Happy New Year :)

I am loving the end of the year nearing. Just one more day to go. You know how sometimes the New Year seems to sneak up and scare the crap out of you? This year it seemed to come at just the right time. I loved taking the time to reflect on 2013 over the weekend and I think I came to terms with what this year was all about, with what it came to teach me and the kind of experiences it left behind. I acknowledge the point at which I stand, with all the successes and failures, the happy and the sad memories now behind me. I am at peace with 2013 and I let it go.

I hope you have done the same and that you will allow yourself to dream about what 2014 might bring. Or in the words of our former prime minister:

“Nocoj so dovoljene sanje, jutri je nov dan.”
(Tonight is the time to dream, tomorrow is a new day.)

Bring on the 2014! Happy New Year everybody!

Training For Attitude

After a short bout of winter temperatures and frozen ground we have warm weather again so we used it for some agility training. And again I’m incredibly proud of my Java. Possibly too proud of her, like a parent who is proud that her toddler has learned how to walk – as if that was a special accomplishment and not something all healthy children learn in due time. But hey, it feels good to be proud of her so you’re stuck with this post 🙂

As you know we started working on Java’s teeter. We don’t train it much (usually just a few reps before we run a sequence), but at least now I remember to do it. I was avoiding it because I wasn’t confident that I can keep her confidence (screwed up, huh?) and kept postponing teeter work. But enough is enough, avoiding teeter isn’t going to help Java’s confidence either, so we dived in. I am happy to report that I have failed to scare Java so far! 🙂

Hippa

Java’s beautiful sister Hippa

I am very behind on my blog reading, so I only just learned today that Java’s litter sister Hippa debuted in lure coursing, won and took Best In Field – all in her first competition! This is really amazing achievement and we are very proud of little Hippa, even though we didn’t have anything to do with her success 😉 Hippa lives in Finland and will compete in racing and (of course) lure coursing. Can’t wait to see what the next season brings!

Awesomesauce

Thank goodness for videos! I just went through videos of Java’s training over the last ten days, thinking we haven’t really done much as we have been just mucking around with this and that. Ha! Who did all these awesome things then?

Winter Is Coming

I love this winter! If every winter would be like this – dry, not really freezing, and sunny – I wouldn’t mind at all. Sure, the real cold is still coming, but I’m enjoying what we have right now. Plus, the shortest day of the year is almost here and then the days will start growing longer again. What’s not to like 🙂

Unplugged

Hello there, long time no see… it wasn’t you, it was me.
For more than a month I completely unplugged myself from the blogosphere. You probably noticed I stopped posting, but you didn’t know I stopped reading blogs as well. Darkness. Internet Middle Ages, pre-Gutenberg.

The reason?

In October Ruby fell off the dog walk and sprained a toe. Then a few days later I was clipping Java’s nails and found she had injured a toe as well. It was big, but didn’t hurt and I couldn’t think of when it happened since she wasn’t limping at all. I was asking myself how could I not see when it happened? Or perhaps it’s not recent since it doesn’t seem to hurt her. And again the question was how did I not notice it???