Winter Wonderland

Can't believe it is nearly Christmas. Time just files by! Boys and I have been busy training agility and obedience. Just last monday Pre and I competed, and had so much fun. You can see the videos at www.kooikerit.vuodatus.net . First one the result was 2, with 5 faults, the second track was a fail due to wrong end of the tunnel. Anyway, we had TOPTIME, and my small Pre is just like a lamb, jumping over obstacles. He is so funny!

Further Pre has chased his last Fin cert to become Fi Ch, but the chase is still on. Next shows will be at Kajaani INT and Ilomantsi Group in January 2011. Let's hope the best.




I went to Holland for clubshow, what an interesting event. The top result was naturally the won of my Shanti's halfbrother Koda "Calltiris Hidalgo Erminia". Well done. Other Finns did well too, and it was so nice to see the good quality of our kooikers presented at the show. Further, it was great to spend some time with friends and make new ones! Thank you all for memorisable moments.



The day after the show was a breeding seminar, mainly focused on auto-immune-related diseases and ENM. So incredibly interesting to hear specialist's opinion on our delicate breed. I got to represent the Finnish breeding comittee, which was an honour. I marked down detailed notes, that probably will later on be published. They also handed us the new breed standard, that had altered a good bit, mainly improvements on previous standard.



The big event of the showyear is the Winner 2010 at Helsinki. I enrolled Shanti, but unfortunately become so sick, that I couldn't attend. However, Anniina took Shanti on a train and they are going to the ring tomorrow. What a WONDERFUL handler I have in my dear goddaughter. Wish them luck for tomorrow!

Bit of an older pic of the boys, but haven't gotten any from this winter yet :)

Autumn-acitivities

Shanti and Preety have had enjoyable time with their 2nd master, my brother, who has been completing his finals at school, and therefore has loads of free time to hike in the woods. My boys have been lucky to get approximately 2 hours of hiking nearly every day. Luckily the weather has been just the best, and they have explored several tracks nearby. Boys are just getting better and better on, now when they are both adult and rather mature. They tend to play every day, indoors it is mainly vocal, not that physical otherwise, outdoors they spring-tunr-jump-fly all the time. Look at the pictures!





and finally...Absolute Monsters




...turning into sweet buddies


It is such a joy to see the boys' relationship developing. They are so different in many ways, yet they rely on eachother in so many cases.

We will have some shows coming up. Next weekend we will travel to our spaniel clubshow at Hyvinkää. We will travel in kooi-company with handsome boys Tico and Pyry. Preety will also have another INT show at Jyväskylä later on in the autumn. Shanti, in turn will visit the ring at our big Vinner-10 show in December. Hopes for Pre's last cert are in the air, but probably will need to wait till next year to make that true. But you never know. At Jyväskylä we will meet a judge who gave out a course on showing dogs. Anniina and I attended, and got several important and handy tips on how to present your dog in a best possible way. It is impressive what a qualified and experienced judge can say. Luckily she knows kooikerhondje rather well, so we also heard how she wants to see kooiker presented in the ring. Need to remember that at Jyväskylä!

Agilitywise we aren't doing too cloriously, since currently I am relying on croutches every 2nd day. We will change agility small group this season, and the first time we will see the new group is next week. That is exciting, as always. Hope to get at good season and athmosphere in the group.

I found a lovely programme on my computer, and tested it immediately on agilityvideos. Unfortunately the quality on youtube is not that good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C3cZeQ1Kkc

This one is just a collection of the old-school training with Shanti and I (when I was able to spring a little bit)

This one is beginnings of our paragility-career, one year ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU__8TDfWpo

Alternatively you can search kooikershankarit at youtube, and you should find these videos.

We have proceeded bit with paragility, but the training is slow and since I find it so difficult to even walk at times, we have long breaks in between.

Pre and I have continued obedience, and once he is certain with his 2mins of staying, we will start competing. He is so good and rather reliable in it! Shanti does really well with Anniina too, and they are one talented couple!

Some more autumny-pics to enjoy:

holidays-over

Oioioi, lovely, warm and relaxing summer is over, and everydaylife has begun. I might be the only sad one to finish holidays, boys might be thinking: Finally she is out! We can relax! At least they will get more rest and sleep when I'm not at home. Summer was full with activities, but mainly we managed to take it easy, and enjoy the heatwave at our summercottage. Boys got plenty of free-running, since they can be all free at the cottage. Pre swam a lot, and Shan practised it too, but not as eagerly as Pre.

After the trip to Estonia we brifly visited kennel Muskettikoiran and learned to know two small pups. They were imported from Manusia's and are now called Alex and Tytti. Sweeties!



Then, what a week - when we drove back home, it was already my darling friends waiting to spend a few days with me. Since Pre and Shan had a confrontation in Estonia, and a bitch could have built a tension between the boys, I decided to leave other one at my bro's care. So Shanti got to enjoy the sweet company of Dina-kooiker. We had top time with the family, visited beautiful Koli, a natural park nearby





Shanti and Dina were the bestest friends, and they got on brilliantly. Dina is sister to our dear friend Manta, and Shanti is always head over heels about her, so that might have an influence. Shanti and Dina had chemistry, and it was so much fun to see them working, playing and hanging out together.

On the last day of the family's visit we organised kooiker-agility. There were Tico and Hilppa among us. Mari also paid a short visit with Pyry earlier, just to show Pyry to the family.

Hilppa is going to be such a great agi-girl!


Shanti and Darl-Hilppa


On the same week I got a nice visitor when Liisa came over with Kelmi and Lempi. So nice to spend a day with them. Liisa is such a adorable person and her dogs are just the sweetest ones!

Charming Kelmi at our cottage


Some important agility-news must be told here! I finally gathered my courage and enrolled Pre to compete for his fist agitracks at Kuopio last weekend. He did so well, even when I can't run at all. I walked through the tracks and my little mand did all the work. Eventually he did 0-track and won the comp. Even better, out lovely Tico become 2nd with 0-track. What a great competition. We also saw Shanti's family: daughter Pimu and fiancee Beta. Shanti's future fiancee Fayza was there too (how can it work out in the dog-world so easily!?! Girls were perfectly ok with eachother :) )Further we came across very small Zelda (7,5 weeks) and Rocky who came to compete to medi2. Tico had a great day, he is now competing at medi2, congrats Kati and Tico! Pyry's owner Mari was there too with her springer Ainu. They got to the 2nd class as well, well done!





Saija videotaped all tracks, so hopefully she will upload them soon. More pics of the comp and from summer in my next writing!

Showstars!

We had a lovely trip to hot Estonia over the weekend. More about it all and other activities in next writing.

Shanti is now Fi, Se, EE ch and C.I.B. (unconfirmed yet byt the FCI). Shanti did so well, being BOB for both days, earning cert and cacib. Further, on sunday we stayed for the groups, and he was BIG4. On both days the BOS was Shanti's fiancee Fayza, congratulations Saija and Fay. Saija was organising the whole trip so deep thanks to her, without her this trip wouldn't have come true!!!

Pre got his cert on sunday, so he will eventually be EE ch once he gets his certs from Finland :)











And please tell me how to make pics work on this, since I cant fit Pre's face nor alter the size of the photo, but by clicking on it, you will see the full picture!

Summer-Fun

Summer and a great heat-wave has arrived. We have spent most of our days at the summercottage, next to a lake. Boys love living there, so many activities, pure freedom and endless playing. Here are some pics from our days:

My handsome boys


Cottage-agi by 5-year old


Play!


Play-Play!


Play-Play-Play!


Play-Play-Play-Play!


Myself and Shanti


Pre kissing Aada


Aada and Shanti


Anniina and Preety


We are going to have exciting weeks ahead, in a week's time we will have kooikerhondje clubshow at Riihimäki. Both of my boys are attending. On the following day Shan will FINALLY get to try 3rd class agility (he has gained the access already over a year ago, but my bummered knee has restricted our competitions). Shanti's littlebrother Koda will attend too, and Koda's owner has generously promised to quide Shan through tracks. One of them will be kooikeragilitych.track, so exciting!

The weekend following our clubshow will be spent at Estonia, we will travel with Fido and Fayza-kooikers, and both of my boys will attend the shows. Other one is Int and other is Nat. So hopefully some certs available for us :) Directly after the Estonian trip we will have lovely visitors, Dina-kooiker from Tampere will come and stay for a few days with us. Together with Dina will come her family, my dear, darling friends. I can't wait! We are hopefully having some kooiker-walks, meetings and agility. Probably go to Koli for a hike too, among kooi-friends.

Today is the birthday for Preety's breeder Yvonne. Happy birthday Yvonne, love you!!! Kram och Puss!

Photodiary

Summer has boosted up our activities, and we have an active week behind. Last weekend we had the show and met Fayza and Fido:

Boys did some human-searching in the woods on Saturday. Dear friend Saija was the target, always getting lost in the woods!

Sending Pre to search


Pre ran bullet-straight and found Saija immediately


Shan being sent to the target


And after work is the time for play:
Shan greeting Fayza


Posing before playing (Shanti+Fay)


Free-running by Fay-Shan


Free-running by Pre-Fay


On sunday Pre attended the show and did nicely. Pre with his cacib and res-cert


I had to leave my boys behind and travel to north to work at Oulu for two days. I naturally contacted Monica, the breeder of Estaika's and asked if we can meet up. Monica showed me some lovely parts of Oulu by foot. After that we went at his dad's to play some cards (learned a top new cardgame), and finally drove at her place to pick up Gipi (GIJS V.'T HUIS TEN BILDT) and Misty (ESTAIKA'S MILLENIUM MIST)





While I was at Oulu, Annina had enjoyed our Obedience with the guidance of my friend Marja-Leena. (it was my turn to be the conducter of the training, luckily I got Marja-Leena to help me out!)

Boys got to run and swim (and pose) at the nearby forest:


And walked on the benches of lake, and met their friend Lysti on the way:


On Friday it was time for agility. Both boys did so well, I got some good instructions from our small team, how to improve distance-agi, since currently I still can't run at all.

Yesterday we met up Ella and Kaisa, went to the ruins and did some human searching and obedience. All of the dogs did well, Pre was again workaholic, did so well. Shan did also very eagerly and well. Ella did the thing for the first time and she is so promising in it! After that we did obedience (all following photographs by Kaisa Jalava):

Pre heeling (and staring at my hand - need to do something about that!!)


Ella and Pre taking their 2mins staying


Pre concentrating


After work, the gang got to run free, play with the sticks and together, and naturally pose, again :)


Thank you Kaisa and Ella for the lovely 3-hours acitivityboost!

Today Anniina will take care of the boys, and we will got to see local agilitycompetitions. I will work the 2nd class competitions. After that we might take a hike at the woods, that is near the place. Let's hope some nice, sunny weather! I hope I get to race with the boys soon, but currently my knee doesn't allow it. Luckily there is some hope in the form of Para-agility, that might develope further in a near future in Finland!