Polona's

They are here… black little bears. In the night from 3. to 4. 11. Kiša delivered 6 tiny little pups. 5 boys and one big loud girl.  They are little over 4 weeks old now, and getting cutter by the minute… Kiša was so big in the end, I was honestly expecting a whole bunch of pups. I was curious how she will respond to the motherhood, and I have to say she surprised me in a good way. She is a good mum, but is not obsessed by motherhood. It was very interesting to see how her instincts have just kicked in… Anyway – i think pictures will tell you more than my words so – enjoy.

Here is before:

And after:

The nicest little bouquet..

 

So it happened. We were making puppies. Kiša was mated with a wonderful fellow named Rex, and I am already anxious as hell…

We decided to breed Kiša because of her exceptional working abilities. She turned out to be a great mixture of her parents, as she inherited versatility from her legendary mum Miška Certisa and furiosity from her father Mawlch Grom. That means she can basically do whatever you can think of and she can do it in a great style. Kiša`s first and main activity is agility. This year she competed in a highest level, she has qualified for European Open where she achieved some nice results.  (3rd best time agility individual, 5th in jumping individual, sadly no luck in finals). But agility is not the only sport she is good at. She passed BH test and IPO 1 with 97/100 for protection work, which tells pretty much everything about her drive. I try to use every opportunity to work with sheep. She has good instinct, but lacks more training. Even though she had almost no experience with Frisbee, she won mini distance challenge at the only competition in which she has ever competed. For the purpose of 1. Croatian sheepdog championship I have started to train her for area search, and she showed lots of potential. She has the ability to work independently, and huge motivation for searching. Well, enough about Kiša…

Rex is a full time farm dog with an amazing character. He herds as well as protects his stock, even fighting a wild boar away when needed, but in his free time, he is the sweetest fellow you can imagine. He has already produced some nice puppies, including my all time favourite Satan:

 

and “my” beautiful Kora:

 

One thing I absolutely love about Rex is that you can see the cleverness in his eyes. For me he is a prototype of the real working dog. A real modest worker, his owners right arm. Seeing him and his sons in their environment was a very memorable experience for me. Not only I was stunned by their looks, I was also fascinated with their behaviour. There was not a sign of any nervous or shy behaviour. They owned the place and greeted us like friends.

Obviously Kiša shares my opinion, or she is simply a little “slut” , since she was more than happy to participate in making the puppies. Like everything she does, it was done fast, not so furious though… love does funny thing to people and dogs.

 

Oh, and if you are looking for some place nice to travel… google Rastoke Croatia. Not only that they have fabulous HO, the nature in also stunning!

If the mating was successful, we are expecting puppies in the beginning of November. Pups will be available for working homes only, and breed under Mawlch kennel.  (owned by a dear friend of mine Alen Mareković) For more info, contact me: polona.bonac@gmail.com or Alen: alen.marekovic@zg.t-com.hr

With a slight delay, but I am sure she won`t mind. Happy birthday, my furious, furious dog, who thinks she can do it all… Since I did not take her to protection trainings in LOOONG time, I am quite sure how to make her happy for her B-day…

Exactly 5 years from now, a smile was born. And a very catchy one. Carried around by a dog, with the biggest heart, the prettiest face, and a firm believe that the whole word is there to enjoy it. A dog that won me in a second and my big dream come true. Happy birthday Šaj, and please, keep smiling for ever!



So, where should I start…??

I miss the childhood, when one week was looooooooong, and anything further than that seemed like it is never going to happen. Now it seems like it is a new month almost every other day…

So, what`s up?

It is probably best if I continue from where I have left off – my Rieden fiasco. After a while, when I was finally able to actually watch the videos from the AWC, my friend Neja made me a special gift – a video which compares Šja`s run, with La`s who finished 4th in the end. La was not in the best shape that day, but the video shows just how perfect Šja`s run was, and it also shows that 1s on top of La`s time would mean the podium for us. Not that it matters now, but from a big distance it feels kind of good…

Šaj and Kiša however are no longer in age where they can be called young and inexperienced. To some degree that can be seen in their performances; finally each of them was able to get a video with successful runs, not only bloopers…

But they are still a HUGE work in progress. Šaj gain a lot of speed, and as usual, it is super cool to run her, even though it is not as easy as it used to be. The biggest problem we have is her handler/obstacle focus. She is normally very very very handler focused, if there is a 10cm gap between the obstacle and me she can squeeze in to avoid the obstacle, if only she gets the slightest hint that I would like her to come (usually I want her to come over the jump though, but hey, she is really not meticulous ) On the other hand she manages to be disqualified where no one else does. I am sure she would came if I called, but since she took the jump that no other dog even saw, calling my glue-ish dog just didn`t crossed my mind.

Kiša – well, the problem of Kiša is, that she seems to lack the normal mode. She can either be extremely fast, but with bars all over the floor or eliminated, or she can be super smart, almost quiet, and really careful with bars, so in the moment I am more or less in a desperate mission to find the optimal Kiša. Fast, but yet focused and calm enough to actually listen to what I have to say. I will have to figure something out on competitions, because trainings are whole other story, but luckily the season is about to start…

It would be cool if they qualify for the EO, AWC seems a little distant at this point…

In November I have participated on IPO competition. Šaj was only competing in obedience (BH program), and Kiša debuted in IPO1.  Šaj did it in her style, her obedience was pretty much flawless, but of course there is me. I forgot that dogs have to be on a long leash during the long down exercise, and I never train that, so when I was exchanging my leash for the long leash, she got distracted, and lifted her elbows from the ground for a while. She got 97 points in the end, which was enough for 2^nd place. Kiša got 96 for obedience, and she really amused the public with it. Her obedience is very energetic and fast, but when I looked at the video, I couldn’t really be satisfied. Her heeling was one big mess; she was very crocked, leaning on my leg, and of course – there was lots and lots of barking. I was very pleased with tracking. She got 90 points on a really hard surface. I was sure she won’t even make in through, but there is nothing better than a pleasant surprise. In protection I made a very stupid handling error, and it really affected her work. I was sending her towards the blind from a totally wrong spot (don`t ask me how that is possible…) so before she got to the helper, she was totally nervous already. When she gets nervous, she doesn`t think anymore, so her bites were strong and calm, but not full (except for one), which lead to 83 points, and 4^th place all together. Not bad for a 14 kg dog in a “big league” anyway.

I got the opportunity to participate at another Mia Skogster seminar, and I loved every second of it. Mia is a great trainer with awesome feeling for the dog, and a great person to hang out with. Along with the crew from ŠKD Ajdovščina, we had some laughs to remember… The seminar gave me a big inspiration to train obedience again, and I am happy to announce that the first results are showing already, so the next update just might be about obedience.

And…

… more about that next time

So here it is… our New-Years card.

So our Rieden experience did not end well at all. Our final run (individual agility) came to an end before Šja even got the chance to take the obstacle number three. Instead of her I took that obstacle – obviously not on purpose so I crashed over the dog-walk, landing on my face. The moment it happened, I only had one thought in my mind: »get up and show the world what little Šja can do.« So I finished the run. And it was simply perfect. That probably only contributes to my sadness. I don’t normally cry over a dq, even on big competitions. Hey it is agility, the line between dq and a perfect run is as thin as it gets, but this time, tears were just poring from my eyes and I couldn’t stop them. Even at this point I don’t know if it is worse to believe that luck has left me for good, or that I simply don’t have what it takes. The fact that it was just a cherry on top of a horrible, horrible year doesn’t make things easier, but hey, life goes on. And my gang makes sure my tears dry out.

Little miss charming…

… never fails to surprise me. I can hardly remember days when she was a sensitive little thing. Now she is my little star, running like a maniac, thinking like a brainiac, keeping her head cool even when a terrier tries to attack her just before the start.

My »poker face« dog…

…makes sure my life is never boring. And well… is her smile catchy or what?

And last but not least – my workaholic…

… who’s only motto is »when you work hard enough, you don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself«. I decided to follow hat motto, so I am very busy with my studies, my puppy class students, obedience class and training my dogs. (More about that next time)

The fabulous pictures were taken a week after the AWC on Slovenian cost, by a very very talented young photographer and my formal agility student Maja Rokavec. Sea, sun and a good company is just what you need when you feel down, so Maja, thanks again for a great day.