After extreme and difficult EO, B.A.S.E. 2019 (annual Pyrshep competition) was just pure pleasure. First of all, well, Pyrsheps :D As always, it was just lovely to see so many of them, so different yet so similar, and to meet old and new friends. The atmosphere was just awesome.
Family meeting: Marinka (I guess, her and mother Nany are clones so not sure), mother Nany, Puck, Zelda, father Evo.
Secondly, the organisers did really wonderful job - from choosing the place which allowed us to run either outside or inside depending on the weather (and also run a bit in between out and in carrying the obstacles when the it changed unexpectedly ☀️⛈️), with great inside bar with lovely Czech beer, through dedicated and capable helpers, to the very best team of judges: Alice Glocknerova (CZ) and Rene Blank (D). I even liked the fact that the barbecue on Saturday was not barbecue as the food was ready for everybody at the same time and the little starters were just SOOOOO delicious.
Thirdly, the judges and the courses were great - and after EO 😈 I appreciated it even more. Level appropriate, fluent, challenging, fun - even getting eliminated on those courses was fun :D - it was real pleasure to walk them and to run them and after each coursewalking I just coulnd't wait to test myself on them :).
Brego says he was awesome, I was too slow :D.
And to make it even better, the competition was organised in four height categories - small, medium (calculated together, as there was just one small dog), and minilarge and large (again, calculated together). I ran Flaszek and Brego in minilarge category (jump heights 50 cm) and it was great - Brego had times better than the medium dogs, he's just flying on 50 cm and was really finally able to show all his power and Flaszek also broke his own speed records 🏎️.
I was running Flaszek in A1, and Brego and Brava in A3. Flaszek of course forgot all his contacts, but since we weren't really training that hard lastly, he is of course forgiven, otherwise he was super fast, did nice weaves and even in the end reached 3rd place in combined A1 category. I'm super pleased with him.
Brego was just freaking amazing, it's a pity I ruined two of his runs (once I was really out of breath and once I was just to slow and hesitated with the handling option, which resulted in elimination), but it felt great to run him again.
Brava as everybody knows already, is pyrfection, she had four clean runs, all of them on the podium, she never put a foot wrong and in the end won the whole event (you know, third time lucky so finally we managed to win the beautiful B.A.S.E. 2019 jump :D).
Last but not least, thanks to dr Natalia Kucharczyk and her collegues as well as amazing and brave Pyrshep community, we were able to do quite extensive eye testing (around 75 dogs were tested during and after the competition). The aim on the study was not only to find the common eye problems in the breed, but hopefully also help working on genetic testing for some of them - the results of the study will be published later, but we already know that it was worth doing it and that it looks promising. Since I was engaged in the project from the beginning, I would really like to thank Radka Kopecka for allowing us to do it during the competition, owners of the venue for providing the place to conduct the testing even though we have to move furniture around a bit, dr Natalia Kucharczyk to take such interest in our breed, partner in crime Virginie de Andrea for all the help and design below (it was used on the jump and leash that were drawn between the participants of the study) and of course everybody who decided to have their dogs tested and was so cooperative and helpful.
Ok, so a year has passed since my last post 😮. Time sure flies, lots of things have changed, including the fact that all of a sudden we have a new dog - Evo's son and brother of Zelda. His name is Puck, which we changed to Pucek somehow and he's awesome and I'll try to write more about him soon.
Anyway, just a couple of thoughts after EO 2019.
Well, one thing is obvious and lots of people have said it already - something has to change. EO has become an extreme competition for everybody involved and as much as I love big events (I do), I think we are dangerously close to risking people and dogs' lives with the current formula of EO. Noone can deny the climate change anymore, end of July is extremely hot and dry year after year after year, and this time it was over 40C during day and over 30C during the night. It was just horrible - even though the organisers were AWESOME and changed the schedule completely to make it safer, it was still too hot to sleep, rest, walk or do anything. Fortunately we were able to go to the lake on Friday afternoon, which I think allowed us to survive at all. I can imagine how horrible it must be also for the judges / helpers and no wonder finding good judges for this event becomes more and more difficult as it must be a challenge to get anyone in their right mind to agree to this.
So first of all I think EO's date has to change - my idea would be end of August, so at least the nights should be cooler, people would still have holidays and it wouldn't interfere with qualis everywhere or AWC.
Secondly, I tend to agree that maybe it should be a bit smaller.... maybe quit the team part (ok, this is a bit of bias on my part and I know lots of people would disagree, but I'm not really fond of the team final formula with huge ring and four dogs running four different courses on this crazy layout... it's super difficult to follow for once and perhaps also not the best way to prepare mentally and physically for the run) or maybe limit it to 24 teams per country... but an event lasting 5 days, if you include the vet control and training, is really taking the toll on everybody, in financial, physical and mental aspect.
And actually one good change could be the formula of trainings. Normally it's some alloted number of minutes per country and even though there was always enough time, I've always hated it. It was always really hectic, really loud and really nervous. If you had more than one dog it got ever crazier and it was almost impossible to warm up, reward and cool down properly (which we REALLY should be doing). This year they just decided to open the training rings from 5am till 11am (which was later changed to 10am since it was already quite hot). Everybody could come whenever they wanted and have one go at the training course, although the helpers were nice enough to let you correct the mistake or repeat one obstacle as long as you didn't drill it over and over. For me it was perfect - I came with Brava first, later I could cool her down, walk her, and then I took Mojo. It was calmer, more relaxed, just freaking better in every way and I think pretty much everybody who wanted, had a go and it lasted much shorter also.
I know introducing those changes must take a while, but it would be really great if the FCI dealt with that rather than insisting on judges using the flat tunnel or forbidding the use of safe bar for the double jump. And I really hope it happens before we have some fatality.
Otherwise, well. As I mentioned before, the organising crew was SUPERB. Really friendly, really helpful, really going out of their way to make everybody safe in the extreme heat and working really hard. Generally the progress of the competition was very smooth, some things of course were difficult because of the last of the moment changes in schedule, but all in all I think they did a great job.
I was quite disappointed with most of the courses, especially the final courses, which IMHO were either stupid (like the contact approaches in the small individual final or the turn on the spread jump) or really boring (both the medium and large final courses). There was also a fair amount of really weird judging decisions, but let's just blame it on the weather. It must be extremely hard to stay focused for so many hours, with so many dogs on the same setup, till midnight one day and from the crack of dawn on the other, in burning heat.
The surface was simply not maintained properly, the sand was too soft and too deep in places, most dogs, especially the smaller ones, were struggling to accellerate and even to take off appropriately. Mojo felt really slow and I still think she was actually at advantage being on the large end of small category and super muscled mini pitbull. There was also huge difference in surface between the first dogs to run the course and the last ones...
The facilities, food etc were more than ok :) (like really, for once there was enough showers!!!).
And when it comes to our dogs... well, I'm impressed and grateful they agreed to run in those conditions, moreover, they did it with all their usual enthusiasm and really really tried as hard as they could. We have the greatest dogs on the planet, I'm super proud of them and of our runs, even the ones with mistakes. Brava finished all courses - three clean, one with weave entry mistake and the final run with a bar - she managed to qualify for the final even, which I think at her age, after a long break and among such awesome competition is a real achievement. I'm really really grateful I could run the EO final with her one last time, it felt really special. I realised when walking to the start that she has been at EO EIGHT times, and seven times she got into the final, and two times she was on the podium... it's just an incredible, one in a billion dog and I feel so privileged to have her as my teammate 💚💙❤️💛💜🧡🖤.
Mojo was 6th in agility individual small, qualifying to the final and had 5th time there (and we lost TONS of time because of my handling mistake after the weaves, so it could have been even better) - she was amazing and I found the right amount of crazy in two of our best runs (individual agility and final).
Brego, Evo and Zelda were running with Roman - for Brego it was not the right kind of surface really, but they had some great runs, Evo decided he's too old to bother with contacts anymore (and when he jumps them, he does it with style), but otherwise was crazy, fast and loud as in good old times. Zelda is waiting for imaginary puppies and also we didn't exactly do her a favour when we decided to spend last couple of weeks before EO in Scandinavia with temperatures around 18C, she doesn't cope too well with the heat at best of times and now it was even more difficult for her. She still was quite ok for her first EO and we're are looking forward to the future :).
Some videos of Brava:
Jumping individual:
Final:
And Mojo, individual agility:
And somewhat messy, but still awesome (on Mojo's part), final:
European Open 2018 in Austria, Magna Racino, was definetely one of the coolest ever and I couldn't be happier.
It already started great with a pre-EO party at Laura's place, when I finally got to see two of my "grandpuppies" (Zookie & Aivo) and they are awesome 🧡💗💜💚💙❤️💛, plus we got to see some friends and meet some new ones. After some delicious food and ice scream we arrived at the venue, which I think is one of the best in Europe to host such an event - no problems with facilities, good bar (aperole!) and decent restaurant with a shaded terrace, lots of space, perfect surface, lots of water hoses to cool the dogs and yourself, plus there was even a nice place by the stream to walk the dogs (thanks Elisabeth for showing it to me!).
On Thursday we had vet check, measuring for Mojo (so now very officially small) and training, which went really well for both Mojo and Brava - no problems with new frameless tyre (love it!) or anything else. Then in the evening there was opening ceremony which like for the first time ever was actually quite cool with a different song chosen for each country (we got "Do przodu, Polsko!" and Sweden got an ABBA song and so on) and beautiful horse dressage demonstration with Fresian horses and riders in historical outfits. Then we had a lovely evening with our friends and Agility Board Game. I also got to meet Mojo's family - beautiful little Rosalie and Pippi, both of them really cool and really beautiful. Obviously I also HAD to do some shopping and got a new leash and new Floramicato toy (you just can't resist, they are the funniest, most colourful and greatest toys ever and my dogs are CRAZY about them!).
On Friday we had team runs, both Brava and Mojo had clean jumpings, Brava dis in agility (but the course was... well, not my favourite type let's say) and Mojo mistake in the slalom. There was some fuckups with the results and at some point we thought our small team was third in agility, but then it turned out we weren't after all :P. Actually the results and especially live-results were the only really bad thing about the competition - they were even horribly late or incomplete or both. Anyway, I was really happy with my girls performance, especially baby Mojo for her first big event, so here are Mojo's team runs:
Brava's team jumping - same course as small and it's funny to see how much more relaxed and trusting I am when handling her in comparison to how I handle Mojo - of course it's only natural and that's the place we're gonna be with my super spaniel in 2-3 years time:
In the end Poland ended up with just one medium team in the final, despite the fact that one of large teams ended up second place in jumping also. I finished my runs quite early on, so could enjoy aperoles from the bar, great company and watching others for the rest of the day - I totally love social aspect of agility competitions 😃💛. I couldn't even feel bad about all the calories consumed as I walked over 20 km each day, so burnt all the alcohol I drank (or so I tell myself). Speaking of the social aspect - we had a family meeting with five of Brava puppies present at the EO (sadly, Daniel and Neo couldn't come even though they also qualified). The best Pyrsheps in the world for sure!
Left to right: Brie, BB, Babou (team European Open 2018 winner), Brava (EO 2018 vice champion), Brego (AWC 2017 team large winner), Zookie (EO 2016 winner, team European Open 2018 winner).
Saturday was the individual runs. The agility medium course seemed a bit too easy and I was actually a little bit worried that on such speedy course 9,5 yo Brava wouldn't be competitive enough, but well, she proved me wrong, ending up on 5th place which was enough to qualify for the final. She also had a nice jumping run later, with one tiny refusal, because I was too slow :P. Mojo was again awesome, one mistake in the slalom in the jumping course and unfortunately dogwalk fault in the agility run (we sure have a list of things to train after this EO 😀), but in general I was really happy with her performance, we just had some young dog's mistakes, but she handled the heat and the atmosphere brilliantly. Other Polish competitors also had some super cool runs, so we ended up with one small, four medium and three large dogs in the individual final! Not bad at all, especially that all of them are such great and mostly quite young dogs!
Sunday came - since I was not participating in the team finals, I let myself a bit of lie-in and woke up just in time to see our medium team - three smashing clean runs and one elimination sadly - but since it's the same team that will be participating in the world championship, I'm very optimistic about their chances! My puppies made me proud again, since the medium team final was won by Austrian team with Babou and Zookie among them!
Small individual finals was really interesting and challenging course by Svetlana Zolotnikova - I actually liked the course the best of all the final courses, it was great to watch and the winning performances of Marusa Podjed with Nai and Sandi Okanovic with Mia were really amazing! It was great to see friends on the podium again!
Medium course was set by Wolfgang Tieber - most of it was fluent and nice, I just didn't really like the ending, since it was a bit of "who can outrun their dog" and I'm really not very fond of courses in which the dog has to push forward even though handler's body is showing a wrong line...
There were lots of refusals or eliminations on the very last obstacle and that was not so fun to watch actually. It also happened to Magda with Mora (Brava's younger sister), who had clean and fast as crazy run until then... Otherwise I liked the fact that the course demanded the dog to be able to work independently (like the best solution on the slalom was to let the dog find the entry themselves, almost everyone who tried to help with the entry pushed the dog too much towards the tunnel, or you really had to let the dog do the "out" after the dogwalk alone if you were to make it in time to number 17). I told Brava she needs to read the numbers since and I told my body to make this last effort in horrible heat and despite my sore muscles (I walked over 20 km on each day of the competition and that's not counting the running...). Well, what can I say - she is the most amazing dog ever, she did everything I asked of her, found the weave entry alone, nailed the dogwalk contact, sent to number 18, found the tunnel after the A-frame even though I was miles away already, trying to make it around the dogwalk and cleared that double even though I was so out of breath I was not able to give the command I optimistically planned to give when coursewalking). I don't remember ever being so exhausted after a run though, I couldn't speak for like 5 minutes after. We were beaten by Daniel Schroeder with Cashew who had a smashing run 😲 and ended up being European Open 2018 vice champions - that is more than I would ever imagine this year! especially that Brava had a small injury in May, didn't run our AWC qualis at all and had very little training before (but lots of swimming, walks and conditioning instead).
Video of the run:
In the large final Poland had amazing dogs and it was great to watch them - actually all three of them had great runs, but this time luck was not on our side - Applause dropped the first bar, Yuca had fault on up contact, Chica also one bar. But I really believe that if one year luck is not on your side, one day it will help you, so it all balances itself. In general it was fantastic to watch Polish team this year, we had some great dogs and super runs and it really made me proud. There were lots of clean runs in large final, it was great to see that so many dogs had perfect running contacts, interestingly enough there was a tie of Mona Grefenstein and Lisa Frick in the second place (maybe we need to measure even more exactly now?) and many many fantastic perfomances that made me feel inspired about what to train now.
Big thanks to our team leader, Michał Pieniak, who stood, or rather walked constantly between four rings, in this crazy heat, carried all the water bottles, bags, hats, toys and what not between start and finish lines, measured times for fastest lines, updated all the important info by messenger for everybody, cheered and supported all of us and still managed to be calm, composed and in good humour all the time. As always, huge thanks to Roman for driving, helping ,filming and supporting me 💚💙🧡❤️💛💜🖤.
I don't know why recently I tend to post more "philosophical" posts than "what's up with us" kind of posts. Maybe I'm getting middle-aged know-it-all :P (the change is in the "middle-age", I've always been unsufferable know-it-all, my best friend on the university told me once that she used to hate me for this and then realised she was the same 😂). Anyway, here it goes, three situations, three lessons:
1. Years and years ago on the way to my first AWC ever, we stopped on the way and I was waiting in a queue to the toilet holding someone's dog and someone from our team was walking by with their dog and said something like "ok, let's go tread on ours competition paws", which was said jokingly of course (and not actually stepping on anyone's dog) but my then-trainer got really furious about it, saying that for f.. sake, you're on the same team after all. That was lesson number one.
2. Some years later, when Evo and Brava were already competing but still young, we went to some competition in Motesice in Slovakia and met with Martina Klimesova there and she said something like: "Oh, it's so cool that you came, I really like having some good competition in medium". That was really nice, first of all hearing from someone with much more experience and succeses that we were treated as good competition, secondly that kind of attititude that competition is good and welcome (I will elaborate later). That was lesson number 2.
3. I already mentioned it before, but when Laura Reinhalter with Zookie got their 3rd place in EO 2017 final, I saw Werner Goltz sincerely and happily congratulating Laura on her run and looking genuinely happy about it, even though she "pushed him out of the podium". That's lesson number 3.
Anyone who knows me, can attest to the fact that I am a competitive and ambitious person. But there it goes: in order to be competitive, you need fair competition. You need someone to give you the run for your money, to really push your limits, to really work on getting the best possible line, the best turn, the best running contact. If you have good competition, you cannot allow yourself being sloppy - so simply you get better. That's first reason why competition is good for you. Second reason is that easy win does not taste as good. If you were running World Championships alone and all it took to win was to finish the run, would you still feel a champion? While I am truly happy with every good run with my dogs (there is this magic feeling of flow and connection that I always strive for and that is best part of agility for me), I have this additional pleasure coming from objective fact that it was not just my feeling that the run was good, but it was actually good enough to beat teams that I admire and respect. And when I lose to someone because that someone was faster, had better line, chose better handling option - it's a valuable lesson. It is not a shame to lose to someone better. It is not praiseworthy if you win because there simply was not anyone else in your league.
And seriously, if someone in your country has a great dog in the same category as you run in, be happy. That means you have someone to push you without having to go to compete abroad and that also means that potentially you have a great teammate. Team world championship cannot be won single-handed.
Some time ago I wrote an enthusiastic post about wockers and why everybody should get one. Since the popularity of the breed in agility seems to be on the rise, I feel like I need to expand a little bit.
I still am totally in love with my own working cocker and still think that generally speaking the breed is a joy to live and to train with. However, before you jump into buying a working cocker (or any other breed for that matter), stop for a while.
First of all, well, that might sound obvious, but think if you actually like the breed for what it is for 24 hrs a day. Agility or any other performance sport is just a little part of your journey together and for the rest of the time you'll have to live with a breed with strong hunting instinct, high energy and excitability and yet tendency to be rather soft and shutting down under pressure. Best if you like the looks, the size and the character of the breed, especially that well, we might plan all we want, yet sometimes things go their own way. I admire some border collies in agility - with the right handler and trainer they come to the absolute top of the discipline and are as close to perfection as possible. Yet having met many BCs I know it's not a breed for me, not a breed that I would enjoy on everyday basis, not a breed that would pull on my heart strings. As hard as it is for me to understand, you might be a person that doesn't feel any particular personal sympathy for wockers or Pyrsheps, even though I couldn't imagine my life without them.
Second of all, find a reputable breeder. Whenever a breed becomes popular, some people think it's an easy money and would breed without proper respect to the dogs and breed's welfare in mind. Don't choose a breeder solely on basis that this or that animal that comes from this kennel is succesful in agility, as this stems from many factors.
What a breeder can (and should) do:
- answer questions about dog's lines and pedigrees, provide factual information concerning those matters,
- show you the health results of the parents. In working cockers, genetic tests are available for several serious conditions, including prcdPRA, FN, AMS. In addition, it is recommended that the parents are also tested for slipping patellas, ED and HD as well as eye diseases (ECVO certificate) and heart conditions
- answer honestly questions about breed's characteristics, including problems that might occur,
- welcome you into their home, showing where and in what conditions all their dogs live and how their puppies are raised. Of course, it you're buying puppy from abroad, you might not be able to visit, but it shouldn't be a problem for the breeder nowadays to send you pictures and videos regularly,
- discuss with you openly and upfront the legal agreements concerning your puppy. Things like price, details of purchase contract, co-ownership etc. should be discussed before you pay any kind of advance and should never change later,
- give you full documentation of all the above (health checks, pedigree, contract in writing etc.).
What a breeder shouldn't do (or can't possibly) do:
- guarantee 100% that the puppy will remain competely healthy and of sound temperament. Genetics is a bitch and you need not only knowledge but also huge amount of luck, especially that while we know some things are hereditary, we don't really know how they are inherited. If the breeder claims they have never bred an animal with health or temperament issues, they are either not breeding for a long time or lying. This is not to say the breeder should "wash their hands" from any responsibility, health testing of the parents and proper way of rising the puppies go a long way to ensure healthy dogs, but noone can control everything.
- ensure the size of the puppy as an adult. Working cockers are usually medium for agility, sometimes they happen to be in small, but this is not a rule, and while there are smaller lines, noone can predict the exact size of the adult dog (same as with Pyrsheps by the way). You get small wockers out of medium parents and vice versa. Find out the healthy range of height and weight in puppies of certain age, having in mind that it can vary a lot - still, a puppy wocker should not be the size of puppy Great Dane or a chihuahua. For instance, Mojo was over 3 kg and 22 cm as a healthy, happy and plump 8 weeks old puppy and she is just over 8 kg and 34 cm as an adult, being on the smaller side of the breed. Also, size should never be the main objective of the breeding and should never come before health, good structure and sound temperament.
- the breeder cannot sell legally puppies less than 8 weeks of age by rules of most national cynological organisations,
- the breeder cannot guarantee that the puppy will become succesful agility dog. That again depends on many conditions and mainly, but not solely, you.
What you as a buyer should do:
- ask questions. Reputable breeder has nothing to hide and will answer.
- educate yourself. Thanks to the internet and social media it's easy nowadays to find owners of particular breed, ask their opinion, ask them to tell you about their dog, ask if they would recommend the breeder of that dog (and WHY). Of course, noone is liked by everybody, and what suits one individual, doesn't necessarily suit another. Hence, don't stop on just one opinion, whether enthusiastic or otherwise, but try to find more.
- don't rush into any decisions. Take your time. Think. Sleep on it. Be critical.
Ok, this year B.A.C.K. was certainly one to remember. Almost to the last possible moment we weren't sure if we would be actually able to go, since we had considerable financial problems and also dog and human health problems. In the end, we decided to go... thinking we need something to get our minds from all the difficulties. Everything was going fine up until the moment when we were about 60 km from the destination, still on the highway and our beloved Pyrkobus just stopped... the engine broke completely. After lots of waiting and a debate on what to do, we were towed to the competition site. Since it was already past midnight, it took us a while to actually find a place where to put our car and then the cable winch in the towing car broke sending lots of sparks all around. So we were like, ok, maybe we will have to sleep on the towing car, but then, what to do with the elderly driver? I wasn't so keen on sharing bed with him ;). Anyway, turned out he was quite resourceful and somehow managed to short-circuit the winch with a screwdriver (more sparks and little exposions) and lower our car on the ground. It was already past one o'clock in the morning and before we showered and so on, we went to bed about 2 am.
So when the first coursewalking started at 8 am in the morning I was far from ready - add to this numerous worries I had and that might explain why I had the weirdest run ever with Brava. Frankly, the course was awful and I didn't like it a bit, which might also be a factor. Brava normally runs clean or gets eliminated, she might knock an occasional bar once in a year or so - but in this run she jumped ALL the contacts (and I mean, she really jumped), turned the other direction than I indicated, missed the long jump and in the end finished with like 5 mistakes and a refusal or so :D. Worst run ever. That was so weird I actually started to wonder if everything was fine with her... but I guess it was somehow my poor shape that was responsible.
When it was time to run with Mojo I was already after a nap and coffee, so I was in considerately better shape and had pretty nice run with one mistake (ok, so Mojo doesn't really like Galican dogwalk it seems). Jumping medium 3 course was even worse than agility 3, which I hardly thought possible - but I had pretty nice run with Brava with one bar and then really nice clean jumping 2 with Mojo and first place.
Roman was running with Brego and even though I was worried that due to lack of training Brego would be totally over the top and crazy, he was such a good boy :). All his runs were nice and Flaszek actually had runs of his life, really fast and cool. It's so funny how he just gets better and better every year - well, apart from the A-frame, but that doesn't even count :P. He rarely does it properly in training, so we don't really expect him to do it properly in competition either ;).
By the end of the day I was in considerably better mood, mainly thanks to our friends there, who helped us a lot, driving us for shopping, making phone calls in German to sort out the car problem and generally keeping us company and cheering us up. You were all awesome and I am so grateful to all of you :).
Second day was the important day in which you might qualify for the final - and Brava did with a pretty nice jumping run. Mojo unfortunately no luck - one dogwalk fault and elimination in jumping. Final was judged by Sandra Deidda and I was really happy about it, since she is one of my favourite judges. I was also really happy with her course - challenging, but fun. When I was going to the preparation ring with Brava I thought that I really want one of those runs in which you feel that amazing connection and everything just works out. I could see before the run that Brava was really happy and crazy also, so I approached the course with good energy and wow, that was such a cool run! See for yourself, but I think my wish came true and it was one of those runs which make agility such a wonderful sport for me. Thanks to Franky Vanroy for the streaming and video.
Meanwhile we learnt that we will get the replacement car from ADAC to get home. Our Pyrkobus would have to stay there till next week.
Sunday was for fun runs, again I got clean jumping with Brava (and stupid elimination in agility), stupid elimination in jumping with Mojo (rather than turn into the tunnel she went straight ahead and took an additional jump... not something I would expect with a spaniel :P), pretty nice SA2 run with nice dogwalk (finally!) and then stupid refusal because I tried to babysit her too much in the slalom. Brego and Roman had two really nice clean runs. Roman decided not to run with Flaszek, since we could see he was getting tired, hence a bit more reactive.
In the evening we got our replacement car which turned out to be a VW Golf... so we had a puzzle of how to actually squize seven dogs and the most essential things (like dog food, LOL) into it. Well, we managed, although it wasn't perhaps the most comfortable drive home. Roman said though that the car was really quiet. Personally I think it was because he was sitting in such a position that his knees blocked his ears.
Anyway, I hope all the bad luck with the cars etc. is behind us and the rest of the year will be splendid :D.
I doubt it's even possible to fit almost a month worth of travelling into one blog entry, so it will be more "bunch of impressions" kind of post, rather than detailed description. First of all, thanks to all our amazing friends who hosted us, organized my seminars & trainings or devoted their time and money to show us around, in particular Virginie de Andrea, Christine de Andrea Welpen from Switzerland, Martine from France, Carlos and Oscar from Barcelona, Xavi from Valencia and Nina and Rafa from Seville - without you all that wouldn't be possible and we're both extremely grateful to you all.
Our trip started on quite rainy day and we got so cold and miserable that on the second day we decided to stop in Badesparadise in Schwarzwald. You can imagine hot mineral baths, Schwarzwald mist room and swimming pool surrounded by palms when it's cold and rainy outside - it was perfect. From there we headed to a competition in Fraschels - I was running with Mojo and Flaszek, Roman with Evo and Brego, so I had two A1 dogs and Roman two A3 dogs ;) (Flaszek is A3 with Roman, but since our license counts for a team, when running with me, Flaszek starts in A1 again, which is exactly what we wanted, since it's better for him to run on easier and more open courses). On the first day Mojo was getting more and more histerical with each run, screaming more and more and in the last run she knocked like three bars - I know she knows HOW to jump, so I was sure it was connected with her level of excitement which might have got just a biiiiit too high. So I changed my starting routine for Sunday - a bit more food games rather than toy games etc - and we got two clean runs and one very nice elimination (no bars at all!!!). I was really really happy especially that all contacts were done, new dogwalks and all, and flat tunnel which I think she saw like 2 or 3 times in her life (yup, not our favourite obstacle). Flaszek was really nice, decent speed and horrible A-frames as usual, so this is our winter project with him ;).
After the competition we spent three awesome days with Virginie and Christine, sightseeing in lovely Valais, training a bit agility in the most beautiful place, visiting friends - we had REAL raclettes which turned out to be a bit different from what we know under this name. On one of our trips we found a dog:
Couldn't get a better picture, but it was some kind of Swiss hound. She was really scared and clearly lost, fortunately she came to Roman and Evo and had her ID tag on, so Christine could call her owner and we met at the parking some 20 minutes later. As a thank you gift we got a bottle of local wine 🍷.
From Switzerland we headed to France, visiting Chamonix (just to take a picture of Zelda with Mont Blanc of course ;), Annecy and then spending a day hiking in the Alps. We found perfect camping high in the mountains and you could walk around it for hours... Perfect 💓💙💚💛💜. Later I had seminar near Lyon, organized by Martine (lovely people, super dogs, wine, cheese, different kind of raclettes... ) and from there we headed towards Spain. On the way there we visited Avignon (I loved it!), Carcassone (to be honest, a bit of disappointment, especially after Avignon... ), Foix and a couple of other nice places. We planned to visit Andora on the way, but it snowed during the night and then we found out you had to have chains for the tyres to actually go there, so in the end we choose different route. We took a little walk in the Pyrenean Mountains and had a little adventure there. It was raining, so nobody was there (or so it seemed...). At some point I heard something like barking, but then it went away and also we've chosen to head back. All of a sudden, we heard really bone-chilling noise that I can't really describe 😰... horrible howling, screaming and I don't know what and suddenly we found ourselves chased by three bloodhounds, screaming at the top of their lungs! Of course Punia Zeldunia decided she needs to tackle them and went to them, barking her high-pitched bark like a yorkie 😆 The bloodhounds looked a bit nonplussed 😮and turned back eventually.
Finally we reached Catalonia and Barcelona... oh, what a beautiful city that is! Carlos took us sightseeing with his car - it's virtually impossible to park anywhere there with our huge van - and we even managed to visit Sagrada Familia, something that I've really dreamed of for quite some time. For the second time in my life, I was speechless (the first time was in really small church in Cracow, which I didn't know had stained glass windows designed by Wyspiański and it got me totally by suprise). Sagrada Familia was a bit like that - after seeing the exterior with all the ornaments, countless figures, sculptures etc. you are totally not prepared for the inside... beauty, simplicity, space and light. I still have goosebumps just thinking of it. I really wish I was a better photographer of architecture or at least took the broader lense - although I doubt if I could do this city justice.
After a very nice and very joyful seminar in Barcelona we headed to Valencia for another short training organized by my friend Xavi (I must say I'm getting quite fond of Spanish Water Dogs after the seminars in Spain...) and a bit of sightseeing the day after. Valencia is also very beautiful and somehow much more dog and people-friendly than Barcelona: lots of space to walk (they have beach for dogs! and a river bed turned into a beautiful park!) and actually finding parking spaces even for a big car. I think if I were to live in Spain, I would choose Valencia. From Valencia we drove more South... finding more and more palms, deserts, dust... a bit like a different world, spectacular to view, but I think much more difficult to live - especially that we were there in sunny yet mild November rather than really hot times. Finally we reached our destination - Nina and Rafa's house. For a couple of days we had probably the biggest concentration of Pyrsheps on a square meter in Spain... and again I saw that really Pyrsheps communicate with each other much better than with any other breed. We spent a couple of lovely days walking the dogs, playing board games, eating jamon from #AppyPih, sightseeing and relaxing :).
For the weekend, we went to competition near Gibraltar (so of course we had to call it Copa de Africa) and each of our dogs won it in their category :D Brava and Flaszek on Saturday, Evo, Mojo and Zelda on Sunday. Yes, Zelda got to run too as they had a pre-agility competition for young dogs there :D.
Mojo progressed to A2, Flaszek hadn't (A-frame 😝), Brava was back in the game after her short break and boys were perfect as usual. Really fun courses by Zsuzsa Veres and Hugo Santos and lots of fun in general.
After that... we went to take some photos of Africa in the distance.. and slowly started heading back home.
We couldn't resist stopping in Barcelona again for a visit in Pablo Picasso museum and visiting the food market again (and there is still lots of things to see! I want to go back there one day definetely) and then again in the spa in Germany :D to flush some Spanish dust out of our system (I swear I had it in my tonsils until then).
And now we're back home... sun batteries charged a bit for gloomy Polish winter, some new training ideas for all of our dogs... time for a little down time now. Maybe.
If you like - more pictures from our trip under this link.
