie and Simone with Babou again :). Babou and Zookie are both awesome, weren't at the least bothered by the new environment and the crowd and both of them had some fantastic runs - Babou won her first MA1 run, then was third in jumping1 and second in another jumping, Zookie was 2nd in jumping 1 on Saturday, qualifying for the final (that's just WOW for such a young dog) and then won another jumping on Sunday, having best time of all height categories! I'm really really proud of them and their owners, so have to brag with their videos as well:

Today is a very special day, as the Brabous turned 18 months old! That means they came of age and can compete in agility, start in adult classes in dog shows etc. I wish them a very happy and succesful lives and I'm pretty confident they are well prepared and will continue to give their owners love, lots of laughter and many happy moments for years to come!

Zookie and Babou had their first official agility tournament today and were officially measured for medium (42,3 cm and 41,5 cm respectively). Below you can download video of Zookie's run - looks what a happy and confident girl she is! And lovely contacts <3 (running contacts are definetely genetic :P not that I'm denying that Laura did a great job with her). 

And here are Babou's runs <3 Love her speep and lovely 2o2o as well!

And more bragging today - Daniel has sent me video of Neo doing sequences with full dogwalk (he was using my method to teach it, which makes me even more proud). 

Well, what can I say. I've bred awesome puppies thanks to great mummy Brava and super daddy Babou (and lots of help from friends as well as pinch of luck) and chose fantastic owners who are doing great job with them. Most importantly, I know they are happy and loved dearly <3. 

We're having a bit of down time right now - our last competition was end of November (pretty cool one actually, but since I didn't manage to write a decent post on it, you're welcome to just check out the videos on Roman's yt channel) and our next one is going to be BACK in the beginning of January. We're pretty excited about this one, especially that it will Brego's debut in an "adult" A1 class, so keep your fingers crossed!

In the meantime we're just enjoying long walks plus some additional work on the exercises ball. As we don't have access to any indoor training facility, our training in winter highly depends on the weather and while we don't have any formal break from agility, we train less often and more of "elements" like crazy weaves and contacts than sequences. 

We did manage to film some sequences recently though (if you're interested, the course maps can be found in the Agility - our courses section of the website). Both Flaszek and Brego are doing great and getting better and better - the perfect yellow doggies being still perfect and knowing it all :). So - enjoy the videos and some photos below :). 

Brie was officially measured today for 42,5 cm so he's medium! He will have to be remeasurred when he's 2 years old, but I'm pretty sure he'll stay medium :) He looks fantastic on the course, really searching for obstacles well and such nice turns as well :). Good job, Siw!

Time for another update - this time video with Neo :) I'm really happy with those puppies, they are all so awesome :). 

Neo is also learning running contacts and so far, it looks really promising :)

So, today next puppy update - pretty Babou :) Well, what can I say - she's awesome, check out for yourself:

The Brabous are growing into wonderful dogs. Most of them are already getting ready for their first competitions around January, all are great family dogs, some also have succeses in dog shows. The owners are very happy with them. I can't wait to see them competing they really seem like a promising lot! 

I'm going to update the individual pages of them in the "Puppies" section (for now, you can see new photos of Zookie, Brego and Brie there, the rest will hopefully follow soon) and today some new videos of Brego and Zookie on agility course:

We had great pleasure of attending obedience seminar last Saturday. The trainer was Joanna Hewelt, we take part in her online course, but I felt it was time to verify some things in real life. We don't treat obedience very seriously for now, but I wanted to try something different and learn something new.  I enjoyed the training, Asia's remarks were to the point and helped immedietely, Brego was great as usually, very focused, very motivated and just a bit alligator like ;). Of course apart from being a good boy he was also a bit creative, like offering pretty please instead of plain sit etc. (look at the photos).

W ostatni weekend mieliśmy przyjemność uczestniczyć w seminarium obedience z Joanną Hewelt. Robimy jej kurs internetowy, ale czas był zweryfikować niektóre rzeczy na żywo. Nie traktuję obedience jakoś bardoz poważnie, ale chciałam spróbować czegoś nowego i nauczyć się czegoś innego :). Trening bardzo fajny, Asi rady konkretne i od razu pomagały, Brego był super jak zwykle, bardzo skoncentrowany, bardzo zmotywowany i tylko trochę mu się włączał aligatorek na szarpaku, jak to zwykle :). Poza tym, że był dobrym pińdziusiem, to miał też twórcze wstawki w rodzaju poproś zamiast siad etc., patrz fotki :). 

We're back from Norwegian Open 2014 - it was even better than last year! First of all, noone fell from anything ;P, secondly, we stayed in a trailer and it was sooooo good to sleep in the proximity of the hall, have all the necessary things in one place instead of carrying them back and forth etc, thirdly there were all of our favourite judges (Alexander Beitl, Rolli Schiltz, Sascha Grunder, Gaby Steppan, Anders Virtanen and Kees Stoel all in one place! Sounds like agility heaven to me) and last but not least Roman and Evo won the whole thing :D. Flaszek and Brava also had their share of succeses - Flaszek got third leg towards A2 (he can and will run in A1 for a while though) and even got on the podium twice :) and Brava won three runs (agility open on Saturday, MA3 on Saturday, jumping open on Sunday), was second in one (jumping open on Saturday) and had two other fantastic runs (jumping 3 with one bar) and the final run with a small Disq ;). I actually liked the runs that didn't bring me the podium best :). 

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Wróciliśmy z Norwegian Open 2014 - było jeszcze lepiej niż w zeszłym roku :). Po pierwsze, nikt z niczego nie zleciał, po drugie jechaliśmy z przyczepą i było bosko nie musieć nosić wszystkiego w te i we wtawte i nie jeździć nocami gdzieś daleko tylko sobie spać pod halą, po trzecie byli tam wszyscy nasi ulubieni sędziowie (Alexander Beitl, Rolli Schiltz, Sascha Grunder, Anders Virtanen, Gaby Steppan i Kees Stoel wszyscy razem w jednym miejscu, normalnie agilitowe niebo) i wreszcie Roman z Evoczkiem wygrali finał :). Flaszek i Bravka też się świetnie spisali, Flaszeczek zrobił trzecią nóżkę do A2 (jeszcze chwilę pobiega w jedynkach) i dwa razy był na pudle, Brava wygrała trzy biegi (agility open i MA 3 w sobotę, jumping open w niedzielę), była druga w jednym (jumping open w sobotę) i miała jeszcze dwa cudowne biegi, które podobały mi się jeszcze bardziej (jumping 3 w sobotę z jedną zrzutką i finałowy bieg z malutkim disem ;). 

So, Flaszek's runs. In the first one, he is still a bit unsure plus he lost lots of time on the see-saw - still, this run brought him on 3rd place among 90-something LA1 dogs! We're so proud of him! The jumping from Sunday is his last run on the competition and you can see how much more confident he was - he is getting better and better and he begins to believe agility is the safe place, where you only have fun even though there are lots of people and dogs around :)

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Biegi Flaszeczka - pierwszy i ostatni z tych zawodów. Na pierwszym widać, że jest jeszcze trochę niepewny, stracił też mnóstwo czasu na huśtawce, ale i tak ten bieg dał mu trzecie miejsce na 90-parę largowych jedynek! Pękamy z dumy. Jumping z niedzieli to jego ostatni bieg z tych zawodów i widać, o ile jest szybszy - jest coraz lepszy i przekonuje się, że w agility nie może się stać nic złego, nawet jeśli wokół jest pełno ludzi i psów :). 

These are my two favourites runs with Brava. I absolutely loved Alex's course (as I love most of his courses actually, I consider him one of the best agility judges in the world) and I'm pretty happy with how I handled it. I probably called her when she was over the bar, hence the dropped bar, but apart from that it was a great run on a challenging course :). 

Poniżej moje dwa ulubione biegi z Bravką. Bardzo podobał mi się tor Alexa (jak większość jego torów, moim zdaniem to jeden z najlepszych sędziów na świecie) i to, jak go poprowadziłam. Zdaje się, że zawołałam Bravę akurat nad hopką, stąd ta zrzutka, ale i tak był to fajny bieg na trudnym torze :). 

And the final run - Brava fell from the see-saw (I think her hind leg fell and she didn't manage to regain balance) and I instinctively asked her to jump back on the end of the see-saw, so we were eliminated. Otherwise, I really like the part after the dogwalk (lots of dogs had big turns there or were eliminated) and the turn after the tunnel was just perfect <3

I finał - Brava spadła z huśtawki (wydaje mi się, że spadła jej tylna łapa i już nie zdołała odzyskać równowagi) i instynktownie poprosiłam, żeby naskoczyła z powrotem na końcówkę, za co dostałyśmy disa. Ale naprawdę podoba mi się kawałek po kładce (dużo psów miało tam łuki albo disy) i zakręt po tunelu był perfekcyjny <3

And Roman's final run :) Evo was really great on this competition - seems like he is getting his speed back after the minor injury this summer, most of his contacts were really perfect and he had really nice, controlled runs throughout the weekend. He was on the podium quite a lot: 3rd place in jumping open, 2nd place jumping 3, 2nd place agility open on Saturday, 5th place in tunnel cup on Sunday and finally the best in medium final :)

Finałowy bieg Evoka - ogólnie Evo był super w ten weekend. Po swojej małej kontuzji tego lata wreszcie wraca do swojej prędkości, miał ogólnie rzecz biorąc naprawdę ładne strefy przez cały weekend i bardzo takie ogarnięte, spokojne biegi. Na podium też często się pokazywał: 3 miejsce w jumpingu open, 2 w jumpingu 3, 2 miejsce w agility open w sobotę, 5. miejsce w Tunnel Cup w niedzielę no i wreszcie wygrany finał :)

And there was a lovely and quite moving surprise for the winners - thanks Sissel Grønlund for a live performance of Polish national anthem! That was a moment to remember!

Na koniec była wspaniała i wzruszająca niespodzianka - wielkie podziękowania dla Sissel Grønlund, która zagrała na żywo polski hymn dla zwycięzcy! To było coś, co zapamiętamy na zawsze!

We had very succesful weekend :) Brego had his agility debut, I was excited and a bit nervous ;) - it's been 5 years since I had my last debut ;), plus it's sort of test drive how well you trained your dog and is he able to perform equally well in new environment etc. 

Brego was measured officially, as I expected, he is large (of course, "just" large). Obviously, I would prefer him to be medium for his sake and he would definetely be more competitive in medium, but I'm a firm believer in fair competition (even if I'm not particularly fond of the existing regulations concerning classes and jump heights - dura lex sed lex) and my goal is first of all to have fun (which we have) and to get the maximum the dog's potential is able to give me, so we will have lots of fun and lots of really good competition in large :). 

The jumps were set on 55 cm, which I didn't expect (our zero class allows 45-55 cm for large and normally 50 cm is used), so Brego only jumped this height in set point exercises, but not in a course. Nevertheless, he did great, knocked one pole in his first run and then was consistently clean after that. He held all his startlines perfectly, did all the contacts really well and was faster and faster with each run. My timing wasn't always perfect and his turns could be better, but all in all I'm really happy and proud of him. 

Za nami bardzo udany weekend :) Brego miał swoje pierwsze zawody, byłam równie podekscytowana, co zdenerwowana - minęło pięć lat, odkąd ostatni raz debiutowałam :). Taki debiut to trochę jazda próbna, pozwalająca na ocenę, czy wyszkoliło się psa na tyle dobrze, by sobie radził z bieganiem w nowym otoczeniu itd. 

Brego został oficjalnie pomierzony - niespodzianek nie było, jest large (oczywiście "ledwo" large). Cóż, ze względu na niego wolałabym, żeby był mediumem, bez wątpienia w mediumach byłby też bardziej konkurencyjny, ale po pierwsze wierzę w uczciwą konkurencję (nawet jeśli nie jestem szczególnie zachwycona obecnym podziałem na kategorie i wysokościami przeszkód, dura lex, sed lex), a po drugie po pierwsze chcemy się dobrze bawić (i tak jest), a po drugie moim celem jest bardziej wydobycie z psa maksimum tego, co jego potencjał umożliwia - tak więc będziemy się dobrze bawić wśród przedniej konkurencji w large :).

Hopki były ustawione na 55 cm, co trochę mnie zaskoczyło (zazwyczaj ustawia się na 50 cm). Brego do tej pory skakał taką wysokość jedynie w ćwiczeniu set point, nie w torze, niemniej jednak poza zrzutką w pierwszym biegu świetnie sobie poradził i potem już miał same czyste biegi. We wszystkich biegach super został na starcie, zaliczył wszystkie strefy i przyspieszał w każdym kolejnym biegu. Mój timing chwilami pozostawiał trochę do życzenia, zakręty mogłyby być ciaśniejsze, ale ogólnie jestem bardzo zadowolona i szalenie dumna z Pińdziusia :). 

Other dogs were great as well: Flaszek got another leg towards A2 even though the conditions were pretty difficult for him with loud music and children playing football in the adjoining field, Evo had PERFECT contacts for the whole weekend and was 2nd in agility, jumping and agility + jumping combined after Brava, Brava won 5 runs out of 6 and then it turned out she also won Polish Agility Cup 2014, being my third dog to achieve that :). Evo was 4th in general classification. 

Inne pieski też dały radkę: Flaszek zdobył kolejną nóżkę do A2 w trudnych dla niego warunkach (grająca muzyka i dzieci kopiące piłkę na boisku obok), Evo miał IDEALNE strefki przez cały weekend i w niedzielę był drugi za Bravą w agility, jumpingu i w łącznej, Brava wygrała w sumie 5 z 6 biegów i Puchar Polski Agility 2014 (i tym samym udało mi się wygrać PPA z trzecim moim psem). Evo skończył w klasyfikacji PPA na 4 miejscu. 

A tu nasze mediumowe openowe podium:

Agility World Championship is definetely my favourite competition. I love the atmosphere, the spectators, the songs, the dancing, the possibility to watch and compete against the best competitors in the world, meeting people from all over the world - everything. This year it was really great - first of all, the hall in Coque is really beautiful. Secondly, it is situated both really close to restaurants, shops etc and to a nice park, where we could walk our dogs off leash and relax. The crew was really nice and helpful and whole thing was well organised, apart from minor problems with parking.

I'm glad that measuring the dogs on AWC is getting more strict - we could see this tendency in Liberec already and now also in Luxembourg. To be really perfect, the judges should also check whether a dog is actually not too small for a given category plus of course they should be really objective and really measure all new dogs (as opposed to trying to fit them under a gate for instance or trying to make them stand in unnatural position). I am sorry for some of the teams affected (for some, I'm sure, knew already, cheated and hoped to get away with it and I'm not sorry for them at all), for it must be horrible to take all the journey in good faith and then not be allowed to compete - but then in the long run I think it will be good for everybody. I hope that people will realize the times of running (and winning) in major events with dogs too big for a given category are over. I hope it will eventually result in changing the existing regulations - I think 65 cm is far to high to jump for the dogs which are just over the medium limit and it's difficult for others as well. If it was up to me, I would change the jump heights without changing the existing division in categories, for it would be the simplest possible solution that would benefit everybody.

Anyway, coming back to pleasant things - I loved the fact that again I was able to put real faces to FB friends (especially Marcela Francoso from Brazil, who turned out to be one of the nicest persons on the planet), meet old friends (special thanks to our Norwegian and French supporters :)) and to Kirsten for the lucky pigs - they live on my windowsill now). It was fantastic to meet so many pyrsheps especially du Mourioche gang (I hope to get picture of Brego with his mummy and daddy soon (both versions of it).

I really loved most of the courses as well - the individual small jumping was actually one of the most exciting competitions to watch and it's really not easy to make challenging course for small dogs at this level. I didn't like the fact that the table was used in agility team runs - I think it's a relict of the times where agility was something like obedience, done only with the dog on your left side and with sudden stop on the table. I think now it really affected the results, for most of the dogs never ever see it in any competition (the last time Brava did it was in Lievin) and it's really difficult to release the dog in the exactly correct moment ( I think I've lost like a second because I didn't hear the fucking thing and had to go back to it).

Moreover, stupid thing actually stopped working several times! Also, the judges were not sure how to judge it and there were many bad calls on this obstacle (and some on the others, like several contacts which were clearly done or the fault for Roland Kolenko with Ammy which cost them the gold medal they deserved).

The competition started really great for us - Polish medium team took the gold medal in jumping. Great thing was our team consisted of three pyrsheps from the same litter plus NSDTR who is almost the same colour ;) and really great dog too. I was really happy about the dogs that qualified and I knew it was possible for us to be on the podium - and we did it! The first ever team podium for Poland :D :D :D Unfortunately, the table killed us in agility, but I know we could do better next time we have the chance :).

As for individual runs, I'm really proud of myself and Brava. In jumping, she knocked the wing of the second obstacle, but nevertheless I managed to run till the end and even dared to do double cross near the end. We had really great time. Evo had a nice clean run, which placed him pretty high for the next day, so we were quite hopeful. In agility - again, we missed some luck - the judge dictated a fault on the see-saw and I wouldn't mind it (it was not perfect) if he was consistent with it, but he wasn't. Some better see-saws were called and some worse weren't and it was really difficult to understand his criteria. Otherwise, again we had fantastic run with I think 3rd time (same as Martina with Kiki). Evo had super fast run with fault on the A-frame unfortunately (which is a pity since he was pretty consistently clean recently in competitions). My consolation is that I absolutely love the teams that won - Martina Klimesova with Kiki deserved it for many years and I admire Martina's work with her dogs and how she cares about them. Werner with Esmeralda are just fantastic team to watch, so much joy and such a great relationship :).

Below you can see Roman's and mine individual runs - with big thanks to Leslie Reynoard for the videos :).

Another great consolation was that Monika and Chika had absolutely fantastic agility run and took 3rd place in it, so we had another chance for the run on the green carpet with Polish flags :). Such a young dog and such a great result - I bet there is more to come in the future! :). Lisa with Hoss are class for themselves winning AWC for the 4th time - this is just amazing. Jenny Damm has been an inspiration to me for many years, I love her system, I love her positive thinking and really giving it all in every run, so I'm really happy about her silver medal as well.

We had really nice team this time and really great atmosphere - thanks to you all as well as the supporters from Poland watching us on livestream and sending positive energy.

I am really satisfied with myself this time - I did my best, I ran like the wind, I kept positive attitude and concentration throughout all my runs, so it seems that my mental preparation is working. I want to work a little bit on my condition though for the next season :). Brava was PYRFECT as always and I can always count on her doing her best :). Evo was also fantastic, with perfect sit - stays, great contacts (apart from that one A-frame unfortunately) and his inteligence saving the situation even when Roman slipped a bit and was totally out of position. We both feel so blessed with our bestest yellow doggies, who always run full speed, always find the next logical obstacle and never care about the noise, crowd or anything :). After this World Championship I can say that winning is really nice, but actually running the courses with your canine partner is the best part of it and I enjoyed every second of it :).

We had the best possible holiday in Sweden and Norway. After EO, we spent just one day at home, and then headed off to Sweden, where we met with Siw and Brie and Nina with Zulu and together we had training with Jenny Damm. I really love training with her, her philosophy really suits me plus the trainings with her are really fun and really motivational. It was Brego's first ever serious training and I was really pleased with him - the foudations seem to be in place, he was focused and fast and I'm pretty sure he's going to get even crazier and faster in the future. Siw with Brie were also doing great - Brie hasn't changed a bit, he is still the same happy, a bit naughty and tremendously fun boy he used to be. I really enjoyed watching him work with Siw, they have wonderful relationship and he has great focus and knows lots of things already. Roman was working with Flaszek and Evo - and Flaszek also did great and was quite as fast as he is at home, which was good sign. In the evening we went for an "After Beach Competition" in Falkenberg - Brava was 2nd and Evo 3rd in jumping :).

Next day we started our Norwegian adventure - first, we were running at a competition in Nes. Evo was a bit sore after training and competition in Sweden, so Roman decided not to compete with him and focus on Flaszek. Flaszek was ABSOLUTELY amazing. There were two rings and quite a lot of people and dogs around - so not really Flaszek's favourite conditions. Outside the ring he looked a bit stressed, but once he entered the ring he was focused on his job only and ran really well. The organizers rewarded a percentage of dogs from each run, so it was always about 10 in large category out of more than 70 dogs - and Flaszek was always on this big podium! He finished all his runs, most of them clean!!! I'm starting to feel he would never cease to amaze us :).

Here are some of his runs from the weekend:

Brava was her pyrfect self again - she won all 5 runs she run in, most of them with quite an advantage. There was a prize of 1000 Norwegian crowns for 

fastest clean runs - just one prize for all the competitors and on Sunday morning it was apparent that we're strong candidates for winning. I told everyone I don't want to think about it, cause it stresses me out. The A3 course looked quite difficult and not really our type of course as there was a jump 4 meters straight after the dogwalk, which you weren't supposed to take and sharp turn into the tunnel instead. But I remembered what I read on Jenny's website just a couple of days ago. She wrote it about winning WC in 2001, but I think it applies just as well to any important runs:

"I had learned that I couldn’t hold back. I had to give all. I also understood that I must believe in myself and that the contacts had to be perfect."

So I decided to try it with the running contacts and directional command after dogwalk - I practised directionals on warm-up jumps a bit, recalling her in the last moment from the jump - and it worked just as I intended. We won that run and after that, jumping could only be easy :). So all in all, Brava won the money prize :).

Next stage of our journey was just a wonderful holiday with Siw - Norway is really breathtakingly beautiful and we had a great time, walking the dogs, admiring the views and eating delicious food every evening :). I think that part of the story is better told with pictures, so here's the selection of them:

After this wonderful holiday it was time to meet with old and new friends at agility seminar. Some of the teams I've already seen last year and it was great to see their progress. We run some fun courses greatly inspired by Tamas and Veronika's courses from EO :). I must say I've met many great shelties in Norway, very friendly and courageous, as well as some other cool dogs. Nevertheless I must say that I was surprised both on competition and on seminar how many dogs in Sweden and Norway were overweight - most of them need to loose at least a couple of kilos for my taste...

After the seminar it was time to go home - luckily this time our journey back was uneventful, no hurricanes or other problems :), so Norway trip was only positive experiences this time. Looking forward to going back there!

EO 2014 in Hungary was great! Fantastic organization, really nice and helpful ring and camping crew, interesting and challenging courses, great judges, lots of amazing runs to watch (Pavel Kosek with Audi winning jumping individual large would be one to remember for a long time!), meeting old and new friends which again made me feel as a part of huge, international, pyrshep family... it was great to see you all! Things like extreme weather (hot hot hot this time) and cold showers and totally naked total strangers sharing same shower cabin with your are just one of those EO oddities that you learn to accept and laugh at (BTW I'm beginning to suspect that the presence of shared shower cabins for 3-4 people is one of the criteria for choosing EO locations. Maybe that's some idea to bring people together :)) .

We had the best possible company and great time - as for our runs, well... it could have been better. Evo got a minor injury in June and hasn't trained for almost a month, Roman was working like crazy and wasn't training either - so they had some mistakes which wouldn't happen normally. They had really nice individual agility run with 1 knocked bar and 3rd best time overall which was enough to get them in the finals as country selection. Brava had imaginary puppies last week and her phantom puppies combined with hot temperature and crowded ring entry (she is normally uncomfortable with that plus she got attacked by some dog just before entering the ring) made her run slower than usual. Despite that, we still had 3 clean runs and two of them were in the top 10, which gave us a place in the final as well. I changed my starting routine a bit before the finals plus the ring entry area was much bigger as there was just one ring by then - and so I got my normal Brava back. The course by Veronika Herendy was really fun and Brava showed her best like fantastic contacts and nice weaves entries, unfortunately I was too slow and we got eliminated. Nevertheless, she is my bestest yellow doggy in the world <3.

I have some new ideas that I need to work on, so even though we weren't particularly succesful this time, this will only make us better :). First of all, I need to experiment a little bit with the starting routine so I can make Brava feel comfortable even if there are many dogs around. Secondly, I want to teach her more independent "outs", so she can save my ass sometimes when I'm not able to get to places :).

Some videos and pictures to follow, but now - off to bed :).

Official brag today: both Evo and Brava qualified for Agility World Championship for both individual and team :). Brava was the individual qualifications, gathering the most points, Evo is second and our friend Robert with Kaira are third - so we have three pyrsheps in three first places individual (two medium and one large). To top that, the third member of our medium team is Evo and Brava's brother Eyt :).

Our special Brabous are 1 year old today! All in all, I'm really happy with this litter, they seem to combine the great characteristic of both their parents: nice structure, excellent drive and friendly and couragious nature :). So here is a little update on how they're all doing in their new wonderful homes!

I would like to wish all Brabous wonderful life with lots of playing, long walks, cuddling and sharing special moments with their owners :). 

Siw writes about him:

I'm Brie. About 9 months ago I moved to Norway, where I live with Siw and Wheaten Terrier named Chablis. I am happy all the time. I love everything and everyone. And I make friends everywhere. I am very fond of RUNNING agility, swimming, playing with Chablis (and harassing him a little when he doesn't want to play with me). When my mum watches TV, I livke to lie in her lap and snuggle. I love to be petted and scratched. When my mum grooms me, I am not only smart but also beautiful. I have two excellent and 2 times the first place from the show ring, so my mum says I'm going to be a Norwegian champion. Did I mention than I am a very happy dog? And I love food and I'm hungry all the time.  Sometimes I end up in a little trouble because I eat something that should not be eaten. But how am I to know it wihout tasting it? Braveheart is my kennel name and I live up to it. I am very tough and fearless. I love new things. It makes me HAPPY!

Plus, she is still strikingly beautiful :) and has her mama's smile :). 

In the middle of June puppies of our EVO (EVOLUTION Willa Mora) and ETinka (ENFANT TERRIBLE du Champ d'Onix) are expected :). Both parents are healthy, crazy, with excellent drive and both are medium sized :). Match from heaven :).  For more info contact ET's owner, Veronika Vesela (veruve @ gmail. com).

W połowie lipca w Czechach spodziewane są narodziny szczeniaczków po EVO (EVOLUTION Willa Mora) i ETince (ENFANT TERRIBLE du Champ d'Onix). Rodzice są zdrowi, zwariowani, mają super popędy i są mediumami. Idealna para :). Więcej informacji może udzielić właścicielka E.T. Veronika Vesela (veruve @ gmail . com).

Some videos with E.T.:

Second AWC quali is behind us. Again, it was very far away from our place, at the seaside and it started sort of funny. First of all, Brava is in heat, which complicated things a bit, as we have 4 boys at home and 3 of them are not neutered. So she had to stay with our friend Robert for a couple of days, then at the hotel with our other friends Michał, Sławek and Beata - thank you all for taking care of her! Secondly, while we were on the way, we got the message that the plane in which the judge was suppose to come, is out of order (fortunately it was still on the ground). Luckily, Alex Beitl was able to find other connections and the qualis only started a bit later. Thirdly, when we arrived at our hotel, it turned out it was really close to the church, in the parish actually, and we couldn't get it, because the owner, that is the priest, was just conducting a mass. We went for a nice pizza and then got into the hotel finally, which was pretty nice. 

Even though the beginning was a bit funny, next day was nearly perfect: Brava won all three runs, Evo was second in agility and unfortunately an elimination in jumping. Then it was our Flaszek turn to run in zero class and he was marvellous: he had a refusal in the first jumping run, but then had three clean runs (and two agility runs among them) and even got on the podium (1st and 2nd for agility runs and 1st for agility and jumping combined). In the evening we went to a restaurant at the seaside :).Then the next day started with Brava winning jumping, thus sealing her huge advantage in points for both team and individual and then Evo won the agility run - so even though our qualis are not over yet, we have fullfilled all the criteria for qualifying already and with huge advantage in points to that :). Perfect Flaszek had another two clean runs and won another 1st place in agility plus jumping combined - the greatest thing was that even though running outside is much more difficult for him than running in the hall because there are more distractions, he was quite happy in the startline and even played with a ball afterwards. We hope he will get even more confidence and start running as fast as he does at home - but nevertheless he has already exceeded our expectations. After the competition we went for a beach to let the dogs have some fun in the water and in the evening we went for a little sightseeing in beautiful Gdańsk. All in all, really perfect  weekend (great place, super atmosphere and organization, fantastic judge, challenging courses) with nearly perfect results :).

Drugie kwalifikacje za nami. Znowu były okropnie daleko, tym razem nad morzem, na dodatek trochę mieliśmy dodatkowych atrakcji. Po pierwsze, Brava w końcu dostała cieczki, co trochę skomplikowało sprawy, bo mamy w domu cztery samce, z czego trzy jajeczne (no dobra, w przypadku Pińdziusia określenie samiec jest nieco na wyrost, ale jednak). Tak wiec Brava musiała parę dni pomieszkać z naszym przyjacielem Robertem, a potem w hotelu z Michałem, Sławkiem i Beatą - wielkie dzieki za pomoc i opiekę nad Pisią Gągolinką ;). Po drugie, w drodze na zawody dostaliśmy wiadomość, że popsuł się samolot, którym miał przylecieć sędzia (na szczęście na ziemi się popsuł). Zrobiło się małe zamieszanie, na szczęście Alex Beitl znalazł inne połączenia, tylko że zawody zaczęły się w sobotę trochę później. Po trzecie okazało się, że zarezerwowałam nocleg w kościele ;) i jak przyjechaliśmy, to nikt nas nie wpuścił, bo właściciel hotelu, czyli proboszcz, właśnie odprawiał mszę. Ale spoko, poszliśmy na pizzę, a pokój, jak już się do niego dostaliśmy, okazał się całkiem spoko. 

Mimo takich początków, następny dzień okazało się prawie idealny: Brava wygrała wszystkie swoje trzy biegi, Evo zaliczył kolejne czyste agility (2 miejsce) i niestety disa w jumpingu, a Flaszek przeszedł nasze najśmielsze oczekiwania i nie tylko ukończył wszystkie swoje biegi tego dnia, ale jeszcze trzy z nich bezbłędnie, co dało mu furę nagród i pierwsze miejsce w łącznej za agility plus jumping zero. Ukoronowaniem wieczoru był wieczór w knajpie na plaży w miłym towarzystwie :). Następnego dnia Brava wygrała jumping, a Evo agility, co obojgu dało ogromną przewagę punktową nad pozostałymi zawodnikami w medium - wprawdzie kwalifikacje jeszcze trwają, ale oboje mają już spełnione wszystkie warunki do kwalifikacji indywidualnej i drużynowej. Mistrzunio Flaszunio ukończył kolejne dwa biegi na czysto i wygrał kolejną łączną :). Najbardziej nas cieszy, że chociaż bieganie na dworze jest dla niego trudniejsze niż na hali, bo jest więcej nieoczekiwanych rozproszeń, to jednak chłopak dawał radę, z każdym biegiem coraz weselej szedł na start i nawet bawił się piłką po biegu :). Mamy nadzieję, że jego pewność siebie jeszcze wzrośnie i będzie dawał czadu :). Po zawodach poszliśmy na plażę, żeby psiaki się wyszalały, a wieczorem pozwiedzaliśmy piękną gdańską starówkę - w sumie naprawdę idealny wyjazd z prawie idealnymi wynikami na dokładkę :). Super miejsce, świetna obsługa i atmosfera, rewelacyjny sędzia, ciekawe tory - czegóż chcieć więcej.

Dyskusja na temat tego, kiedy zaczynać ze szczeniakiem czy młodym psem treningi, jak zaczynać, co jest za dużo, co nie jest za dużo trwa od lat. Osobiście staram się patrzyć na to nie tyle poprzez pryzmat konkretnych dat, ale ogólnej dojrzałości fizycznej i psychicznej psa i celu, jaki chcę osiągnąć, a przy tym pamiętać , że może do niego prowadzić wiele dróg (ale niektóre są lepsze niż inne ;)). Swego czasu czytałam wypowiedź bardzo znanej na świecie zawodniczki agility, na której personalia spuśćmy zasłonę miłosierdzia, która mówiła, że ze szczeniaczkiem biega trójkowe kombinacje, bo szczeniaczek ma krótkie nóżki, biega wolno i dzięki temu wszystko się udaje i tak właśnie szkoliła swojego psa, który do tej pory odnosi duże sukcesy, a ma już chyba z 10 wiosen. Tenże piesek uczony był slalomu za rączką i też go jakoś robi ładnie i niezależnie, nauka radziecka zna takie cuda i przypadki ;). Z drugiej strony wielu równie znanych i odnoszących równie wielkie sukcesy zawodników zaczyna później i zupełnie innymi metodami, a przy tym trąbi na lewo i prawo, żeby szczeniaka nie przeciążać, nie eksploatować na przeszkodach i w ogóle nawet z dorosłym psem dbać o to, by nie trenować za dużo, w zamian zapewniając mu różnorodną aktywność fizyczną typu spacery, pływanie, szkolenie w innych sportach etc. Pewnie można by mnożyć przykłady w obie strony, tylko jaki z tego wniosek?

Wniosek jest taki, że trzeba mieć własny rozum i oczy w głowie. Wpuszczając młodego psa po raz pierwszy na przeszkody nie patrzę na to, czy ma 5 miesięcy czy 15, tylko jak się rusza i co już umie. Każdy mój pies zanim skoczył pierwszą hopkę w życiu miał za sobą godziny spacerów i swobodnego biegania, dziesiątki nauczonych sztuczek, podstawy w postaci ogólnego posłuszeństwa, rozumienia mojej mowy ciała, zostawania, aportu,  a w przypadku młodszych moich psów jeszcze dodatkowo samokontroli, wysyłania do zabawki, przełączania się pomiędzy zabawką i jedzeniem oraz pomiędzy pobudzeniem i wyciszeniem. Zanim skoczył hopkę z tyczką, robił ćwiczenia na technikę skoku na regulatorach, po to by wiedział, jak się to robi. Zanim skoczył hopkę z tyczką, uczony był wysyłania do obiegania odkosów i wyszukiwania przeszkód, po to, by umiał szukać sobie linii i przeszkód. I tak dalej - zanim zaczął pokonywać jakąkolwiek przeszkodę, miał zbudowane podstawy, by wiedział, jak to zrobić bezpiecznie i prawidłowo.

Druga sprawa, to wybór metod szkoleniowych. Z premedytacją decyduję się na rozłożenie nauki poszczególnych przeszkód na tygodnie lub miesiące. Po pierwsze dlatego, że chcę, żeby pies się fizycznie stopniowo do tego przygotowywał. Jasne, mogłabym mu podnosić tyczki szybko albo zacząć od wysokich, ale wolę to robić powoli co parę centymetrów, tak by pies uczył się, jakiego ruchu potrzebuje, by dobrze skręcić, by budował sobie mięśnie i koordynację. Tak, mogłabym zapewne "nauczyć" slalomu w parę dni taką czy inną metodą, ale wolę, żeby pies najpierw potrafił skracać wykrok i robić różne wejścia, by poznał jak najwięcej różnych rozproszeń na etapie, na którym to, czego od niego wymagam jest jeszcze stosunkowo proste i by stopniowo przygotował sobie mięśnie i kręgosłup do takiego dziwnego poruszania się. A przy tym wszystkim przyświeca mi cel, jaki chcę osiągnąć - czyli żeby pies naprawdę rozumiał dane zadanie, ze wszystkimi jego subtelnościami i trudnościami. Wiele psów robi slalom, ale niewiele go naprawdę umie w takim znaczeniu, w jakim ja to pojmuję - czyli że potrafi wejść samodzielnie z każdego kąta, niezależnie od tego, gdzie znajduje sie przewodnik i potrafił go pokonać do końca niezależnie od rozproszeń takich jak ruch przewodnika, jego odległość od psa, inne przeszkody w pobliżu i inne nietypowe sytuacje. To samo dotyczy strefówek - wiele psów potrafi na nie wejść i z nich zejść, nie zabijając się przy tym, ale ile z nich rzeczywiście wie, co ma na nich zrobić? Niezliczoną liczbę razy słyszałam pytanie: "Ale ile to będzie trwało?" w odniesieniu do nauczenia danej przeszkody lub przygotowania do startów. Odpowiedź brzmi "Tyle, ile trzeba. Nie ma terminu końcowego". Dla wielu osób takim terminem wydaje się osiągnięcie przez psa wieku umożliwiającego starty, przez co decydują się na metody, które ich zdaniem dadzą szybki efekt... ja wolę zmaksymalizować swoje szanse na to, że pies będzie robił wszystko NAPRAWDĘ DOBRZE, a nie w krótkim terminie. Tak na marginesie, mądre planowanie treningu i podnoszenie wyzwań w taki sposób, by zapewnić psu sukces zazwyczaj i tak pozwalają osiągnąć efekt, o który mi chodzi, szybciej niż metodami "na skróty".

Our AWC 2014 qualis started last weekend. First 2-day competition out of 3 was held in Supraśl - the bad thing was it was 600 km from our place, the good thing that it's really a beautiful place. The venue was perfect, everything in one place - the accomodation, the competition field and great places to walk the dogs (photos will follow). Kees Stoel, whom we like a lot, was judging, the atmosphere was great, the weather decent (it was quite cold sometimes but no rain) - what to want more? :)

Results!

But they were great too :D On Saturday both Evo and Brava had two clean runs in agility and jumping - Brava won jumping and Evo won agility. On Sunday, Brava got eliminated in agility and Evo had another clean run, followed by another clean run in jumping - so all in all, Evo had 4 clean runs on the podium with nice times, getting maximum points for team and enough to qualify for the individual already. Brava had 3 clean runs, so she still needs some points, but things are looking good :). Below you can see the videos:

W ostatni weekend rozpoczęły się tegoroczne kwalifikacje do Mistrzostw Świata Agility. Pierwsze z cyklu trzech zawodów odbyły się w Supraślu - zła wiadomość, że to 600 km od nas, dobra, że jest tam naprawdę pięknie. Miejsce idealne: nocleg, teren zawodów i tereny spacerowe wokół. Sędziował Kees Stoel, którego bardzo lubimy, pogoda była przyzwoita, atmosfera wspaniała - czegóż chcieć więcej?

Dobrych wyników oczywiście :D Ale te też były. W sobotę i Evo i Brava mieli po dwa czyste biegi (Evo wygrał agility, a Brava jumping), w niedzielę Brava miała disa w agility i czysty jumping, Evo znowu dwa czyste biegi, dzięki czemu nachapał maksimum możliwych punktów do drużyny i już ma spełnione warunki do kwalifikacji indywidualnej. Brava zaliczyła jeszcze czysty jumping, więc  w sumie trzy czyste biegi, jeszcze trochę punktów musi dozbierać, ale sprawy przedstawiają się nieźle.Filmiki poniżej :)

Sunday agility course was crazy, almost everybody got eliminated, even though the course looked quite innocent :) Most of the dogs did crazy fly-off from the see-saw, so Roman was quite smart to make a front crossed there :). 

Apart from that, we ran pretty nice MA3 exam with really difficult weaves - I'm pretty proud of them and the run as such, even though Brava jumped the contact on dogwalk (probably my blind cross was a bit too close to her and I pulled her off).

Niedzielne agility było jakieś wariackie, niemal wszystkie psy się zdisowały, chociaż tor wyglądał niewinnie. Większość psów zaliczało rekordowe flajerki na huśtawce, więc Romek sprytnie zrobił, że zrobił tam front crossa :).

Poza tym pobiegliśmy fajnie egzamin MA3 w niedzielę - Evo na czysto i z pierwszym miejscem, Brava z jednym błędem na strefie (chyba za blisko niej zrobiłam tego blind crossa) i najlepszym czasem. Slalom był trudny, większości psów ten manewr nie wyszedł, więc jesteśmy dumni:

We spent Easter Sunday in Czech Republic on dog show of Pyrenean Breeds. Alain Pecoult, the president of R.A.C.P. was judging, so it was a great chance to meet with a real expert of the breeds. We decided to show Flaszek and Brego (I was afraid that Brava will be in heat and Evo has no coat right now). I was really curious what the judge will say about Brego and especially his colour, but Brego got excellent and really nice description: 

Fine specimen of demi long variety of the breed, a little feminine and delicate at the moment, lightly built, rear angulation typical for demi-long variety of the breed, coat a bit soft at the moment, excellent head and expression, excellent temperament, very nice pointed nose, excellent dark eyes, well set ears, excellent momevent, excellent set of the tail, could flow a bit more in movement. 
Excellent, 1st place

Flaszek was quite stressed by the circumstances and his marks were lowered for that (he got very good). The judge also said that his head was too narrow and that it was his biggest fault. Apart from that he got quite nice description:

Good size, good head, but too narrow, good ears, dark eyes, a bit fearful, great colour, coat a bit too soft, excellent structure, could be a little longer, excellent movement, could flow a bit more. 

In addition, we met with Laura and Zookie :). Zookie is really wonderful, the judge also liked her A LOT, so she won the BOB and JCAC and everything :). 

All in all, it was a great pleasure - Alain Pecoult would give really thorough description, he justified his judgement, giving really interesting information about the breed, he looked at overall picture, not allowing any detail (such as size or colour) to influence the grade too much, but took everything into consideration, he paid attention to character which I really appreciate. He was interested where Brego and Zookie come from, so I showed him Brava after the judging was finished and he said he liked her a lot and that she was really nice bitch :). 

Spring has come, so time to update with some photos of the gang and some training updates. We're working on contacts with Flaszek, but he really is one peculiar dog - the A-frame is looking better and better although we're still using the stride regulators and only begin to fade them. The dogwalk - well, Flaszek being Flaszek, has his ups and downs - sometimes he is really perfect and seem to understand the position really well, sending to it, recalling and doing full dogwalk with flying colours and then the next day he has no clue whatsoever. Moreover, dogwalk seems to be mutually exclusive with weaving, because all of a sudden he thinks there are only 10 weave poles ;). Oh well, we're getting there - slowly, but surely.

As for Brego - I started working on his rc with target and already progressed to moving it to dogwalk, so far things look great. I've also started working on weave poles, beginning with teaching him entries 2x2 and now he had 2 sessions on channel with 12 poles. We also started an online obedience course - we did foundations before (see video below) and now we're working on socialisation exercise :). It's something totally different for me, but we're having fun. We also don't forget socialisation and long walks everyday - so he's having a busy and happy life. He was measured to be 42,5, so he's already on the limit and we really hope he will stop now :). 

Wiosna przyszła, czas więc na jakieś nowe zdjęcia bandy i aktualizacje szkoleniowe. Z Flaszkiem ciągle dłubiemy strefy i jak to z Flaszkiem, dwa kroki do przodu, jeden w tył. Palisada wygląda coraz lepiej, chociaż głównie dalej pracujemy z regulatorami i dopiero zaczynamy je wycofywać. Na kładce robimy 2o2o i cóż, są dni, kiedy jest super, wysyła się do pozycji, zatrzymuje w biegu, robi kładkę w sekwencjach - a są takie dni, że nie ma pojęcia, o co chodzi, nigdy nie stał w pozycji i tak dalej. Na dodatek Flaszka strefy jakoś wzajemnie wykluczają się ze slalomem, który nagle w pojęciu Flaszka zaczął mieć 10 tyczek... no nic to, powoli do przodu, w końcu wszystko się zrobi :).

Jeśli chodzi o Brego, to zaczynamy powoli poważne sprawy, czyli zbiegane z targetem, udało się już przenieść target na kładkę i na razie wszystko wygląda obiecująco. Zaczęłam też slalom, od wejść 2x2 i teraz mieliśmy drugą sesję na pełnym korytarzu z 12 tyczek. Oprócz tego zapisaliśmy się na kurs obedience online, wcześniej zrobiliśmy fundamenty, teraz zaczynamy dłubać materiał do zerówki - dla mnie to coś zupełnie nowego, więc jest fajnie. Rzecz jasna nie zapominamy o spacerach i socjalizacji - ogólnie więc Miminko wiedzie aktywne i szczęśliwe życie. Ostatnio go sędzia wymierzył na 42,5 cm, więc zapasu już nie ma i mamy nadzieję, że już skończył z tym rośnięciem.

Last two weekends we spent on competitions in Ostrava (Ostravski Pohar II and III). The venue is really great (for me also brings lots of nice memories, still it's the same hall I debuted with Sunday 10 years ago and same hall where I saw first ever Pyrshep in my life, who happened to became Brava and Evo's grandfather later on ;)), the carpet is the same as in AWC 2012, so really great, nice judge(s), Petr Dostal and Jaroslava Podmolova plus lots of great competitors to watch - so it's definetely worth going there. We also did pretty well. During the second Ostravski Pohar both Evo and Brava had lots of wins, both qualified for the final and then both got disqualified there (4 jumps in a straight line and then 5th from the other side is a bit too much even for me). We also had Brego measured by Petr Dostal, who found him to be 42-42,5, so we REALLY hope he's done growing for good :). Below are some best runs from both Evo and Brava.

Ostatnie dwa weekendy spędziliśmy na zawodach w Ostravie (Ostrawski Puchar II i III). Miejsce jest super (dla mnie bardzo szczególne, bo tam 10 lat temu zadebiutowałam ze spanielem na zawodach i tam też zobaczyłam pierwszego pyrka w swoim życiu, który potem miał się stać dziadkiem Bravy i Evoka :)), świetna sztuczna trawa (ta sama, co na MŚA 2012), doskonali sędziowie (Petr Dostal i Jaroslava Podmolova), fajna konkurencja - jednym słowem warto było tam być. Na 2. Ostravskim Pucharze zarówno Brava jak i Evo mieli sporo świetnych biegów, oboje zakwalifkowali się do finału i oboje się w nim zdisowali (4 hopki po prostej i 5 z outa to jednak lekkie przegięcie ;)). Przy okazji Petr Dostal wymierzył Brego na 42-42,5, więc NAPRAWDĘ mamy nadzieję, że już przestał rosnąć. Poniżej trochę biegów Evo i Bravy.

The third Ostrava Cup was equally nice, although the competition was a bit smaller with less competitors. But because of that the organizers let Flaszek run as "after-dog" in jumping and he did really well (video below)! We're sure that he will get better and better as his confidence will grow.

Evo and Brava were perfect as usually and won most of runs in medium between them ;). Again, they both qualified for the final. Roman with Evo ran as first and had faboulous run until last but one obstacle... so a really beautiful dis :). Olga and Brava had clean run and won with 10 seconds of advantage on the second placed dog :). They won a lovely cake for that as well as a bunch of other nice prizes (mostly sweets). 

Trzeci Ostravski Pohar był równie miły, chociaż zawodników było tym razem mniej. Jednak miało to ten plus, że organizatorzy pozwoli pobiec Flaszkowi w jumpingu w roli "po-psa" - Flaszek był mega dzielny (patrz filmik poniżej). Jesteśmy pewni, że z czasem jego pewność siebie będzie wzrastać i będzie coraz lepiej :). 

Evo i Brava jak zwykle byli super i na zmianę wygrali większość biegłów w medium, znowu kwalifikując się do finału. Romek z Evo biegli w finale pierwsi i mieli super bieg... aż do przedostatniej przeszkody (czyli coś w stylu ale piękna katastrofa), Olga z Bravą na czysto i z 10 sekundową przewagą nad drugim psem :). W nagrodę wygrały tort czekoladowy i dużo innych smacznych nagród :). 

Yes, a little lag, but... ;) there were more things worth mentioning in Bydgoszcz ;). First of all, we met with Natalia and got some short obedience lessons and tips :). I'm not really serious about it, but I think a bit of cross-training is great. So far I really like Asia Hewelt's way of teaching obedience, so we did her Work Foundations (Natalia said we were pretty decent with them ;)) and I'd like to progress more, at least for fun :). 

I promise I will try to make a video with our foundations :).

Trochę obsuwa czasowa, ale co tam ;). W Bydzi było parę jeszcze rzeczy wartych wzmianki. Po pierwsze, spotkaliśmy się z Natalią, która łyknęła bakcyla obi i dała nam parę wskazówek i krótkich lekcji. Nie myślę o tym obi jakoś szalenie poważnie, ale odrobina treningu w innych dziedzinach nie zawadzi. Jak na razie bardzo mi się podoba podejście Asi Hewelt, zrobiliśmy więc jej Fundamenty Pracy (Natalia stwierdziła, że dość przyzwoicie) i chciałabym podłubać coś więcej dla zabawy :). 

The other great thing was that we went for a nice walk with Basia and her puppy Reba. Reba is... well, can you guess what breed she is? No, not a face rase pyrshep, but an Aussie :) with lots of working lines blood in her. She is 2 weeks younger then Brego and not only beautiful, but also a really nice and delicate puppy, so Brego finally had a chance to play a bit with another puppy. Normally he doesn't - it's hard to organize it if you live in the suburbs and have 5 other dogs. So I'm really glad that he did play with her a little bit - and even more, as I got some beautiful photos. 

Druga fajna rzecz, że poszliśmy na spacer z Basią i jej szczeniakiem Rebą. Reba jest... no, nie pyrkiem face rase, tylko ozikiem :) z dużą ilością workingowej krwi w sobie. Jest jakieś dwa tygodnie młodsza od Brego i nie tylko jest śliczna, ale też bardzo miła i delikatna w zabawie, tak więc Brego wreszcie miał okazję pobawić się z innym szczeniakiem. Zazwyczaj nie miewa - ciężko to zorganizować, jak się mieszka na wsi i ma 5 innych psów. Tak więc bardzo się cieszę, że trochę się pobawili - tym bardziej, że dostałam parę pięknych zdjęć (autorstwa Basi). 

We spent Valentine's weekend as all normal... errr, agility people do - on competition :). This time we went to Bydgoszcz, which is always lucky for us - Evo and Brava were born there and also had their very succesful agility debut there. Therefore we decided it is also a great place for Flaszek to run in his first real competition ever :). This time we went already on Friday to finally see something apart from the hall where competition was held. We drove really slowly, because last time we went to Bydgoszcz we got a speeding ticket... So this time we didn't get the speeding ticket, we went to town and got a ticket for crossing on the red light. The policeman was really serious guy and he actually gave us a real ticket for that! Apart from that, we had a great evening, visited restaurant with best pancakes and then brewery where Olga was attacked but a coatrack :).  

Great thing was that Magda, Evo and Brava's breeder, invited us to stay over, which meant really pyrfect accomodation with 9 pyrsheps all toghether (mummy Oxa, Brava, Evo, younger sister Mora, grandson Brego, cousin Kaira, Vigo and Cudiv(who are not related to others, but are actually siblings to themselves) and Flaszek (not related to anybody else there.

The competition started on Saturday morning with A0 agility run. We didn't manage to finish teaching Flaszek contacts (have I ever mentioned that he is a sweet teddy bear with tiny tiny brain?), so Roman only run a short part of the course with him - but it was good, because Flaszek didn't get distracted, ran nicely and got his reward fast. Then we had A3 runs - Brava got disqualified (out after dogwalk, but I actually used the wrong signal) and Evo was 2nd after holding the contacts really nicely :). Then Brava won both agility and jumping runs, Evo was 2nd in jumping (and on 3rd was their brother Eyt). Flaszek had two nice runs, but refused to do the flat tunnel each time, so he got eliminated (fortunately we got to practice it in the evening after the competition). 

Walentynkowy weekend spędzliliśmy jak wszyscy normalni... errr, agilitowi ludzie, tzn. na zawodach agility. Tym razem wybraliśmy się do Bydgoszczy, która jest dla nas szczęśliwa, bo po pierwsze Evo i Brava tam się urodzili, po drugie przeżyli tam swój wielce udany debiut agilitowy. Z tego względu uznaliśmy, że będzie to świetne miejsce na debiut Flaszkowy :). Pojechaliśmy do Bydgoszczy już w piątek, żeby dla odmiany zobaczyć coś jeszcze poza halą, gdzie odbywać się miały zawody. Jechaliśmy bardzo powoli, bo ostatnio w drodze do Bydgoszczy zarobiliśmy mandacik... ale po kolei. Wieczorem poszliśmy na miasto... i dostaliśmy mandacik za przechodzenie na czerwonym świetle :P. Pan policjant był bardzo groźny i totalnie wyprany z poczucia humoru. Potem odwiedziliśmy super naleśnikarnię, a jeszcze później warzelnię piwa, gdzie Olgę zaatakował wieszak na ubrania :P. Ogólnie wieczór był bardzo udany. 

Magda, hodowczyni naszych pyrków, zaoferowała nam pyrfekcyjny nocleg u siebie - tak więc w sumie w jednym miejscu było 9 pyrów: Oxa, jej dzieci Evo, Brava i młodsza Morka, kuzynka Kaira, wnusio Brego, rodzeństwo (tzn. nie spokrewnione z pozostałymi, tylko ze sobą) Vigo i Cudi oraz nie spokrewniony z nikim Flaszek :). 

Zawody zaczynały się w sobotę rano od agility zero. Ponieważ jeszcze nie udało nam się nauczyć Flaszka strefówek (czy wspominałam, że jest misiem o bardzo małym rozumku?), Romek z Flaszkiem pobiegli tylko kawałek toru - ale może i dobrze, bo dzięki temu Flaszek nie zdążył się rozproszyć, pobiegł bardzo ładnie i szybko dostał nagrodę w swoim pierwszym biegu. Brava zdisowała się w MA3 (out po kładce, ale Olga użyła złego sygnału), za to później wygrała zarówno agility, jak i jumping open. Evo był drugi w jumpingu (a trzeci braciszek Eyt). Flaszek miał dwa ładne jumpingowe biegi, nie licząc odmów na miękkim tunelu (ale na szczęście mogliśmy go sobie poćwiczyć po zawodach). 

Olga had additional fun of running with Bipi, very cool Mancherter terrier, whose owner unfortunately has injured herself. They were running as "white dog" but had pretty nice run anyway:

Olga miała dodatkową frajdę z pobiegnięcia z Bipi, Manchesterką, aka czarne ferrari - niestety przewodniczka Bisia skontuzjowała się w pierwszym biegu. Biegły poza konkurencją, ale miały całkiem fajny bieg:

On Sunday Flaszek refused the flat tunnel only once, but then managed to do it without help :) and in next runs he was perfect :). He actually even got on the podium and was 2nd in his first jumping zero and 3rd in the second jumping zero run this day. He was not running full speed as at home, but he was focused, searched for the obstacles and was actually enjoing himself, which is the best thing :) And we're really really sooooooo proud of him! His debut was even better than we expected!

W niedzielę Flaszek miał tylko jedną odmowę na miękkim tunelu, ale w końcu odważył się go zrobić całkiem sam, a w kolejnych biegach był doskonały i nawet załapał się na podium - 2 miejsce w jumping zero I i 3 miejsce jumping zero II. Nie biegł na swoje 100%, ale był skoncentrowany, ładnie szukał przeszkód i dobrze sie bawił, co w tym najważniejsze. Jesteśmy z niego strasznie dumni, jego debiut wypadł nawet lepiej, niż się spodziewaliśmy!

Brava again got eliminated in MA3 and won agility open. Evo had bad contacts day, probably because the courses were really fast with lots of straight lines and dogs lost their brains with all the speed, nevertheless both of us managed to qualify for the big final, so called "Elite". The competition had slightly different rules then usually, you collected points in all runs and in the final run who could get more of them. Final was ours - Brava was first, Evo was second and their brother Eyt was third. On the fourth place in this run, but 1st altogether was Cudi - so pyrsheps were the best and all stayed in the family, so to say :), as Brava and Evo were 2nd and 3rd respectively :). 

Brava znowu zdisowała się w MA3 i wygrała agility open. Evoczek miał zły dzień strefkowy, prawdopodobnie dlatego, że tory były obłędnie szybkie i psy się w niedziele już trochę odmóżdżały, ale obojgu nam udało się zakwalifikować do dużego finału, tzn. Elity :). Bydgoskie zawody mają trochę odmienną formułę, zbiera się punkty we wszystkich biegach, przy czym w biegu finałowym można tych punktów zdobyć najwięcej. Finał należał do nas - tzn. Brava była znowu pierwsza, Evo drugi, a trzeci znowu ich braciszek Eyt. Na czwartym miejscu w tym biegu, za to na pierwszym w klasyfikacji łącznej znalazła się Cudi - ogólnie więc pyrki były niepokonane i wszystko zostało w rodzinie można powiedzieć, bo Brava i Evo byli odpowiednio na 2 i 3 miejscu :).  

So, as usually, the competition in Bydgoszcz was really succesful for us and we got home with some cool prizes (like two new dog beds which now all the dogs want to sleep in). The courses were crazy, I can't remember running so much for a long time and can't remember that many straight lines for years. We both prefer more technical courses usually, but it was quite a valuable experience after all - like we know that we need to practice things like see saw after a long straight line etc. 

Anyway, the hero of the day was definetely Flaszek! It's just amazing how he changed and what a great dog he is now!

Jak zwykle więc Bydgoszcz dla nas bardzo udana, wróciliśmy do domu z super nagrodami - na przykład mamy dwa nowe posłanka i teraz wszystkie pieski chcą w nich spać. Torki były szalone, nie pamiętam, kiedy ostatnio musiałam tyle biegać, a tylu prostych nie biegałam od lat. Oboje wolimy zazwyczaj nieco bardziej techniczne tory, ale było to mimo wszytko cenne doświadczenie - na przykład wiemy, że trzeba potrenować huśtawkę po takim rozpędzie etc. 

Tak czy siak bohaterem weekendu pozostaje Flaszek, to niesamowite, jak się zmienił i jakim jest teraz wspaniałym psem!

Last weekend Roman with Evo, Brava, Flaszek and Miminko went to competition in Ostrava - I couldn't go, because I was on a seminar elsewhere and Sunday and Vigo had a terrific vacation with Roman's mum (I'm pretty sure they really enjoyed six meals a day and sleeping on the bed :)). Flaszek and Brego had some fun on the warm up jumps and both were pretty good in playing among distractions :). On Saturday Brava had bad contact day :P, but on Sunday she was perfect again and won both the agility run and the finals. Evo did a great job too and won MA3 exam :).

Poprzedni weekend Roman z Evokiem, Bravką, Flaszkiem i Miminkiem spędzili na zawodach w Ostravie - ja nie mogłam jechać, bo byłam na semi gdzieś indziej, a Sunday i Vigo mieli fantastyczne wakacje u Romka mamy (jestem pewna, że byli zachwyceni opcją sześć posiłków dziennie i spanie w łóżeczku). Flaszek i Brego mieli okazję trochę pohopsać na rozgrzewkowych hopeczkach i obydwaj radzili sobie nieźle w atmosferze zawodów :). W sobotę Bravka miała zły dzień strefkowy, ale w niedzielę już wszystko było doskonale i wygrała zarówno agility open, jak i finał. Evoczek też się świetnie spisał i wygrał MA3.

Miminko playing in the competition atmosphere:

MIminko bawi sie na zawodach:

Evo's A3 exam:

Wygrane A3 Evoczka:

And Brava's gold final run (she is doing great job winning the finals recently :)):

I wreszcie złoty finałowy bieg Bravy (nieźle jej ostatnio idzie to wygrywanie finałów ;)):

Last weekend we spent in Kladno on a very nice competition (warm hall, super artificial grass). Saturday was not very succesful for us, we drove all night, so were really sleep deprived and not on our best, but then we had good night rest in a nice hotel so Sunday was much better. The first run was open jumping, which was our last chance to qualify for the finals - and we did :) Brava was 1st and Evo was 3rd and here are the videos:

Miniony weekend spędziliśmy na fajnych zawodach w Kladnie (ciepła hala z super wykładziną). Sobota nie przyniosła większych sukcesów, może ze względu na to, że całą noc spędziliśmy w aucie i byliśmy potwornie niewyspani, ale potem spędziliśmy noc w miłym hoteliku i w niedzielę było znacznie lepiej. Pierwszy bieg w niedzielę to open jumping, który stanowił dla nas ostatnią szansę na zakwalifikowanie się do finału - i udało się :). Filmiki poniżej:

Final was next. We really wanted to do well there, because the main prize was really attractive - weekend in castle with spa center :). Unfortunately Evo missed the long jump and was eliminated, so Brava remained our only chance... I was wondering whether to use RC or not, but eventually decided to do so, because I could leave her on the start line and then make a FC after the dogwalk to turn her into the tunnel :). I actually planned to run the course a little different and then did some rear crosses which is not typical for us, but still we had really nice run and Brava won the final in medium!

Finały były następne. Zależało nam na dobrych biegach, bo za pierwsze miejsce była super fajna nagroda, czyli weekend w zamku z centrum spa :). Niestety Evo ominął skok w dal i się zdisował, tak więc wszystko było w łapkach Bravki. Zastanawiałam się przez chwilę, czy robić zbieganą czy nie, ale w końcu uznałam, że mogę ją zostawić na starcie i zrobić front crossa po kładce, żeby ją zakręcić do tunelu :). Co prawda ogólnie planowałam pobiec trochę inaczej niż ostatecznie pobiegłam, zrobiłam jakieś zmiany za psem zamiast ślepaków, trochę nie w naszym stylu, ale i tak był to ładny bieg i Brava wygrała mediumy :). 

Our last runs on Sunday were MA3 exams. I was a bit disappointed, because the judge made a course, which was really really similar to the final run (actually half the course was exactly the same) and he already used some of the elements in jumping so it was like running the same course for the third time and that's really boring. I understand he wanted to save time and not move the obstacles too much, but he could have moved the numbers :P I actually thought of some other sequences possible on this arrangement and was thinking about whether not to run something else instead, but then I thought it would be a little bit rude so decided to try to layer weaves and leave Brava far away on the see-saw with me running full speed to test her a bit. It worked really nicely and I'm really satisfied with this run - and she was 1st again. Evo also had a nice clean run and was 2nd :)

Ostatnim naszym biegiem był egzamin MA3. Trochę byłam rozczarowana, bo sędzia ustawił tor, który był mega podobny do finałowego, a już wcześniej w jumpingu było parę podobnych elementów, więc to było jakby biec trzeci raz ten sam tor, a to strasznie nudne. Rozumiem, żę chciał zaoszczędzić czasu i nie przesuwać przeszkód, ale mógł trochę chociaż poprzesuwać numerki :). Sama wymyśliłam parę interesujących sekwencji i przez chwilę zastanawiałam się, czyby nie pobiec czegoś zupełnie innego, ale potem uznałam, że to jednak trochę wiocha by była, więc ostatecznie stwierdziłam, że trochę sobie poeksperymentuję i przelayerowałam slalom oraz zostawiłam Bravkę daleko na huśtawce. Eksperyment się udał, bardzo jestem zadowolona z tego biegu. Evoczek też miał ładny czysty bieg i drugie miejsce za Bravką :). 

Besides, Roman played a little bit with Flaszek on two warm-up jumps in the competition atmosphere and I played with Brego and they both did great. Miminko even has a video of practicing turns

A poza tym Romek popracował sobie trochę z Flaszkiem na dwóch rozgrzewkowych hopeczkach, a ja pobawiłam się z Brego. Obydwa chłopczyki super pracowały i były dzielne, Miminko nawet ma filmik, jak ćwiczy zakręciki: 

This whole old year ending, new year beginning with all the pressure of "you must have immense party" and "you must be happy" and making new year's resolutions noone is going to keep is a bit forced and stupid, but actually there is one good thing about changing the date - it's a good time to look in the past and see where you are. So... time to write something about our Flaszek :). Unfortunately for various reasons I was not able to update regularly on "the Flaszek project", which of course doesn't mean we weren't doing anything :). 

This is something which really matters a lot for me. We had people asking us why on earth we got a dog that was almost a year old, was definetely large and not medium-perfect-for-agility size and was terrified of his own shadow at this stage. The honest answer is: I don't know. Roman looked at his picture and he just knew and then when Flaszek met him, Flaszek also just knew and trusted him immedietely. So destiny definetely. 

You won't get quick results with such a dog - but you learn to appreciate small succeses and understand the value of patience. Maybe you won't be able to win World Championship with such a dog or even qualify for one - but the joy you find in overcoming yet another difficulty, teaching such a dog another small thing, seeing him actually enjoy it, is maybe even greater that standing on the podium among the cheering crowd. You cannot make any shortcuts in training such a dog, so you learn how to divide each behaviour into baby steps. 

And then - after some time, maybe when the old year is coming to its end, you look back and marvel at how far you travelled. 

So here it is: Flaszek, a dog that wouldn't work anywhere at first, a dog that would be terrified of fireworks and other sounds before, a dog that needed a year to learn how to weave.... having fun on 31st of December, with the crackers banging around:

It may seem like not much, you might think there are faster dogs on the planet - but we can see him jumping out of joy when we take him for training and forgeting about the crackers the minute he sees the ball and it really makes you so happy. And we remember last New Year's Eve, when he was hiding in "his" room in darkness, terrified of the fireworks and this year he decided to keep us company at the table, even though he was a bit uncomfortable with the noise. 

And seeing all that, seeing him happy, comfortable, crazy, barking his head off because he wants his squaky ball NOW! we know that it was totally worth it and best decision possible to have him come in our lives :). 

So now, on the first day of a brand new year, we wish you that on the last day of 2014 you will look back and see how far you travelled and how much closer you are to fulfilling your dreams. 

Cały ten szum z końcem starego roku, początkiem nowego, przymusem imprezowania, obowiązkiem bycia szczęśliwym w Sylwestra i robieniem noworocznych postanowień, o których się natychmiast zapomina jest dość głupawy, ale jest jedna dobra strona zmiany daty: można spojrzeć za siebie i popatrzyć, gdzie się właściwie doszło. A więc... czas napisać coś o Flaszeczku. Niestety nie miałam dość czasu, by regularnie pisać o "the Flaszek project", ale to nie znaczy, że prace zostały w którymkolwiek momencie przerwane :). 

Dla mnie to jest bardzo ważne. Ludzie pytają nas czasem, po co u diabła był nam pies, który miał już rok, który zdecydowanie jest largem a nie idealnym do agility mediumem i który bał się własnego cienia. Uczciwa odpowiedź jest taka, że nie wiadomo :). Romek zobaczył zdjęcia Flaszka i wiedział, Flaszek zobaczył Romka i też wiedział - pies bojący się wszystkich zaufał mu od pierszej chwili. Przeznaczenie znaczy. 

Nie odnosi się szybkich ani wielkich sukcesów z takim psem - za to uczy się doceniać wartość cierpliwości i świętować te małe sukcesy. Zapewne nikt z nas nie wygra z nim Mistrzostw Świata ani nawet się na nie nie zakwalifikuje - ale satysfakcja z pokonania kolejnej trudności, nauczenia go kolejnej rzeczy i patrzenia, że naprawdę jego to bawi - jest chyba większa niż radość płynąca ze stania na pudle wśród oklaskujących tłumów ;). Nie da się pójść w szkoleniu takiego psa na skróty, więc człowiek uczy się dzielić wszystko na naprawdę malutkie kroczki.

A potem - może właśnie na koniec starego roku, patrzy się za siebie i nie można się nadziwić, jak daleko się zaszło. 

A zatem powyżej filmik - Flaszek na treningu 31 grudnia. Pies, który na początku nie potrafił pracować z człowiekiem, bał się różnych dźwięków, w szczególności petard, potrzebował roku, by nauczyć się slalomu...

Może komuś wyda się, że to niewiele, że dużo psów biega szybciej - ale my widzimy go, jak skacze z radości, gdy jest jego kolej na bieganie i widzimy, jak zapomina o walących w oddali petardach w chwili, gdy zobaczy piłkę i to jest naprawdę coś. I pamiętamy ostatniego Sylwestra, kiedy bojący się fajerwerków Flaszek siedział cały wieczór w swoim pokoiku, a teraz siedział z nami przy stole, mimo że ciągle trochę się bał. 

I patrzenie na niego, że jest szczęśliwy, wyluzowany, zwariowany, że szczeka domagając się piszczącej piłki NATYCHMIAST - sprawia, że wiemy, że była to najlepsza możliwa decyzja, żeby mieć w życiu takiego Flaszeczka ;). 

Tak więc teraz, w pierwszy dzień świeżutkiego Nowego Roku, życzymy Wam, żebyście w ostatnim dniu 2014 roku mogli spojrzeć za siebie i zobaczyli, jak długą drogę udało Wam się przejść i o ile bliżej jesteście do realizacji swoich marzeń. 

We know :). Actually we knew before, but now we have scientific proof ;). 

Short intro for those not much into genetics: genotype is the set of dog's genes. Phenotype is what is visible, that is how the dog looks. Sometimes even though a dog has a certain gene, it is not visible in the phenotype, because it is blocked by a "stronger", that is dominant, gene. Every dog (and also human and any other animal that comes to existence via sexual reproduction) has two copies of each gene: one comes from its mother, the other from its father). If both copies of a given gene are the same, we call such a dog homozygotous for this trait. If the copies are different, we call him heterozygotous. Now, normally, black is dominant over fawn (I skip the recessive black, which exists in some breeds, as it hasn't been proven to exist in pyrsheps and it's not the case here) - which means that if a dog is fawn, it must have two copies of the recessive fawn, otherwise the colour won't be visible. If the dog is black, however, it means that he must have at least one copy of the dominant black gene - but we don't know about the other. It may be also dominant black (in which case the dog would be homozygotous for dominant black) or it may be something else - like brindle or fawn in case of pyrsheps. 

Merle gene is the gene that affects the black pigment, lightening it towards various shades of grey.

Now, back to Brego. Some people speculated that he is a fawn merle, others that he is a brindle and even that he is a brindle merle ;). Now, I find this genetic thing fascinating, so as much as I love him whatever colour he is, I was really interested in the explanation for his looks.

We knew from the beginning that he is not fawn merle - simply put, he has too much black for that. As the M gene affects the black pigment, fawn merle dogs are usually even more "yellow" than typical fawn dogs - the merle gene affects the places that are usually black in fawn dogs like their muzzle. So basically, fawn merles look like cute yellow pups with few black spots. We also knew that he is not a brindle (it is not so obvious now when you look at him, but when he was born, you could see that his patter was spots, typical for merle, and not stripes ;)). 

We also knew from the beginning that he could only inherit fawn colour from his mother Brava (since she is fawn, she is not carrying any other colours than fawn). We suspected that his father is a homozygotous black with merle gene - that is that he can only produce black and blue merle puppies, regardless of the colour of the bitch he was mating. Now it was proven - Babou was genetically tested and we know that he is KbKb (meaning homozygotous for dominant black) and Mm (meaning heterozygotous for merle). 

So because of that, we know Brego's genotype - he inherited fawn from his mother (because she is not carrying anything else) and he inherited one copy of dominant black and one copy of dominant merle genes. So he is heterozygotous for black and heterozygotous for merle. In other words, he is a blue merle puppy, genetically speaking.

Now, why does he look so brown?

Because genetics is not so simple :). It is suspected that there exists some other modyfying gene, which causes the recessive fawn "shine through" the dominant black in heterozygotous dogs. It is called "seal" and it can be visible to a various degree - in some dogs only when they are puppies and very little of it or it may cause the "muddy merle" look in case of merle dogs and sort of brownish tint in case of black dogs. Nevertheless, a little "brownish" black dog is not fawn and similarly, a muddy blue merle dog is not a fawn merle dog :). 

Jaki kolor ma Brego? Wiemy :) Znaczy tak naprawdę to wiedzieliśmy od początku, ale teraz mamy naukowy dowód ;).

Krótkie wprowadzenie dla tych mniej obeznanych w genetyce: genotyp to zbiór genów danego psa. Fenotyp to jest to, co widać. Czasami mimo że pies posiada jakiś gen, to warunkowana przez niego cecha nie jest widoczna, ponieważ działanie tego genu zostaje zablokowane przez jakiś "silniejszy", to znaczy dominujący gen. Każdy pies (jak też każdy człowiek i inny organizm powstały w wyniku rozmnażania płciowego) ma dwie kopie każdego genu: jedną od matki, drugą od ojca. Jeśli obydwie te kopie są takie same, mówimy, że pies jest homozygotą pod względem tej cechy. Jeśli są różne, mówimy, że jest heterozygotą. Zazwyczaj czarny jest dominujący w stosunku do płowego koloru sierści (pominę tutaj recesywny czarny, który występuje u niektórych ras, bo po pierwsze nie jest udowodnione, żeby istniał u pyrków, a po drugie, nie mamy z nim do czynienia w tym przypadku). Oznacza to, że jeśli widzimy płowego psa, to ma on dwie kopie recesywnego genu warunkującego kolor płowy i nic innego, bo inaczej płowy nie byłby widoczny. Jeśli zaś pies jest czarny, to oznacza to, że musi mieć przynajmniej jeden dominujący gen warunkujący czarny kolor sierści - ale nie wiemy już nic o drugim genie - może to być również czarny (wtedy mielibyśmy do czynienia z homozygotą na czarny) lub też jakiś inny (w przypadku pyrów mógłby to być gen warunkujący pręgowany lub płowy kolor sierści). 

Gen merle wpływa na czarny pigment, rozjaśniając go do różnych odcieni szarości. Jest to gen dominujący, co oznacza, że wystarczy jedna jego kopia, by wywołac widoczny efekt.

Teraz wracajac do Brego. Niektórzy ludzie spekulowali, że jest płowym merlem, inni, że jest pręgowany, albo nawet pręgowany merle. Dla mnie osobiście genetyka jest fascynująca, więc chociaż kocham Bregusia niezależnie od koloru, to interesowało mnie rozwiązanie tej zagadki. 

Wiedzieliśmy od początku, że nie może być płowym merlem - najprościej mówiąc, ma na to za dużo czarnego. Ze względu na to, że gen merle wpływa na czarny pigment, płowe merle wyglądają zazwyczaj jeszcze bardziej "żółto" niż zwykle płowe pyrki - gen ten ujawnia się w miejscach, gdzie u płowych psów zwykle mamy kolor czarny - a więc na przykład na masce. Typowy płowy merle wygląda więc na płowego psa z kilkoma czarnymi kropkami tu i tam. Wiedzieliśmy też, że Brego nie jest pręgowany - teraz nie jest to takie oczywiste, ale jak się urodził, wyraźnie było widać, że ma kropki, a nie paski ;). 

Wiedzieliśmy też, że po swojej mamie mógł odziedziczyć wyłącznie kolor płowy, ponieważ jako płowa suka nic innego nie niesie. Podejrzewaliśmy, że jego ojciec musi być homozygotą na czarny i do tego ma gen merle - to znaczy, że może dawać jedynie czarne i blue merle szczenięta, niezależnie od koloru suki, jaką kryje. Teraz mamy na to dowód - Babou został poddany testom genetycznym i wiemy na 100%, że rzeczywiście jest KbKb (tzn. homozygotą na dominujący czarny) i Mm (tzn. heterozygotą na merle).

W związku z tym znamy też genotyp Brego - odziedziczył płowy po mamusi (bo nic innego odziedziczyć nie mógł) oraz jedną kopię genu warunkującego dominujący czarny kolor i jedną kopię dominującego genu warunkującego merle. Innymi słowy jest heterozygotą na czarny i heterozygotą na merle, czyli jest blue merle z genetycznego punktu widzenia.

A dlaczego jest taki brązowy?

Bo genetyka nie jest aż taka prosta :). Podejrzewa się, że istnieje jakiś gen modyfikujący, który sprawia, że u heterozygot recezywny płowy "prześwituje" przez dominujący czarny. Taki kolor nazywa się "seal" i może być to widoczne w różnym stopniu - u niektórych psów są to pojedyncze brązowe pasma, czasem widoczne tylko latem, u innych może to powodować taki "brudny" merle lub też wyraźny brązowy połysk u czarnych psów. Niemniej jednak tak samo jak czarny pies z brązowym połyskiem nie jest psem płowym, tak samo "brudny" merle to nie to samo, co płowy merle.

It is really astonishing how every dog is different, even dogs of same breed and even dogs that are related. I've never seen Vigo in the stage of total puppy clumsiness, he was extremely agile already at the age of 8 weeks and then even more so. Brava on the other hand tripped on her own legs for some time and was quite slow in the beginning, but then she gathered speed and body awareness and actually she is much faster and can turn much better than Vigo (I think mostly because she has a tail).

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To naprawdę niesamowite, jak psy się od siebie różnią, nawet psy tej samej rasy i nawet psy ze sobą spokrewnione. Nigdy nie widziałam Vigo w fazie szczenięcej niezdarności, był niesamowicie sprawny już w wieku 8 tygodni, a potem jeszcze bardziej. Brava z kolei początkowo potykała się o własne łapy i na początku była dość wolna, ale potem niesamowicie przyspieszyła i teraz jest i szybsza i bardziej skrętna od Vigo (przypuszczam, że głównie przez to, że ma ogon). 

Now Brego... is weird. On one hand, he really moves nicely and is pretty fast already. On the other hand, he is sort of boneless chicken ;). a little bit too loose in this joints, sometimes falling over his head (like yesterday I tried to teach him entries on a FLAT dogwalk ramp and he FELL from it, doing somersault on the grass. WTF??? And that's a puppy who in the same time can manage to squize all 4 in a small pot, lift his side legs and negotiate puppy jumping grids really nicely.  And I was wondering whether it all might have something to do with him not eating in his first week of life, like in the beginning he had really strange coat like moth-eaten ;) (and now it's really nice and shiny). Maybe his muscles are developing slower because of this? It is definetely better now than a month before...

I also started working on exercise ball again (it's sort of our winter activity). It is difficult, I have a video of Brava doing it for the first time in her life and her legs were trembling after 30 sec. But Brego was not only trembling, he was slipping and his legs were splittting and he had problems just lying on it. 

So... first of all, I'm really curious how he will develop. 

Secondly, we will continue working on his prioproception and muscles through tricks, exercise ball and jumping grids. 

Thirdly, the decision to wait with teaching him running contacts until spring is hereby confirmed ;). 

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Brego z kolei... jest dziwny. Z jednej strony naprawdę ładnie się rusza i jest już szybki. Z druiej strony trochę jest taki gumowy kurczak ;), jakby zbyt luźny w stawach i czasami fika koziołki (na przykład wczoraj przyszło mi do głowy uczyć go wejść na PŁASKIEJ desce z kładki i on z niej ZLECIAŁ, po czym fiknął kozła przez głowę. WTF?? I zarazem jest to szczeniak, który potrafi włożyć cztery łapy do malutkiego rondelka, podnieść dwie lewe lub dwie prawe łapy i naprawdę ładnie radzi sobie na papisiowych gridach z treningu techniki skoku. Zaczęłam się ostatnio zastanawiać, czy jego brak mięśni nie ma jakiegoś związku z tym, że przez pierwszy tydzień życia nie dojadał - na przykład miał takie dziwne futro na początku, jakby go mole wygryzły (teraz ma już ładne i błyszczące). Te mięśnie mu się rozwijają, jest nieporównanie lepiej niż miesiąc temu. 

Zaczęłam też ćwiczenia na piłce (taka nasza standardowa zimowa aktywność) i to też jest rozpacz w ciapki. Mam nagraną pierwszą w życiu sesję Bravy, więc wiem, że to jest dla psa trudne - jej po 30 sekundach trzęsły się łapy. Ale Brego nie tylko się trząsł, ale też rozjeżdżał, spadał, miał problem, żeby w ogóle na tę piłkę wejść i na niej wyleżeć. 

No więc po pierwsze jestem ciekawa, jak on się dalej będzie rozwijał. 

Po drugie, ciśniemy dalej ze świadomością ciała i rozwojem mięśni poprzez sztuczki, ćwiczenia na piłce i puppy jumping grid.

Po trzecie, decyzja o odłożeniu nauki zbieganych stref do wiosny została niniejszym umocniona ;). 

Time flies - Brego is almost 6 months old (and this time I can say that he is with us exactly the same amount of time, which is in itself sort of magic). I made a video, which only presents a part of what he learnt and a part of who he is - like for instance he is quite good in choosing between food and toy on command and in doggie zen and in being sent to the toy I'm showing him and looking at a toy and sit stays and he knows a couple of other tricks like a "frog", that I forgot to film...

And there were other moments like when he is running like crazy in the morning walk or jumping on my head unexpectedly or biting my trousers or when he is playing with his mummy Brava... You just can't put everything in a short video. He really is a wonderful puppy, with a nice focus and drive and such a sweet gentle character - he really fits well in our pack and seems the other dogs like him as well. He really respects grumpy oldies and back off when they want him too, and he adores uncle Flaszek and follows him everywhere :). And he is really sweet mama boy and likes to cuddle a lot :). So here it is, a short video not really doing him justice:

For those of you who have problems seeing it because of youtube policy (I really really HAD to use this song for the video) - here's another link

Czas pędzi - Brego ma już prawie pół roku (i tym razem mogę powiedzieć, że dokładnie tyle samo czasu jest z nami, co samo w sobie jest dość magiczne). Zrobiłam filmik, który pokazuje tylko część tego, co on umie i jaki jest - na przykład nie ma tu tego, że całkiem nieźle radzi sobie z wybieraniem żarcia / zabawki na komendę, że wymiata w doggie zen, że mogę go wysłać do tej zabawki, do której chcę i że świetnie potrafi siad zostań i zna jeszcze parę sztuczek, których zapomniałam nakręcić (np. "żaba").

No i nie ma tu tych chwil, gdy na porannym spacerze dostaje bzika i lata w kółko ile sił w łapkach, ani jak mi wskakuje znienacka na głowę albo łapie za nogawkę ani jak się bawi z mamusią Bravą... nie da się wszystkiego zmieścić w krótkim filmiku. Jest cudownym szczeniakiem, ładnie się skupia, ma fajne popędy i strasznie słodki charakter - nawet nasze psy go lubią :). Bardzo respektuje naszych zgryźliwych staruszków i wycofuje się natychmiast, gdy sobie nie życzą kontaktu. Jest zapatrzony we Flaszka i biega za nim wszędzie :). Poza tym jest słodkim maminsynkiem i przytulaskiem :). Powyżej krótki filmik, który zupełnie nie oddaje tego wszystkiego. 

All of a sudden (well, not really...) Brego started acting really wild when I tried to work with other dogs on the course, barking his head off in the crate, biting the bars etc. So I knew I needed to do something - I really appreciate the fact that I can just tell Brava to lie down and stay and I can work with other dog in the meantime. I don't need to crate her or tie her up. She is able to relax completely. I want same kind of self-control with Brego, so I started working on crate games, which are great foundation for it. It's not so sexy stuff, but useful :). Here is the video of our yesterday session. For the most part, he is staying in an open crate. At no point he is barking or biting the bars. I'm planning to progress into doing more exciting stuff with the other dog in some time, but we're progressed already a LOT. 

Ni stąd ni zowąd (no, może niezupełnie) Brego zaczął się strasznie nakręcać, gdy próbowałam pracować z innym psem. Wrzeszczał, gryzł kraty w klatce - coś trzeba było z tym zrobić. Fakt, że mogę Bravie powiedzieć, żeby się położyła i została, a w tym czasie pracować z innym psem, jest niesamowicie wygodny - nie potrzebuję klatki ani jej wiązać, a ona jest w stanie się odprężyć. Chciałabym wypracować ten sam rodzaj samokontroli z Brego, więc zaczęłam crate games, które stanowią pod nią świetny fundament. Nie jest to nic szczególnie widowiskowego, ale za to jakie pożyteczne ;). Poniżej nasza wczorajsza sesja - przez większość czasu Miminko jest w otwartej klatce, w żadnym momencie nie wrzeszczy ani nie rzuca się na kraty. Stopniowo zamierzam zacząć robić z Bravą bardziej ekscytujące rzeczy, ale jak widać, już jest niezły postęp :). 

Ok, trip to Norway has some wonderful moments and some horrible ones, so I skip the bad parts ;). 

First we met with Daniel and Neo and Lisbeth and BB, as well as Gitte, Rita and Gert (with father Babou). It was really fun to see them all, the puppies changed a lot - Neo is grey :) and BB is really fast and fun puppy with really nice movement :).

In Norway we met the nicest and most helpful people on the planet and made some new friends. Then we also took part in Norwegian Open competition, which was really great - fanstastic hall and surface, nice courses and some succeses :). Below you can find a video from Brava's run in the final - it was a fantastic run and she was 1st in it (and 2nd in agility plus jumping combined medium). 

Training a puppy is increadibly fun, but also lots of work. Sometimes I really find it hard to decide what to focus on first, with limited time resources of mine :). 

I like to introduce the puppy to jumps via Susan Salo exercises, because they build not only the jumping skills, but also forward focus and body awareness necessary to extend and compress as needed. In order to start the exercises the puppy needs to know the following:

1. Sit stay and release command.

2. Sending to a stationary object like a toy or a bowl - the puppy needs to look at it before it gets the release command.

These basics we were doing for some time now, so below you can find the videos of Brego's first experiences with equal distance grid and set point (slice) exercise. We only did one session with each more one week apart, before that he did one straight setpoint session. 

Szkolenie szczeniaka jest bardzo fajne, ale też jest to mnóstwo czasu. Mając go mało, czasem mam problemy z podjęciem decyzji, na czym się skupić najpierw. 

Agility ze szczeniakiem zaczynam od ćwiczeń Susan Salo na technikę skoku, bo nie tylko budują one umiejętność skakania, ale też skupiania się do przodu i świadomość ciała potrzebną do wydłużenia bądź skrócenia wykroku na torze. Aby rozpocząć ćwiczenia, szczeniak musi potrafić:

1. Siad zostań i ruszanie na komendę zwalniającą.

2. Wysyłać się do nieruchomego obiektu (zabawki lub miski) - przed usłyszeniem komendy zwalniającej musi patrzeć na ten przedmiot. 

Takie podstawy dłubaliśmy sobie już od jakiegoś czasu, tak więc powyżej można zobaczyć filmiki z pierwszych doświadczeń Brego z equal distance grid (4 regulatory w równych odstępach) i set pointem po skosie. Jedną sesję od drugiej dzieli ponad tydzień, wcześniej raz robił zwykły set point. 

Extreme Braveheart puppies at the age of 4,5 months old. As you can see, all are really cute, though looking a bit funny at the moment. Brego and Zookie might be demi long or even FR in case of Zookie, so we're kinda thrilled to see how they will develop :). 

Right now, Brego and Zookie are about 38 cm and 8 kg.

Neo is 36,5 cm and 8,5 kg (fatty :P).

BB is just under 35 cm and 6,7 kg.

Babou is about 36-37 and 6 kg last week.

Brie above 7,7 kg in the beginning of November (so now probably more ;)). 

We had (and still have) some problems recently. First, we had a wonderful trip, but during that trip dogs (Sunday, Vigo and Brego) fell from a bunker in the woods (it looked just like a hill from the side we climbed it, but on the other side there was a little wall and then 6 meters down...) and Roman got injured running to get them (some stick got into his leg). Fortunately, nothing serious happened to Sunday and Brego and they are totally ok now, but Vigo broken his wrist ligament and will be operated soon. A couple of days later it turned out that Roman leg got seriously infected and it was really dangerous for a couple of days. Fortunately, the worst is over and I hope Vigo will also be fine in a couple of weeks maybe. So this is why I haven't been updating much recently. 

Brie left for his new home and I hope he will be really happy there :) All the puppies are doing great in new homes. Brego and Zookie still look like puppies from different litter, kids of hyena or black panther or tasmanian devil (Brava doesn't want to confess, though).

Check out this photo of Babou and Zookie:

On the up side, Flaszek is weaving! Finally :) It took really long time with him (although we also didn't want to pressure much, so maybe it could be done faster), but he is doing it :)

Brego is growing... He's Brava's size now and seems big for his age, but well... we'll see. He seems to be trying to outgrow uncle Flaszek... but since I've seen some pretty cool pyrsheps running in large category, I'm not too worried. What will be, will be. We nickname him Miminko, which mean the little one, maybe it will work it's magic :).

He is learning really fast now, the initial problems with shaping and food motivation long gone. So far, we have perfect sit stays for his age, really nice drive and some tricks (like left / right, the frog, hand touch, sitting up, backing up and some others in the progress). We just started some puppy jumping grids, so I'm proudly presenting Brego's first ever equal distance grid:

We were (and still are) horribly busy for the last few months with puppies, seminars, holidays and well, life. I hope I will have more time now to update the blog and the website more regularly now...

Anyway, in a nutshell:

- we had a wonderful, sunny holiday in Slovenia with everything we love most: agility competitions, friends, seaside, pyrsheps, meeting new people and having fun

- most of the puppies left for their new homes and it seems they are doing great there :). Three of them (or four actually) are doing Silvia Trkman's puppy course, so learning lots of new tricks and they are doing fantastic! Brie is staying with us until October, because he needs his rabbies shot plus 21 days - he is also taking the course and Brego is learning along ;). Working with two puppies is really challenging but in the same time really fun - especially that they are both very different!

- all the puppies have their individual sites in the puppy section - for now, only in English though - but I promise to upload their new photos and infos there :). 

- Brava is slowly getting back in shape and next weekend going to her first competition after the puppies...

Byliśmy (a właściwie jesteśmy nadal) straszliwie wręcz zajęci w ostatnich czasach. Szczeniaki, wyjazdy, wakacje, no i cóż, życie. mam nadzieję, że teraz już będzie więcej czasu na regularne aktualizowanie strony i bloga...

Tak czy siak, w pigułce:

- mieliśmy cudowne, słoneczne wakacje w Słowenii ze wszystkim, co kochamy najbardziej: zawodami, przyjaciółmi, morzem, pyreczkami, poznawaniem nowych ludzi i świetną zabawą.

- większość szczeniaków rozjechała się już do nowych domów i wygląda, że sobie świetnie radzą. Troje z nich (a właściwie czworo) robi kurs szczeniaczkowy Silvii Trkman i poznaje mnóstwo nowych sztuczek - są świetne! Brie zostaje z nami jeszcze do listopada, bo czeka na koniec wszystkich szczepień plus 21 dni - też robi kurs, a razem z nim uczy się Brego. Muszę przyznać, że praca z dwoma szczeniakami naraz to prawdziwe wyzwanie, ale też podwójna frajda - zwłaszcza, że są zupełnie inni!

- wszystkie szczeniaki mają swoje podstrony w dziale szczenięta - na razie tylko po angielsku, ale obiecuję wrzucać ich nowe zdjęcia i informacje o nich :).

- Brava powoli wraca do formy... za tydzien pierwsze zawody po szczeniakach...

In case you're wondering how is our mother to be doing - she is huge: 

She is definetely less active than usual, which was weird in the beginning - that she is actually WALKING during our walks, instead of running like crazy. I was constantly looking for her, when she was right behind me. 

We're getting ready with all the supplies. The whelping box is ready:

However, she still likes to work, especially when it gets cooler in the evening, so we keep her busy with some tricks :)

She is also a bit uncomfortable and is vomiting from time to time - I guess the pups are kicking her in the stomach. Hopefully everything will be allright until the happy ending... we're getting a bit nervous, so keep your fingers crossed. 

Gdyby ktoś się zastanawiał, jak tam nasza Matka Pyrka, to po pierwsze jest ogromna, co widać na załączonym obrazku. Po drugie jest zdecydowanie mniej aktywna niż zwykle, na spacerach CHODZI do czego mi się trudno przyzwyczaić (na początku ciągle jej szukałam, podczas gdy była pół metra za moją nogą). 

Mimo wszystko czasem ma ochotę coś porobić, zwłaszcza wieczorami, jak jest chłodniej, więc trzymamy formę (patrz filmiki).

Skrzynka porodowa gotowa.

Trochę jej już nie wygodnie i czasem wymiotuje, chyba ją szczeniaczki kopią w żołądek ;). Mamy nadzieję, że wszystko pójdzie dobrze... trochę się już denerwujemy. 

Finally, we've got sun and it's HOT! Feels great (I swore not to complain about the heat after 8-months winter and then monsoon season, during which our flat was flooded...). We went to a really nice competition in Ceske Skalice. Can you imagine something more perfect than agility ring 20 meters from a lake and lots of green grass to walk around? It was really great and we could give lots of exercise even to those dogs that weren't competing. Flaszek learnt to swim!

The boys, Evo and Vigo, did great too. Vigo won jumping on Saturday and was 3rd in MA3 on Saturday and 3rd in agility open on Sunday. And other runs were also quite good, he was concentrated and listening :). Evo broke his declaw during last run on Saturday and bled pretty badly whole evening (we had to cut it completely) but he was totally okay on Sunday and won all three runs with best times from all categories.

Wreszcie zobaczyliśmy słońce! I jest upał, hurra (obiecałam, że nie będę narzekać na upał po ośmiomiesięcznej zimie i następującej po niej porze monsunowej, w trakcie której zalało nam mieszkanie). Pojechaliśmy na naprawdę miłe zawody w Ceskich Skalicach. Czy możecie sobie wyobrazić coś bardziej idealnego niż jezioro 20 metrów od ringu agility i wielkie łaki do spacerów? Bo w takim właśnie ośrodku odbywały się zawody. Było super. Można było zapewnić dużo ruchu też tym psom, które nie startowały. 

Chłopczyki, czyli Evo i Vigo, dali radę. Vigo wygrał w sobotę jumping i był trzeci w MA3, a w niedzielę trzeci w agility open. Ogólnie ładne ogarnięte biegi mieliśmy, Vigo słuchał co się do niego mówi i całkiem grzeczny był. Evo pechowo w niedzielę podczas ostatniego biegu złamał wilczy pazur, trzeba mu go było obciąż do zera (której to operacji jego pan nie mógł oglądać na oczy, więc padło na mnie) i dość mocno krwawił wieczorem, ale następnego dnia był jak nowy i wygrał wszystkie trzy biegi z najlepszymi czasami ze wszystkich kategorii :). 

We went for the competition in Praha Kyje this weekend. On Friday people were wondering if the competition will even take place, since it was raining heavily and the field was pretty wet and muddy after the seminar that took place there. Yet on Friday evening the sun started shining again, so off we went. 

It started raining just after first coursewalking. 

On Saturday we decided for a little experiment. Since Brava is now having a break from competing :), I was running with Evo and Roman with Vigo. My goal for this competition was to hold his startlines and contacts and it worked pretty well. As the surface was really muddy after a while, both of us had problems running, whereas our dogs were just fine :). Due to that we were both eliminated in first two runs - I really pity the MA1 run, which was beautiful until I got disqualified at the last but one obstacle just because I couldn't get there in time :). Roman's last run was really nice. I was also disqualified in last run with Evo, but it was his fault this time :). He doesn't much like running in the rain :). 

Anyway, it was quite a good day, even with the rain.

But it was still raining during the night and in the next morning and we realised that we won't be able to compete that day:

Instead of two courses, it was possible to build only one, because part of the terrain was already under water:

The water was rising every minute. When we arrived, we could still enter the training area without problems. One hour later it was like that: 

The organizers finally decided to just allow one run for the Championships of Toy and Companion Dogs and cancel the other runs. 

Initially we planned to stay until Monday and visit Praha, so we just started earlier with the sight-seeing. It was something new :D. We travel a lot with our dogs, but usually we just see the stadium or some playing field and not much more, so we decided at least this time we can see something. We visited the Museum of Sex Machines which was really interesting :) then we went for a nice long walk in the Stromovka park. It was great - as the weather was still not nice (though it was not raining for a moment!) the park was almost empty. There are areas where you can let dogs off leash. Some lawns were under water and the dogs enjoyed running after ball a lot, even though they were soaking wet after a while. Then we could leave them in car again (with heat on as it was cold and they were wet) and go for more sight-seeing. We visited gallery of Old Masters in the Sternberg Palace - it is a great collection including Rembrandt, both Breughels, some sketches of Durer and many other interesting paintings. The collection entitled "Baroqe in Bohemia" was also quite interesting, even though Baroque is not my favourite style. 

All in all we had quite nice day, but we could see that the danger of flood is rising every hour and Vltava was looking quite threatening. Therefore we decided to go home in the evening, instead of waiting till Monday. 

On the way to our hotel we went to see the training area. By then it was completely flooded, even the club house, as well as couple of houses on the road leading to it :(. 

We got home without problems. I hope all our friends in Praha are safe and they can manage the flood without lots of destruction... 

Pojechaliśmy do Pragi na zawody. Co prawda już w piątek były pewne wątpliwości co do tego, czy zawody się odbędą, bo w Pradze lało, a na terenie zawodów odbywało się też semi agility i nawierzchnia już była dość zorana. Ale wieczorem wyszło słońce i wyglądało na to, że wszystko powinno trochę podeschnąć, więc pojechaliśmy.

Zaczęło z powrotem padać zaraz po pierwszym zapoznaniu z torem :P. 

W sobotę zdecydowaliśmy się na mały eksperyment, tzn. Olga biegała z Evo, a Romek z Vigo. Moim celem na biegi z Evokiem było przytrzymanie startów i stref, co się super udało. Pierwsze biegi oboje mieliśmy disy - szkoda mi biegu MA1, który był bardzo ładny aż do przedostatniej przeszkody... niestety po błocie i mokrej trawie nasze pieski biegają normalnie, a my trochę wolniej ;). Jumping Vigo i Romek pobiegli super, Evo miał disa, bo powiedział, że nie lubi biegać w deszczu i mu smutno, zimno i źle :P. Mięczak ;). Ogólnie jestem zawodolona z naszego debiutu, na starcie zostawał, strefy miał super, więc będzie dobrze. 

W nocy i rano następnego dnia wciąż intensywnie padało, więc już zaczynaliśmy przypuszczać, że chyba nie pobiegamy... ale rzeczywistość i tak nas zaskoczyła w negatywny sposób. Zamiast dwóch torów był już tylko jeden, bo część placu znalazła się już pod wodą. Organizatorzy zdecydowali się rozegrać do końca Mistrzostwa CR toyów i psów do towarzystwa, a inne biegi odwołać, bo poziom wody podnosił się z minuty na minutę. Jak przyjechaliśmy rano, to jeszcze dało się wejść na plac suchą nogą. Po godzinie wychodziliśmy po paletach. 

Jako że i tak od razu planowaliśmy zostać w Pradze do poniedziałku i pozwiedzać, postanowiliśmy zacząć zwiedzanie już w niedzielę. Zaczęliśmy od muzeum maszyn erotycznych, które było bardzo interesujące (z cyklu czego to ludzie nie wymyślą). Potem poszliśmy na super spacer do parku Stromovka, który jest fantastyczny, wielki jak pół Pragi, można tam legalnie spuszczać psy w oznaczonych miejscach... Trawniki były podmokłe, psy latały za piłką po wodzie i były oczywiście zachwycone. Z czystym sercem mogliśmy je potem zostawić w ogrzewanym aucie i iść zwiedzać dalej. Poszliśmy na Hradczany, potem do pałacu Sternbergów, gdzie podziwialiśmy kolekcję malarstwa starych mistrzów - nawet się nie spodziewałam, że jadąc na zawody pooglądam Rembrandta, Breughelów i wielu innych :). Wystawa o baroku w czeskim malarstwie też mi się bardzo podobała, chociaż nie jest to moja ulubiona epoka. W sumie miła odmiana w stosunku do wyjazdów, podczas których oglądamy stadiony i hale sportowe i niewiele poza tym :). 

Wycieczka była super, ale widać było, że woda w Wełtawie przybiera i miasto szykuje się na falę powodziową. Zdecydowaliśmy się więc wracać wieczorem do domu, po drodze odwiedziliśmy jeszcze miejsce, w którym były zawody - okazało się, że zarówno ulica tam prowadząca (i najniżej położone na niej domy), jak i sam plac stoją już pod wodą :(. 

Dotarliśmy bezpiecznie do domu i mam nadzieję, że nasi przyjaciele w Pradze są bezpieczni i obejdzie się bez większych strat w tym pięknym mieście!

We did an ultrasound, Brava is expecting puppies (in plural, there were 4 or 5 visible) at the end of June :). Mother to be feels ok :).

Zrobiliśmy usg, Brava spodziewa się szczeniaczków (w liczbie mnogiej, widać było dwa w jednym rogu i dwa albo trzy w drugim rogu). Małe Brabusie powinny urodzić się pod koniec czerwca. Przyszła mamusia czuje się dobrze :). 

We spent really nice weekend at the competition in Cebin in Czech Republic. We went there two years ago for the first time, then we went last year for training with Martina Klimesova and each time we took a similar picture, so we've got our little tradition which hopefully will continue :). 

We drove in heavy rain so we were a little bit afraid - competition in rain is somehow a bit less pleasant. But when we were about 7 km from Cebin, we saw some blue sky and when we got there the sun started shining and then we got perfect weather for whole two days :).

Jan Egil Eide was judging, we really enjoyed his courses which require you to RUN but at the same time had some nice technical elements. First run was agility, Brava had clean run and 2nd place and Evo jumped the A-frame contact, but had best time of all categories. Then we had really difficult MA3 course, Brava was perfect and won, Evo was perfect and 2nd :). Then Brava got eliminated in jumping (she just zoomed into the tunnel which is totally not her style and was pretty funny actually) and Evo won it. Vigo's first two runs were a little messy, he flew off the see-saw both times, but then had nice jumping and was third. All in all we were really satisfied with first day's runs, especially that all our dogs qualified for the Sunday final. 

Sunday was a bit worse, but still not bad - Brava was 2nd in jumping, Vigo was 3rd in MA3 and had really nice run with all the contacts. In the finals Brava and Vigo were eliminated because Olga wasn't focused and fell asleep on jump number 9 ;) but Evo was second with a nice run, apart from one biiig turn in the beginning (Roman's fault :P). 

We met two other pyrsheps: one was face rase from Norway and the other was Eliana z Tylenu Moravia, so our family :). As our friend Robert with his two pyrsheps came with us, we could take a picture of 8 pyrsheps together :). 

And here are the videos. Brava and Evo's MA3 from Saturday - we're really proud of both those runs!

Vigo and Evo's jumping:

Brava's jumping from Sunday:

And Evo's final:

Spędziliśmy bardzo miły weekend na zawodach w Cebinie - pierwszy raz pojechaliśmy tam dwa lata temu i zrobiliśmy fotkę na kamyku, potem pojechaliśmy w zeszłym roku i znowu zrobiliśmy fotkę na kamyku... Mamy małą tradycję, mamy nadzieję, że uda się ją kontynuować :). 

Jechaliśmy na zawody w strasznym deszczu i trochę nas to przerażało, bo jednak bieganie w deszczu jest jakby trochę mniej przyjemne. Jednak 7 km przed Cebinem zobaczyliśmy pierwszy skrawek błękitu, a jak dojechaliśmy na miejsce, to zaczęło świecić słońce i mieliśmy przepiękną pogodę przez całe dwa dni. 

Sędziował Jan Egil Eide i muszę przyznać, że jego tory bardzo się nam podobały - trzeba na nich zdrowo nóżki wyciągać, a jednocześnie nie są pozbawione technicznych elementów. Najpierw biegaliśmy agility open, w którym Brava miała drugie miejsce, a Evo niestety skoczoną palisadę, ale za to najlepszy czas ze wszystkich kategorii. Potem Brava z Evokiem zajęli pierwsze dwa miejsca w MA3 i bardzo jesteśmy dumni z tych biegów, bo tor był naprawdę trudny. Vigo na początku trochę był odmóżdżony i skakał huśtawkę strasznie, ale potem się trochę ogarnął i zajął trzecie miejsce w jumpingu, a Evo pierwsze. Ogólnie pierwszy dzień był bardzo satysfakcjonujący :). 

W niedzielę było trochę gorzej, ale też nieźle: Brava zajęła 2. miejsce w jumpingu, Vigo 3. w MA3 (bardzo ładny bieg ze wszystkimi strefkami) a Evo był drugi w finale (z jednym wielkim łukiem, który kosztował go pierwsze miejsce prawdopodobnie). 

Spotkaliśmy też dwa inne pyrki: jedną suczkę face rase z Norwegii i Elianę z Tylenu Moravia (rodzina). A że na zawodach towarzyszył nam Robert z Kairą i Antim, to mogliśmy zrobić fotkę 8 pyrkom razem :). 

I decided to step back a little bit with Flaszek's dogwalk, so he runs at the competely flat dogwalk now. All in all, it's not looking totally the way I would like it to look, but I'm giving it one more chance. Now, that we finally have good weather after neverending winter, I intend to give it a little bit more attention. 

Weave poles are getting better though :) - he still lacks some rhytm, but I think it's only matter of time and narrowing the weave poles channel further. 

W  kwestii Flaszkowych strefek zdecydowałam się trochę cofnąć i teraz biega po płaskiej kładce. Ogólnie nie do końca to wygląda tak, jakbym chciała, ale dajemy sobie jeszcze jedną szansę - zwłaszcza, że w końcu niekończaca się zima jednak odeszła i mam nadzieję poćwiczyć to bardziej regularnie. 

Za to slalom wygląda nieźle :). Jeszcze nie do końca chłopak łapie rytm, ale myślę, że to tylko kwestia czasu i dalszego zwężania korytarza.

Just got some fantastic photos from seminar in Łódź by Dariusz Adler - enjoy!!!

Since you are probably wondering how is Brava's heat progressing - here's a small update. So far, nothing really happens, we checked her progesterone on Monday and Wednesday, it rose a little (from 2,2 to 3,8 nmol/l) but it's still too low for mating. Next test will be on Friday, the mating probably Sunday or Monday even, depending on the results.

Małe uaktualnienie w kwestii Bravowej cieczki - na razie nic się nie dzieje. Miała badany progesteron w poniedziałek i dzisiaj (w środę), wzrósł od 2,2 do 3,8 nmol/l, ale to jeszcze za mało. Kolejne badanie w piątek, krycie najwcześniej w niedzielę / poniedziałek, w zależności od wyników. 

Last weekend I led an agility seminar in Łódź - I really like going there, the people are so nice, atmosphere is great and food is just absolutely FAN-TA-STIC thanks to my host Ola :). It's also nice to see same teams after some time and see how they progress.

I took Sunday, Flaszek and Brava with me. Poor Sunday has an ill eye - she was bitten by a dog last week and got a small scratch on her cornea... the scratch got nasty and we still have problems with that eye :(. Flaszek went to socialize and practice in new environment - he was fabulous. He was my demo dog. Flaszek. The dog that didn't even want to run any agility last time he was there. The dog that wanted to hide under the grass in new venues, was now running around new people and dogs. I'm so proud of him. And in case anyone wonders why on earth take a dog that is over a year old and lacks socialisation - that's my answer: working with such a dog gives you incredible satisfaction and joy. There are lots of small succeses to celebrate and lots of lessons to learn. 

Here're some videos:

W miniony weekend prowadziłam semi agility w Łodzi. Uwielbiam tam jeździć, strasznie sympatyczni ludzie, świetna atmosfera i dzięki Oli - przepyszne jedzonko. Lubię też widzieć co jakiś czas te same teamy i obserwować postępy, jakie zrobili w międzyczasie.

Zabrałam ze sobą Sunday, Flaszka i Bravę. Biedny spaniel ma chore oko - w zeszłym tygodniu dziabnął ją inny pies i miała drobne zadraśnięcie na rogówce, które niestety się rozpaprało i patrze się dalej :(. Flaszek za to przysporzył mi tym razem mnóstwo radości - był moim demo dogiem :). Flaszek, który jeszcze rok temu nie chciał tam biegać, który najchętniej wczołgałby się pod trawnik w każdym nowym miejscu jeszcze niedawno - teraz biegał wśród ludzi i psów jak gdyby nigdy nic. To jest zarazem odpowiedź na pytanie, po co brać psa, który ma ponad rok i któremu brakuje socjalizacji. Bo praca z takim psem daje niesamowitą satysfakcję i radość. Bo można się wiele nauczyć i świętować mnóstwo małych sukcesów. Bo widzi się, jak ten zwierzak rozkwita. 

Brava is in heat. Next week we're planning to visit her fiance ;) - but since we have long way to go, we first go to the vet in order to check her progesterone levels. For now, she is getting more food in order to convince her body that there is plenty of it so it thinks it can produce lots of puppies :). She really likes that part :D. 

The male we've chosen in Bombadil (Babou) du Mourioche. Du Mourioche dogs don't require much advertising, since everybody knows Silvia's little Le ;). Babou has the same mother as Le, he's really friendly, outgoing dog with lots of drive. He runs in medium A3. He is blue merle which means he can possibly give almost all colours with Brava (certainly blue merle and black, but it is also possible that he carries fawn/ brindle, so we can have brindle, fawn and fawn merle puppies). Both parents are heathy and pretty easy to live with (for a pyrshep ;)). 

Future father:

Brava ma cieczkę. W przyszłym tygodniu planujemy więc wyprawę do narzeczonego, ale najpierw jeszcze będziemy badać progesteron u weta. Póki co Brava ma zwiększone racje żywnościowe, żeby przekonać jej organizm, że może mieć dużo szczeniaczków. Bardzo jej się ta część podoba :). 

Na narzeczonego wybraliśmy psa z Niemiec, Bombadila (Babou) du Mourioche. Linia du Mourioche nie wymaga specjalnej reklamy, ponieważ wszyscy znają małą Le Silvii Trkman. Babou jest półbratem Le, po tej samej mamusi. Ma umaszczenie blue merle, co oznacza, że może z Bravą potencjalnie dać wszystkie kolorki (czarny, blue merle na 100%, być może również przenosi pręgowanie i płowy). Ma świetny charakter, jest otwarty, odważny, z dużym popędem do pracy. Biega w klasie MA3. 

Today we had Brava tested for eye diseases, and being perfect pyrshep, she is completely free from cataracta congenita, membrana pupilaris persistent and dysplasia retinae as well as some others :). The certificate is valid for a year. 

Brava miała dzisiaj badane oczka i jako perfekcyjna pyra okazała się wolna od katarakty, przetrwałych błon źrenicznych oraz dysplazji rogówki (oraz paru innych paskudztw). Certyfikat jest ważny rok. 

Spring has come! It's raining, not snowing :D. But nothing can stop us, so we trained a bit anyway :). You may find the course map under "Agility - our courses" button. 

Wiosna przyszła! Pada deszcz, a nie śnieg :D. Ale nas nic nie powstrzyma, potrenowaliśmy więc sobie trochę i tak :). Torek można znaleźć w zakładce "Agility - nasze torki". 

Yesterday we went to Partynice to see an event called "Wrocławska Wiosna Psich Sportowców" which was promoting different activities with our four-legged friends, such as flyball, agility, frisbee and others as well as very serious stuff of search and rescue. We took Evo, Brava and Flaszek with us - so they can socialize a bit (well, Flaszek mostly), but as it turned out that the agility part was co-organized by our friends, we took part in it and run some jumping course. Olga lost her voice due to cold and she drank some syrup for cough which made her slightly err... less focused, so her run with Brava was a bit messy, Evo as usually did a great job and made sure everybody watched him for he was running as hell and barking all the way :). I Even Flaszek managed to run some sequence and he was actually faster and more confident than in Gliwice, so surly this all socialisation is paying off and he gets better and better :). 

In addition, we got some nice photos from Wojtek Dziadosz - see his website for more!

Wczoraj wybraliśmy się na Partynice obejrzeć Wrocławską Wiosnę Psich Sportowców, czyli pokazy promujące różne dyscypliny psich sportów, takie jak flyball, frisbee, agility, zaprzęgi, jak też poważne sprawy w rodzaju ratownictwa :). Zabraliśmy ze sobą Evo, Bravę i Flaszka na spacer i na socjal - okazało się, że część agilitową organizowali nasi znajomi z De Luks i mogliśmy wziąć udział w pokazach. Tak więc nasze pieski miały dodatkowy trening w rozproszeniach. Olga zaziębiona i bez głosu, na dodatek po jakimś otumaniającym syropie ;) więc z Bravką lekko były niedogadane, Evoczek zrobił jak zwykle show, tzn. zasuwał jak dziki i darł gębę, żeby czasem ktoś go nie przegapił :). Nawet Flaszek trochę pobiegał i dużo lepiej sobie radził, niż na zawodach w Gliwicach, tak więc cała intensywna socjalizacja procentuje :). 

I jeszcze się załapaliśmy na fajne foty Wojtka Dziadosza - więcej można obejrzeć na jego stronie :).

Everybody knows that it's really easy to be perfect in training. Just watch any training video and you'll see that.

Yet sometimes things don't go exactly as planned :)

Wszyscy wiedzą, że bardzo łatwo jest wszystko pobiec na treningu bezbłędnie. Wystarczy obejrzeć dowolny treningowy filmik w sieci, żeby to wiedzieć :). 

Czasami jednak nie wszystko idzie zgodnie z planem :)

I finally watched first CD of Susan Salo's Advanced Jumping (with all due respect, I like her method and value her work, but the dvd's are like the most boring training videos EVER ;P) and so, today we tried new jumping exercise. Its aim is the instant recognition of a task, so a dog does three consecutive jumping grids and needs to adjust to each of them. I had some problems with adjusting the distances in One Steady Stride Grid, but finally found something which should be correct (both Brava and Flaszek did bounce in the last one, but so did the dogs on the dvd which Susan commented was "Very brave", so I let it be). Vigo and Sunday also did great, unfortunately I don't have a video (neither of them did bounce the last one in One Steady Stride Grid).

Here's the video of Flaszek and Brava doing the grid - you can see the difference between an experienced dog and a beginner :). 

Wreszcie obejrzałam pierwszą płytę z Advanced Jumping Susan Salo (zbieram się długo, bo z całym szacunkiem dla tej metody i uznania dla jej efektów, są to najnudniejsze płyty świata), tak więc dzisiaj spróbowaliśmy nowego ćwiczenia. Zadanie polega na "natychmiastowym rozpoznaniu" układu i odpowiednim dostosowaniu wykroku. Miałam problem z dostosowaniem odległości w drugim ćwiczeniu, bo albo mi psy wkladały tam dwie fule pomiędzy hopkami albo robiły to na skok-wyskok. W końcu znalazłam odległość, przy której robiły skok wyskok tylko przy ostatniej odległości, co psy na dvd Salo też robią, więc odpuściłam :). Vigo z Sundayem świetnie sobie poradzili też, ale nie mam już niestety filmików. 

Na filmiku powyżej widać porównanie doświadczonego psa z początkującym :).  

Flaszek is doing great :). We're working on many basics right now, like calling him to left / right hand (as he got more excited and more confident in agility training, he started working more in the distance and sometimes he just flies away, like he was doing outrun or something :)) and his jumping style.

All in all, he's made incredible progress, today he did bang game on a real see-saw with the tip like 30 cm from the ground (just think that at the beginning he was even afraid to come close to the part of training area where the see-saw stood!!!).

The weave training got into funny stage - he hasn't figured out yet that he needs to put his feet outside the channel and he's trying hard not to step on the metal supports, so he makes tiny steps between them - but I've seen it before and I'm pretty sure it will go away when the channel gets narrower. 

Olga is also starting new "Evo-project" :D. Something you would never guess they would do :D. Just waint'n'see :). 

Flaszek radzi sobie świetnie :). Pracujemy nad mnóstwem podstawowych rzeczy teraz, w rodzaju przywoływania go do lewej i prawej ręki (w miarę jak się nakręca na agility i staje bardziej pewny siebie, zaczyna coraz lepiej pracować na dystans i czasami niestety zaczyna ganiać po wieeelkich łukach) jak też nad jego techniką skoku.

Zrobił naprawdę niesamowite postępy przez ostatnich kilka miesięcy, na przykład dzisiaj robiliśmy bang-game na prawdziwej huśtawce, której koniec znajdował się jakieś 30 cm nad ziemią - jeszcze parę miesięcy temu Flaszek nawet nie chciał się zbliżyć do miejsca, w którym na placu stała huśtawka!

Nauka slalomu wkroczyła właśnie w fazę nieco zabawną - Flaszek jeszcze nie wykumał, że trzeba wystawiać łapki na zewnątrz i bardzo się stara nie deptać po metalowej podstawie, więc robi mnóstwo drobnych kroczków pomiędzy tyczkami - ale Olga już widziała takie coś wcześniej u innych psów i jest pewna, ze to minie, jak jeszcze trochę zwężymy korytarz. 

Olga zaczyna też zupełnie nowy "Projekt Evo" :D Nigdy byście nie wpadli o co chodzi - więcej informacji niebawem :). 

We really like competitions in Motesice - the hall is huge, surface is a bit difficult because it's really soft, but it is also very safe, there is lots of place around to walk the dogs, results are posted immedietely, great judges, nice courses, many international competitors... and accomodation in Trencianskie Teplice, where we can enjoy thermal pools and massage :). 

We arrived on Friday, went for a long walk in the park with all the dogs and then went on to relax in hot pool :). This is soooo nice :). Olga also had a honey massage later... the masseur asked her if this was her first time and when she said yes, she asked: "Are you afraid?". "No, why? It should be pleasant?". "No, it's not so pleasant...". Turned out it was a bit like ripping off some adhesive tape time and again, but afterwards it felt really good :). 

This time it was a bit different, because lots of competitors did not get there due to heavy snowfall and blocked roads. Also Olga got unlucky - Brava broke her nail just before the competition and couldn't run and then Zafira started limping on Sunday after one run, so she had to be withdrawn as well. In the end, Olga, who entered with Brava and Zafira, was competing with Vigo and Sunday (on Sunday only) - big thanks to organizers for accepting all those last minute changes. 

Unfortunately Vigo forgot his brain at home and he was really a mess on Saturday - didn't listen at all and did not stop on contacts, he was so hyper. Apparently, the brain did catch up with us on Sunday, for he was much better and they had some nice runs. Super spaniel was super as ever - even though she is not as fast as she used to be, especially when it's cold, she did her best and clearly had lots of fun and nice runs. One good only wish to be in such a condition at her age :). 

Evo was perfect, did all his contacts and sit -stays really nicely, so in the end he got 3 2nd places and one 3rd, as well as 2nd place in open agility and jumping combined :). 

Here are some videos of our perfect dogs:

It was really nice run, pity about the refusal at the end, but I didn't show her the other hand soon enough and she needs it. But I really like the weaves, lots of dogs had problem with that.

And our enfant terrible, Vigo:

Bardzo lubimy zawody w Motesicach - hala jest gigantyczna, nawierzchnia trochę trudna, ponieważ jest bardzo miękka (ale za to całkowicie bezpieczna), mnóstwo przestrzeni wokół na spacery z psami, wyniki pojawiają się od razu, zapraszani są fajni sędziowie, tory zazwyczaj też są ciekawe, wielu świetnych zagranicznych zawodników... no i nocleg w Trencianskich Teplicach, gdzie można się pomoczyć w basenach termalnych :). 

Przyjechaliśmy w piątek, poszliśmy na długi spacer z psiakami, a potem poszliśmy się relaksować w gorącej wodzie. Mega przyjemne. Olga miała też masaż miodowy, przy okazji którego odbyła następującą rozmowę z masażystką:

"Pierwszy raz?"

"Tak".

"Boisz się?"

"Nie, to chyba ma być przyjemne?"

"No to nie jest takie przyjemne".

Okazało się, że przypomina to mniej więcej zrywanie plastra raz koło razu, więc sam masaż rzeczywiście nie był bardzo przyjemny, ale za to samopoczucie po nim naprawdę ekstra.

Zawody tym razem były bardziej kameralne, wielu zawodników nie dojechało ze względu na śnieżyce i zablokowane drogi. Na dodatek Olga miała pecha, Brava złamała pazur tuż przed zawodami i nie mogła startować, a Zafira zaczęła kuleć w sobotę po pierwszym biegu, więc też trzeba ją było wycofać. Tak więc ostatecznie zamiast z Bravą i Zafirą Olga startowała z Vigo i Sunday w niedzielę. Wielkie podziękowania dla organizatorów, że się zgodzili na te wszystkie zmiany w ostatniej chwili. 

Viguś niestety zapomniał w domu rozumku i w sobotę był koszmarny - skakał strefy, w ogóle nie słuchał i był przeraźliwie pobudzony. Na szczęście rozumek dogonił nas w niedzielę i biegi wyglądały znacznie lepiej. Super spaniel był niezawodny jak zawsze - wprawdzie nie jest już tak szybka jak kiedyś, ale stara się bardzo i ma przy tym mnóstwo radochy. Każdy by chciał być w równie dobrej kondycji w takim wieku :). 

Evo był idealny, wszystkie zostawania i strefki perfekcyjnie, miał trzy drugie miejsca i jedno trzecie, jak również drugie w łącznej :). 

Filmiki powyżej. 

Last week we organized small unofficial agility competition, which turned out to be not small at all (over 60 competitors). It idea was first of all to let Flaszek have his debut in totally stress-free environment, second of all to give other people with young unexperienced dogs chance to have their debut in stress-free atmosphere and last but not least let people train and reward their dogs in competition-like atmosphere. So one run was a training run - everybody got 1,5 minutes on the course, they could reward start line stays, contacts or whatever they wanted and the judges (who were experienced agility competitors) made sure everything was safe and offered suggestions to struggling teams. The whole thing was rather succesful, everybody was helping, the weather was fantastic considering it was the beginning of March (no rain, snow or wind whatsoever :)).

Flaszek was quite stressed in the beginning and he did not run as fast as he can, but still, he was able to run short sequences so we consider it a huge success :). We try to provide him with as many positive experiences as possible and learn on the way so we can work out the best possible starting routine for him. Below is the video of his first ever competition run.

The other dogs were great as usual and even had their wins in the second run, which was "for real" with prizes and all (Sunday won really pretty pink rosette <3). Sunday was particularly good girl because a chinese crested dog on a retractable leash run into the course when she was running and she didn't pay any attention to him (Tunnel!!!) and still had clean run. 

W zeszłym tygodniu zorganizowaliśmy niewielkie zawody treningowe, które okazały się nie być takie niewielkie (ponad 60 zgłoszonych teamów). Generalnie chodziło nam o to, by Flaszek mógł zadebiutować w bezstresowej atmosferze :D, by inne początkujące psy mogły zadebiutować w bezstresowej atmosferze oraz by ludzie mogli sobie potrenować w atmosferze zawodów i ponagradzać zostawanie na starcie, strefy i tak dalej. Jeden z biegów był więc czysto treningowy, sędzia czuwał nad bezpieczeństwem i podpowiadał początkującym, co mogą zrobić w danej sytuacji. Wszystko fajnie się udało, zawodnicy pomagali, pogoda jak na początek marca była super (żadnego deszczu, śniegu lub wiatru).

Flaszek na początku był bardzo zestresowany i nie biegł tak szybko jak potrafi na treningach, jednak uporał się z krótką sekwencją, więc uważamy to za sukces. Staramy się zapewnić mu jak najwięcej tego typu pozytywnych doświadczeń, a przy okazji uczymy się, żeby opracować jak najlepszy dla niego rytuał startowy. Powyżej filmik z jego pierwszego biegu.

Starzy wymiatacze byli super jak zawsze, zwłaszcza spaniel, który w ogóle nie zauważył grzywka, który wbiegł nam na tor i zdołał mieć czysty bieg mimo takich drobiazgów :). Wygrała zarąbiście piękną różową rozetkę :). 

This weekend we went on agility competition in Bydgoszcz. Bydgoszcz is always super for us, because that's where Evo and Brava were born and also had their agility debut - so the place is kinda lucky for us :). 

Since Bydgoszcz is great for debuts, we decided to enter Vigo with Romek and Zafira with Olga :). It was good decision - Romek and Vigo had two clean runs (agility and jumping open) on Saturday (both 2nd places after Brava) and they qualified for Elite jumping final on Sunday. Olga and Zafira earned their first leg towards A2, were second in jumping open on Saturday and 2nd in agility open on Sunday and also got qualified for the big final :). 

Evo needed a reminder on Saturday that he still needs his contacts and sit stays on competition :), but on Sunday he was great and won agility open and then small final jumping. Brava was perfect as always, she won both agility and jumping open on Saturday and also qualified into the big final.

In the final none of us was lucky though - we all got eliminated. I guess we were all tired a little bit.

On Saturday there was also a charity run, which was crazy :). We asked the organizer for permission to run with Flaszek outside the competition and she kindly agreed. At first Flaszek was very stressed, because there were lots of people, dogs and turmoil but after a while Romek managed to play with him and just run some jumps and tunnel for fun. Then he played with Sunday in the hall, so I guess all in all it was a positive experience for him and it will pay off in the future :). Good thing is that he is able to bounce back quite fast now, even when he gets stressed. 

Videos below.

Ostatni weekend spędziliśmy na zawodach w Bydgoszczy. Bydgoszcz zawsze jest dla nas super, Evo i Brava tam się urodzili i na dodatek debiutowali w zawodach, więc to miejsce jest dla nas szczęśliwe.

Skoro Bydgoszcz jest super na debiuty, to poszliśmy za ciosem i zgłosiliśmy Romka z Vigo oraz Olgę z Zafirą. Okazało się to trafioną decyzją: Romek z Vigo mieli czyste agility i jumping open w sobotę (2 x drugie miejsce za Bravą) i zakwalifikowali się do dużego finału elity w niedzielę. Olga z Zafirą zarobiły pierwszą łapkę do A2, miały 2 miejsce w jumping open w sobotę i 2 miejsce w agility open w niedzielę w zupełnie zacnej stawce plus kwalifikację do finału. 

Evo w sobotę potrzebował małego przypomnienia, że strefy na zawodach robić trzeba, jak również nalezy zostawać na starcie :). W niedzielę za to już się ogarnął i w pięknym stylu wygrał agility open oraz mały finał pretendentów :). 

W dużym finale nikomu z nas nie poszło, chyba już byliśmy zmęczeni wszyscy.

W sobotę braliśmy też udział w zwariowanej sztafecie charytatywnej. Poprosiliśmy organizatorkę o pozwolenie na bieganie z Flaszkiem poza konkurencją i dostaliśmy zgodę. Początkowo Flaszek był strasznie zestresowany - mnóstwo ludzi, psów i zamieszania, jednak Romkowi udało się go rozbawić i zrobić z nim parę hopek i tuneli. Na koniec Flaszek razem ze spanielem poganiał po hali za piłką, tak wiec ogólnie chyba zapamięta to doświadczenie jako pozytywne, a o to chodziło. Dobre jest to, że nawet jak się zestresuje, to jest w stanie w miarę szybko z tego wyjść i odreagować.

Poniżej filmiki. 

On February 9-10 we were on the agility traning with Lucie Dostalova in Celadna. As usual, it was fun :). Lucie is a great trainer and she sets nice challenges on the course - it's always great to try some new ideas and train things that we don't usually do. It turned out we're completely out of form after the winter...but we promised to change that!

Evo and Brava were great as usual - and they are certainly not out of form! We also took our friend's Asia border collie Zafira with us. Olga will start with her a bit in this season, so they need some practice together. It went better than expected, although we found out that some things need to be trained a little more :). 

Also Flaszek trained a little bit. Lucie suggested doing really simple things with him, so he gets more speed and also using mainly toy, not food. But it was great to see the progress - when Flaszek arrived from France, he wouldn't even take treats in new environment, and now he was able to focus and train, although he was slighly slower than at home. He's made excellent progress during this time :). 

9-10 lutego byliśmy na treningu agility z Lucie Dostalovą w Celadnej. Jak zawsze, było świetnie :). Lucie jest rewelacyjną trenerką i stawia fajne wyzwania - zawsze dobrze jest pobiegać coś inengo niż w domu. Okazało się, że po zimie jesteśmy całkowicie bez formy... ale obiecaliśmy sobie to zmienić.

Evo i Brava jak zwykle były świetne - oni na pewno są w dobrej formie! Zabraliśmy też BC Asi - Zafirę, ponieważ Olga będzie z nią trochę startować w tym sezonie i chciała wcześniej potrenować. Wyszło lepiej niż się spodziewała, chociaż przy okazji ujawniło się też parę rzeczy do przećwiczenia :). 

Flaszek też trochę pobiegał na semi. Lucie doradziła, żeby biegać z nim naprawdę proste rzeczy, żeby nabrał trochę prędkosci też żeby pracować głównie na zabawkę, nie na jedzenie. Najlepsze jednak było to, że widać było, jakie zrobił postępy. Po przyjeździe z Francji Flaszek nawet nie był w stanie brać smakołyków w nowym miejscu, a teraz był w stanie się skoncentrować i pracować (chociaż biegał trochę wolniej niż w domu). NIesamowite, jakie zrobił w tym czasie postępy. 

The snow has melted finally (and hopefully for good) so finally we're able to build a course using all the obstacles. It was sort of improvised course, but some parts proved problematic (especially the sequence A-frame - jump - tunnel).

And here's how we ran it:

I hope you enjoy it :)

Ok, maybe not just yet ;), but everything is coming along really nicely. I had really amazing training with him on Monday on a course different from ours and he was perfect on strange set of weaves as well as running sequences :). He began to look for obstacles, so his distance work is definitely getting better. 

Somehow working with him is extremely satisfying and we celebrate every success on the way :). 

And here are videos from today's training - weaves (pay attention that he RETRIEVES :D) and set point with the spread jump which is aimed at teaching him to spread more over the obstacle.

We spent last frosty weekend near Tarnów, where Olga held an agility seminar. It was fun to see some new dogs (big poodle, very energetic golden retriever and two nice aussies among them) and even more thrilling to see the progress that some people who attended September seminar with Olga made since :). 

It was also a chance for Romek to have some practice with Flaszek on new obstacles, new venue and among distractions (unfamiliar dogs and people). Flaszek did really great and we were thrilled by the fact that even though he noticed the distractions, he still though doing agility was fun enough not to pay attention to it :). 

The rest of the gang where also fantastic and running on sand (not snow) for a change gave them extra speed which made us think we really need to do something to get back in shape :). 

You'll find some of our training courses under Agility / Courses bar - hope you'll enjoy them. 

Despite snow, cold and bloody winter, we're really busy. Flaszek is still working on bang-box, this time we have it on video (below). Look how cute he is, really trying to please and be a good (and very brave) boy <3

He's also doing really well on sequences, gaining some speed as he understands better what is required of him. More and more often, especially in the beginning of the session, we're able to work using only toy (tugging or throwing a ball) :). 

And, in case you got the impression that we only work with Flaszek, here's a video of our 10,5 cocker Sunday (probably the best cocker in the world) during last training. She is not as flexible as she used to be, we also work with lower bars because of snow, but as you can see she doesn't lack the enthusiasm or the speed :). Agility will keep your dog fit and happy :). 

Flaszek is doing great recently in training. We moved on from 2x2 poles to whole channel weaves and today we started doing open channel in short sequences, practicing different entries and he has never before been so fast as today :).

Also his contacts are progressing, we're on a slightly lifted plank right now, unfortunately winter has come, the plank is frozen, so we couldn't practice it today. 

And apart from that, he's doing sequences, jumping 50-55 cm now. 

Here's the video of him today:

The greatest thing is though that he's having so much fun in it and he jumps in the air when he knows it's his turn for training :). He's such a sweet boy and willing to please, he's really proud of himself when you praise and reward him, that's really cute <3. 

B.A.C.K. was great!!! We were afraid that we won't be able to go, since first Olga got sick, then Evo started coughing, then our salaries were sort of late, but finally everything sorted itself out :) and we set off to Bavaria. 

The event was quite impressive: three rings, 9 judges, almost 700 dogs and most of them really great. We loved the organisation - almost everybody was listed as a helper, but since there were so many handlers, each of us needed to help only for an hour or so and as the helpers were really numerous, everything went really smoothly. The one thing one might complain about was that sometimes there was not enough room at the start/ finish line, but apart from that courses were really interesting and fun to run. We met lots of our friends so the atmosphere was also really nice :). 

And now for the runs. Olga won first agility run with Brava and then Roman was 2nd in jumping with Evo, so the first day was already pretty succesful for us :) and here are our runs:

Olga had really nice jumping run with Brava too, unfortunately Brava missed the last jump, probably because it was too close to a wall and really long-striding Brava decided she would rather not kill herself. 

Saturday runs were qualifications for the final - only 5% top dogs from each run qualified. We started with Olga getting dis in agilility and Romek and Evo getting 2 faults in it, so no luck. Luckily, the jumping went better - Olga and Brava were 3rd, Evo had a clean run but suddenly the wall jumped in Roman's way :P, which was really mean of it and because of that Roman didn't get where he needed to be and Evo lost lots of time, so no qualification for them :(. 

The runs:

The final course was by Ian Watts and Sascha Grunding was judging small and medium. 

It looked suspiciously easy, so I knew there must be something I'm missing and Brava quickly showed me what :). Nevertheless, the finals were fantastic to watch and I had lots of fun running this course - even with a dis :). Small consolation was that super cute springer spaniel won it :). 

Sunday was equally succesful, with Olga and Brava winning agility again and Roman and Evo being 2nd after them :). So we got to be together at the podium :)

Photo by Pavol Vakonic :). 

In jumping we were both disqualified, but that couldn't ruin our great humour :). All in all, it was fantastic weekend and we saw many great pyrsheps running in all the classes :) and they all rocked!!!

The other dogs also had some fun, since there was lots of space to walk the dogs and the preparation ring was big and equipped with several obstacles so even Flaszek got to do some agility at B.A.C.K.

A small update in "About Pyrsheps" section plus a promised video of barking pyrsheps (mind you, it's just a sample, they can be even louder and go on for much much longer):

As mentioned elsewhere, Flaszek spent his first year of life in the country and he lacks socialisation a little bit. Also, he hasn't learnt much in this first year. Second year of his life was devoted mainly to socialisation and he travelled a lot with Romek, visited Slovenia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Luxemburg and Germany (he is a true dog of the world now). So now his third year of life is devoted to training ;) especially that Olga has puppy fever and no puppy to train. Flaszek is learning new skills and learning fast! Since we started, he learnt:

- spin left and right,

- run around handler left and right,

- foot target,

- backing up.

Today we did two sessions on weave poles - first with 2 poles, second with 4 poles and he did great. He offers running between the poles from various angles. Moreover, he retrieved a ball several times :). 

We also did Susan Salo's equal distance jumping grid with height. Flaszek waited at the startline while I went 5 jumps ahead :). 

What a good boy he is!

We were at Polish Agility Championship 2012 in Brzeg. The judge was Alexander Beitl, who set great courses as usual :). Here're Evo's runs from Saturday (first place in jumping, 3rd place in agility and 3rd overall):

And Brava's run from Sunday (we only started on one day). Jumping - 1st place, best time from all categories:

and agility-thriller :P. Her horrible jumping style on jump 1 is the result of the fact that I put her too close to the obstacle, because there were cables from the timer on the floor and I didn't want her to step on them. Unfortunately elimination (which happens) and jumped contact - which I don't understand, especially that she frequently practices on this very dogwalk. Oh, well. 

Last weekend we were at the Czech Championship in Liberec. It was same hall and same carpet as Agility World Championship 2012 - and also great atmosphere. We had the unique honour and pleasure to run with Silvia Trkman with La and Le in our all-Pyrshep medium team PYRFECTION and... we were 4th in team agility, 1st in team jumping and hence 1st overall :). 

Videos will be posted soon :). 

Olga and Brava were also 3rd in individual medium jumping and then got disqualiffied in individual agility - but at least we know what to work on through the winter :). 

Here's another comparison of Brava and Evo's runs from Agility World Championship - this time agility individual medium. Brava was 2nd and Evo was 6th - that's why it's worth having running dogwalk :).

We got this excellent comparison of our Brava and Evo from team jumping from Agility World Championship 2012. They're awesome and they're identical twins :D