We are the champions...

...my friend!

I am so delighted and proud to present the 2nd champion of our kooi-trio:

FI, EE (and possibly SE) ch Mattssons Preety



Last cert from Finland 05/2011 to become Finnish showchampion



Cert from Estonia 07/10 to be upgraded to EE champion



Cert from Sweden 07/09 possibly to be upgraded to SE champion with the new regulations

Freedom!

Spring has arrived - FINALLY! Snow has nearly melted and dogs are all into sniffing the lovely springy-smells. Vast open fields also trigger them to run, run, run! We have paid already a visit to our summercottage, and taken it out of its "winterclothes", so as soon as the days start to be warm enough, we will spend enormous amount of time there. Dogs will get to run free all days and enjoy the woods and lake of the cottage.

The trio goes on well. Anniina has the main responsibility of Adya's training, I get to enjoy the fun and play of our little chick. Adi, as I often call her for short, has now tested agility, obedience and showing. She did so enormously well at unofficial show, where dogs are matched in pairs, and the better one gets red colour, the other gets blue colour. Then the "reds" go on competing against eachother and "blues" do the same. Adi and Aniina got to be 4th of the red ones - well done, congratulations. Adya was surely the yougest contestent! She has also started to lose her teeth, 5 left on the first day - we'll see whether she ends up completely without teeth today! Adi is still very corageous, open and self-confident girl, and both Anniina and myself are very proud of her behaviour and character. She doesn't get frightened and comes to different situations with curious mind and good manners.

We have also enjoyed hiking at the woods. Boys have started their season of human searching, only unofficial way, since we are not in a smallgroup this year. Both remembered it so well, and were all enthusiastic to find the targets from the woods. My talented boys! Pre is still the play-master for Adi, Shanti is on the other hand the groupleader, with calm, self-confident and independet style. The bunch is such a team, joy to the eye!



Shanti has just been practising agility, and also some obedience. Anniina is still thinking of competing with him over this summer, and I surely hope that will happen. Alternatively I will go with him on my own, since I am convinced that he could manage the beginner's class easily. Pre is practising the openclass-movements, and is not yet competig at obedience, hopefully towards the end of the summer he will be ready. Shan has not competed at agi, but Pre has been more active on that field, and he have had about 7 starts this spring. I have now enrolled him to comps at Kuopio, 3 starts in a week's time. I surely hope this time he will get the zero he requires to rise up to a next class. He is also competing for his last cert at shows tomorrow. Cross my fingers he would finally get the cert!

Preety will have also some exciting times ahead, since he will get to pay a visit to his breeder at Sweden in June. Pre will travel with myself and Kooikerhondje Kelmi and his owner Liisa from Milfeddyg kennel. Shanti will probably stay behind, since it is easier to travel with just one boy in my hands. Pre and Kelmi will attend two shows at Sweden, so hopefully both will come back with swedish certs at their backpockets. Pre has already one junior-class cert from Swe, and I am not anticipating the conclusion whether they will credit the older certs for Se ch or not. From this year onwards the dog can qualify to Se ch with one cert at any class (that stays hanging), once it becomes ch in another Nordic country. So we'll see what happens with Pre! Exciting times ahead!

Learning!

Adya has settled in to Finland so well. She seems to be such a corageos, open-minded and happy girl, that is eager to learn new things and meet new people and dogs. Boys have accepted her well, Shanti has strengthen his role as the leader, and doesn't really play with Adya that much, to my surprise. Shanti has been so playful and still plays with Preety every day, but he has a bit different attitude to Adya. He is still behaving so well towards her, but is more calm and adult-like. However, Preety has turned to be Adya's play-master, mainly outdoors though. They run around on the ice and have so much fun together. My boys get to learn dog-language to Adya so well, and she is a fast learner. Shanti hangs out more with Adya indoors, and Preety wants to keep his distance and peace.

Preety and I have compted both at agility and obedience. Obedience went very well, and we won the beginner's class with good 1st class result. So next challenge in that is to learn the commands of the open class, and test competing in it. We have also taken few starts at agility, but still waiting for the last 0-result to rise up to medi2-class. I'm sure it will happen soon. Also, there will be few shows around for Preety to try to get the last cert to become Fin ch (and EE ch on the same go).

Agility we have trained about twice a week, and now Adya has joined agilityhall as well. She loves the few obstacles she has tried, and I am really pleased with her behaviour and attitude. Great chick!

We have also had some kooikermeetings, and Adya got to play with similar-aged kooipup called Romi, who has moved in our town as well. Adya behaved well among the adult kooikers, and they all were so nice to her. We have such a great kooi-group around here. Adya has also med numerous people, and she has been open and happy to learn to know every single one of them.







Manta, Shanti and Preety enjoying eachother's company

Welcome to our bunch sweet Adya (Bonita Laika vd Kooikerhoeve)

Homies

I have been fortunate to get to spend lots of time with boys, since I am unfortunately on a sickie. During this we have hiked a bit, on the ice with snowboots and also at the woods with friends. Now the temperature is rather mild, very nice actually, and you don't freeze outdoors. It has been very cold though, but luckily my boys don't get bothered about the cold weather, and rather hike happily. Since I have now many hours of daylight with the boys, we have hiked about 1,5-2 hours every day. Further, we have actively visited agihall, and boys have trained a fair bit. Pre has developed so incredibly much and it is a pleasure to do agility with him. He is going to be one star! At least to me :) Shanti, on the other hand might have some stiffness, and I need to call a physiotherapist to come and massage and check him out. He hasn't performed that well at our training, but anyway, we have had so much fun.

Boys racing


Preety speeding


The last cert didn't come to Pre from Kajaani INT, nor from small show at Ilomantsi. So we are still searching for it, hopefully will get it during the year. To my eyes he is one nice looking and well-behaving boy, so I don't think it is too hard to get the last certificate from some show. But naturally I am bit biased. After that I think he doesn't really need to attend shows, maybe abroad. We will focus more on obedience and agility. There will be some competitions in a few month on both, which I find very exciting. I will probably compete only with Preety, and maybe later on this year with Shanti.

We have actively hiked with our darling Manta (Cavalriina's U-bitch), and met her nearly every week, sometimes even twice. She is such a good friend to my boys, and it is pleasure to see the trio together, and naturally it is so sweet to chat with her owner, who has become such a dear friend. Manta, Shanti and Preety do get on so well and have toptime together, never arguments. Soon I will get to see Pyry (Wishdecoy R-male), since he attended our smallgroup at agility, with his owner Mari. Pyry is so sweet, can't wait to see him in action. Now it seems that we will train a fair bit of agi, since my sickie will probably last a fair bit.

Kooi-trio, Manta, Preety, Shanti

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: