It looks I have no chances for writing full, nice and interesting note about last few month, so just very shortly. This summer we were in LoLaBuLand on agility camp with Silvia Trkman. What a great time! I'm so happy I was there!!

Raca was my "agility dog", as Una got injured in July and wasn't fully recover (still doesn't :( ). My young kelpie was wonderful :) Silvia helped us a lot, as it is not easy to handle such a fast dog :) Una was great on trick classes, so everyone was happy :)

Few photos

And wonderful video from Slovenia made by Olga's husband:

HERE are photos of my dogs from Slovenia and HERE are all my photos from there :)

Heh, our blog seems to be dead, but I'm happy to announce that finally I rebuilt our web, so Raca became a full member of the site :)

Some more important news:

Raca is one year old! :o The time is passing so fast... She still is sweet child, happy to be cuddled, happy to be close to me, happy about life :) She loves playing with me and she is just sensational  at work. We have started some agility training, just a little bit, but now we have a break as I have some problems with my back and I’m not allowed to run now :( so we are just enjoying walks :D

I made video for her birthday:

Una is close to seven :o still happy to run, sniff, chase, play a ball, play agility :) We know each other inside out :) Anything significant? Yes, we won one day of Qualifications to AWC:



I’m really proud of us, courses (set by Rolf Graber, who will judge AWC!) was pretty tough  - only 15 dogs out of 51 finished both courses :o Una was great :)



And I think that's all ;)



I know that dogs, like people, usually are stronger on one side than on the other - they are "left-" or "right-handed" ("-sided"?). I know. Theoretically ;)

"Theoretically" because I've never really experienced it. I heard many times "probably your dog will do it better on the one side than on the other", but Una did it very similar on both sides. She turns equally well, she does circles equally willingly... If I think hardly about it I can notice that she stays a little bit better on my left side. Just a little bit. And I know it comes from our formal obedience training.

Now everything has changed and I'm moving from theory to practice! - Raca definitely prefers turning left!

If you saw our last video you've seen Raca running around the bottle to get on a plank straightly. She does is very easily, from almost any angle, from quite a huge distance. No problem. But she turns left! When I want her to do similar exercise, but with right turn, she doesn't want to understand the idea ;) and - I can clearly see - she has physical problem with doing nice, smooth turn. So we progress slowly :)

And this is just one example. She also does left circles much smoother, she prefers to be on my right side (so she turns left to look at me), there was even a time when she refused to run around me turning right before I throw the toy (I usually ask dogs to run around me before I throw the toy and I teach dogs to do it from my left to my right and from my right to my left - I taught Raca going around me from right to left (right turn for her) at first and from left to right slightly later - and then she refused doing right turn at all).

I have to say it is very funny (and interesting) to find such a differences between my dogs :)

Ok, I know, I'm not the best blogger in the world... but I'm trying!

So, I think it is high time to introduce new dog in my family:

Her name is Morgans Dream and I call her Raca (what means flare in Polish). She is 5 month old now and she is a kelpie. What can I say more? She is young, crazy and happy about life :) After Una (who as a pup slept 4 hours a day, was running on the walls and wasn't able to concentrate for 1 second) Raca seems to be so easy to handle :) because Raca can sleep whole night and can work with me as long as I ask her to. What a change! :)

She really is a great puppy :) Happy to be with me, happy to play with me, happy to do some puppy work with me but also happy to play on her own when I need to work. In many situation she is actually like an adult dog - she works and concentrate like an adult and she even looks almost like a miniature of an adult kelpie.

But I try to remember that she is just a pup, so most of our "work" is playing tuggy, playing some self-control games and a little bit of clicker shaping. If you want see her "in action" - here you are:

What can I say more? Raca is daughter of Zico (Dragonheart Dark Destroyer) and Zuma (Elfinvale Legend). Her mother Zico is very successful agility dog :) Zuma is young Australian import who also does agility :) You can find videos of them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Zicodarkdestroyer

Thank you for reading!

and see you next time ;)

Snow has come! After long, sunny and quite warm period finally we had some really cold and snowy days. There was even -15 centidegress! Does Una care about it?

Of course not!

We even train in such a weather, but VERY careful. I want to keep it safe :)

Now the snow is thawing :( so probably Christmas won't be white :(

During last agility training we were running with Paula and Wena:

and Manta:

As you can see - the wether was great, sun was shining and (hurray!) Paula can take photos! So we have some brand new agility&tricks photos! :)

Voila:

Agility Una:

Una'a tricks:

And Una's flying :)

happy Una:

and Manta:

We had also great fun playing with weave challenges. When we started doing it we weren't able to stop laughing :) Such a great fun! :) Of course we made a vid:

The Autumn has come... Days are short, weather is changing... it's cold, sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy... We've even seen the first snow already...

Of course Polish Hunting Dog doesn't care :)

Long walk is needed everyday :) so we go for a tramps trough the different areas. Walks are pretty cool now - if the weather is not perfect you won't meet anybody :) Actually this is something I love - to walk trough the middle of nowhere, alone - just with my dog, to hear birds and my own footfalls. And rustling leaves under my foots... Oh, what a pleasure :)

When there is enough rain during the autumn you can see gorgeous colors in Poland.

Ok, do you want to see Una? Here she is:

- trotting

- sniffing

- and RUNNING!

Why is she running so fast? Of course because of the ball! :)

So, between death and life...

...we can still find Polish Golden Autumn...

...and sitting in those colors...

...we wish a very nice day!

During first weekend of October we were competing with Una in Warsaw in final of Polish Agility Cup. We had some nice runs and some bad runs, as always we were eliminated in half of the runs ;) but who cares? Agility is fun and I'm finding running with my dog more and more joyful. Una has become so careful, thinking and reacting dog... it is wonderful to run with her... :)

We had also some successes there and I should say - not so small :) In Agility run on Sunday we got one fault (hit bar), but nice time (actually we had third time in this run, but faster dogs had even more faults than we had) and we were 8th. In Jumping run I chose safer (and slightly slower) way and we had fifth time. But all fastest dog had some faults, so we WON :) I'm very happy, because there was 61 dogs in the class, it is huge number of competitors!

Here is our jumping:

Finally we were fifth in Agility + Jumping and we were also fifth in Polish Agility Cup classification! :D

Unfortunately there was horrible cold (Justyna - thanks for the jacket!) and I had some problems with taking photos ;) however I took some, so here they are:

Have I ever written that I'm not the best blogger in the world? No? So I'm writing it now...!

Some time ago we spent just a great holiday with my friends :) My friends - Hania and Ania - are dog trainers and they have a dog hotel also. Their house is really funny - something about fifteen dogs, sixteen guinea pigs, three cats, parrots... We spent great time together - talking, walking, taking photos, visiting friends and even doing nothing :)

Some holiday photos:

Do you know which one is Una? ;)

Dogs I've met:

Fara - Polish Hunting Dog

Opera - Polish Hound

Kapsel - mix

Mak - Polish Hound

Nutka - Polish Hound

Szyszka - Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Mokra - Miniature Poodle

Kontra - Miniature Dachshund

Afera - American Cocker Spaniel

Aktyn - Polish Hunting Dog

April - Labrador Retriever

Florek - mix

Redek - Border Collie

Hasta - Polish Hunting Dog (Una's half sister)

Droks and Raca - Polish Hunting Dogs

and Raca alone

Hera - Polish Hound

Walks:

And other animals:

Cat

Guinea pig

Thank you girls for a great great time!

Today Una is celebrating her 5th birthday Enybody knows when has it happened?? It was just a moment ago when I was taking small crazy pup, now this crazy pup is 5 yeras old! How it is possible?

We started preparations for Una's birthday in advance:

But in general dogs are not very keen on blowing candles out. They could be very keen on birthday cakes but when you ask Una what she prefers, the answers could be interesting:

- agility!! Let's do some agility, mum!

Ok, honey, I invited trainer from Wroclaw, you will have plenty of agility tomorrow :)

- walk! Take me, mummy, for a long long walk!

- allow me, mummy, to jump through the oats!

- throw me, mummy, please! throw me that ball!

- take me, mummy, please, take me to the SPA!

- mummy... ...mum... ... some perfumes would be great!

Do you think she needs any birthday cakes and candles after such a day?