After AWC is before AWC

 Oh the bliss! 

To run AWC again after three years break, to step on that green carpet, feel the atmosphere again, meet the friends from all over the world (I broke my personal record in collecting T-shirts this year 😁 ) - that was priceless and since it was always my favourite competition, I'm even more motivated to work, train and qualify next year again, possibly to all runs and possibly with two dogs 😉. 

The organisers did a stellar job - and I always say that the most important thing on AWC is that everybody from the organising team is nice and supportive - the stewards, the helpers and so on - because they are on a "first line", very often dealing with people who are stressed, emotional etc. The Austrians nailed it, everybody was friendly, relaxed, focused on comfort of both the dogs and the handlers. Literally couldn't be better and I would like to thank all of them 💓.

The atmosphere in our Polish sector was probably the best I've ever experienced - thanks everybody for cheering, laughing, discussing, wining and dining together! Result-wise I didn't achieve anything, but I'm still happy about our teamwork with Mojo and her skills, hopefully we get a chance next year to fight also in individual.

What I was disappointed about was the judging and the courses... and as the judges for this year's AWC were Jan Egil Eide and Bernd Hueppe, who are both on my list of personal favourites, I was really taken aback about some things. And no, I'm not gonna bitch about the difficulty of the courses, I'm totally fine with the courses being difficult, either you have the skills or go train them - but I swear for years I haven't seen so many dangerous situations slammed into parcours, especially on Bernd's courses. Team jumping large - dog after dog crashing the jump no 3, hitting the metal wing, making my skin crawl every time I heard that horrible sound. Same situation on individual jumping large with jump no 2. Team agility medium - dogs taking a backside jump after the long jump from the wrong direction and landing directly on the tyre legs, or slicing the tyre to save themselves. Turn after dogwalk into the tyre and then the off-course wall being so close some dogs bounced the distance. Same course - dogs bouncing off the dogwalk instead of going into the tunnel under it. Individual jumping medium (which was actually one of the most interesting courses of the weekend, with many handling options) - handlers being forced to run over tyre's legs. Individual agility large - handlers crashing the dogwalk so hard a couple of times it actually tilted, dogs loosing their balance after dogwalk, sliding off the contact, slicing the wall and the long jump - what the hell happened with adhering to "straight approach to tyre / long jump / wall" rule in the regulations? Oh, I forgot, it's more important that the distance doesn't exceed 7m by some centimeters. It is so important that there had to be a special person measuring the distances and correcting them, altering a perfectly good course. Entries to the tunnels not on dogs' natural line, forcing them to break, slide, enter from weird angles. Individual agility small - see-saw being on handler's and dog's line when turning right on the jump after the A-frame. And the list goes on, I've never seen handlers crashing the obstacles or doing weird things to avoid it or running into their dogs so much as during this AWC. And don't get me started on the judging calls - I get it, judging such an event is a lot of pressure and we're all human and all that - but the inconsistencies in judging, especially concerning refusals and see-saw contacts were striking and influenced the results. It was almost like "the course is so hard that I'm just gonna take pity and ignore all the jumping over dogwalk and touching the dog mistakes". And "oh, a famous handler is running, let's just ignore that jumped see-saw contact, even though I faulted much better executions of the obstacle couple of minutes ago". Again, I understand the human factor in all those situations, and this is not the first AWC it happened, but perhaps some measures can be taken to avoid such mistakes in the future? Video judging? Another judge to consult some calls with? Psychology training for the judges to be able to distance themselves from WHO is running and what is at stake and focus on seeing the actual performance?

And, last but not least, the metal jumps. With the lines being so hard for the dogs, with so many better options available, why do we keep using them? Why was it so easy to accept that soft wall and long jump are better than metal ones, but still people don't see that metal wings are dangerous? Most of the obstacles on the course are jumps. That's like 15 chances to get injured on the fucking thing on each course. Roman crashed a jump this weekend (by fault of his own, that actually was not a course design issue), cut his hand in two places and hit himself hard enough that he was not able to finish the run after (yes, he will survive, it's nothing more than a strain and some bruises fortunately). I still have a scar from bumping into metal wing ten years ago (here's the video for people who like horrors - the bruise and the cut took 3 weeks to heal). Also the visibility of the metal is not good enough - that's simply not contrasting with the background / surface and dogs measure to the coloured part of the wing rather than the upright. Ban the fucking metal jumps finally! 

And yes, making the poles 140-150 cm would also be a great change, just opening the jumps a bit more - totally cheap and easy fix. 

Maupka is 8 months old

Maupka is 8 months old today!

42.5 cm, 7.2 kg of pyrfection

There are moments when I see the glimpses of the well-behaved, reliable dog that she is going to become. There are also moments when her teenage brain just gets overwhelmed with everything or anything and she barks for 2 minutes straight for reasons known only to herself. She can be freakishly smart and I love how she learns, yet she still (being from California) hasn't figured out the concept of rain, so whenever it's raining, she tries to go potty inside, because nope, she is not going out there. 

She is probably the funniest dog ever and also has the cutest face and the softest paws on the planet. She loves to cuddle and then bites your nose unexpectedly. 

Seeing that description of her, my friend commented: "loud, opinionated pyri perfection" and it fits her to a tee. 

Her pedigree names is Rebelle FORTIS MILVA de Bien-Aime: Fortis means "brave" (after Brava) and "Milva" after the one of the most beautiful birds, kite, and one of the most interesting characters in "The Witcher". Milva was supposed to be her calling name as well, but since she still looks and behaves as a cheeky monkey, the nickname Maupka is gonna stick. I guess the rebel part of her kennel name also influenced her character: she takes no bullshit from anyone and really acts as she pleases rather than being told what to do. Best of all, "bien-aime" part is also true, because it's impossible not to love that crazy, sweet, independent, full of character and mischief little monkey 💙🐒

We started some agility foundations and I'm really excited for our journey together, although we haven't done much yet (because teenage brain). Here is a little video of some tricks and some mischief :).