Doggy Life of S&A »

Off for 3 weeks

Veronica — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:54:09 +0000

On the way to have a great time and a LOT of sunshine!

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Stanley and Alisa latest achievements

Veronica — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:16:06 +0000

Stanley recently passed his Social test. Alisa missed it this year because I never bothered to register her pedigree in Belgium as we didn’t see the need, but as we have found out we need to and it’s taking literally forever to do it here. With this speed I just hope the process can be completed till next spring and test…

Alisa this Sunday, passed the obedience exam from “B” level to “C”. Hooray! On the forth attempt we managed to do it. Even though I tried to stay cool as cucumber I was a bit nervous and (ops) of course I did couple of mistakes which cost us points but we managed to scramble together enough to pass, just.

My next (slightly futuristic) goal for Stanley (later for Alisa too) would be to pass a “Certificate” test with the Belgium kennel club after which you can start to participate in obedience competitions. Ha-ha, that would be the day! I’m very sarcastic about our competition future, but never say never, so we’ll see. After all, the main thing for me with obedience is to have fun with my dogs.

Whistle recall (video)

Veronica — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 20:46:02 +0000

I’m not the best whistler, so I bought a sport whistle some time ago which I use only for emergencies (like at long distances and I want the dogs to come to me immediately). It works really good, though didn’t had chance yet to test it with a “lure” aki rabbits and etc. Doubtful it will work then…

This is actually very typical example how different these two respond to any command in general. Always “Yeah..ok” in-slow-motion Stanley and “YAY!!!” super-eager-speedy Alisa. Though there is a catch – Stanley may be slow but very consistent and reliable and Alisa uh, well… let’s say not always. Though now actually, Alisa is performing most commands much more perfect and faster than Stanley who often needs a little extra correction.

Example in this video – Alisa is always doing a perfect sit right in front of me (the drill I make dogs do when I use the whistle) while Stanley still sometimes keeps misbehaving and trying to bend the rules by doing what he thinks is good enough, like in this video stopping in stand position almost a meter away… Argh!

My weirdoes

Veronica — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:59:51 +0000

Highly sensitive detectors…

Stanley can somehow manage, from a deep sleep in the bedroom on the first floor, to smell or hear that pasta is put to cook on the stove (one floor down and on the opposite side of the house, with the fan working), HOW? Alisa, from the same location, always hears when I’m starting to clean a carrot (nothing else) and within the next few seconds she’ll be sitting silently next to me like a Sphinx attentively watching my every move and waiting to get some.

Both dogs can smell someone else’s lost tennis ball hidden in grass and bushes meters away while often failing to find their own ball if it’s been lost.

Or my mother’s cat Jacky (she was my kitty once upon the time). Her nose is pretty amazing too… occasionally we try to transfer her portion of raw meat from freezer to fridge quietly while she sleeps to have it ready for the next day. But the moment she comes into the kitchen later on she knows right away it’s there… (can she smell it through the fridge door???) And in this household her meat can only be in the freezer or floor level, the fridge is definitely a NO, NO zone, she’ll sit there and wail until it’s taken out.

Just plain weirdoes…

Our nutty kitty Jacky also only eats and drinks from bright yellow colored bowls and dishes… Seriously! We’ve tried throughout the years (she turned 16 this year) to change to other colors or stainless steel, but every time we did she almost stopped drinking and eating, barely touching anything until she would got her yellow stuff back. Believe me, I spent plenty of time searching through shops for yellow bowls and dishes in the right size and shape (not the most popular color I’ve noticed) to change her old stuff. She now has a porcelain plate to eat from and a nice quality salad bowl for the water.

And then there is Alisa who is, when upset, always starting to shred any greenery close by. It’s when she hears a very stern “NO!” or “STOP IT” and very reluctantly accepts it or when she desperately wants get to/at Stanley but can’t, she turns and perhaps just to get rid of her frustration, starts nibbling and ripping off anything green next to her (grass, or anything leafy) not eating mind you, just ripping to pieces. She doesn’t do it indoors anymore (I trained her not too!) but when she was a puppy she did “re-shape” a couple of my plants that was at floor level. Happened before I managed to put 2 and 2 together and could predict when she got upset enough to march towards the plants for a shredding session… she never touched those plants otherwise.

Stanley is the number one “star” here with his absolutely obsessive love of stones… Not the healthiest toy for teeth! He has a few precious ones but any stone, not too big to carry, will do just fine. He’ll hold them in his mouth like a pacifier, carry in the month, dig around them or bury them (hide and find game). And if you kick it he’ll go absolutely bonkers! He can play this game for a very looong time, while playing he’ll disperse a lot of earth. We’ve even talked about to rent him out as a cheap earth-mover whose Manual would read: “Just throw a stone to the spot where the earth needs to be turned and it will be done in just a few minutes”.

There are other small things, like Stanley’s strange love for donkeys or Alisa’s weird stubborn preference to drink water outdoors, even it is the same kind of bowl and the same water that she has indoors (though a bit dirtier).

Probably a lot of dogs and cats have some funny quirks, though none of my previous pets had anything strange with them. Now I have got three silly heads in row, which makes you wonder…

I was slow to do the finishing touches to this post, delayed it for quite a few days as my mind was not on the blog, with our Jacky slowly fading away… I’ve decided to leave the parts about her as they were written at the time.

My little Jacky

Veronica — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:54:32 +0000

At the respectful age of 16 years our kitty Jacky has left us. The last two months she started sleeping more and more and eating less. The doctors said that it was just that her time had come…

At the moment it feels totally surreal thinking that the next time I’ll visit my mother Jacky will not greet me at the door or inspect my suitcase for what yummy things I’ve brought her this time. And there will be no more “fighting” over who sleeps in my bed… no chasing games, no nothing… that I’ll never be able to see or touch her again, ever. She was with us for such a long time … feels like forever. I still remember the day when she as a 2 month old adorable kitten insisted on traveling on my shoulders to her new home. And for the next 16 years she was loved and spoiled beyond imagination. I’m very upset that I didn’t have the chance to say a last goodbye. Me and my mom will miss her terribly.

Later, I will finish the Jacky page which has been under construction for a few years now because I never came around to do it.

These two are my last pictures of Jacky which I took on my last visit in November 2011.

Some problem with plugin or Flickr, here is straight link

Hello Belgium! I’m back :)

Herding videos (going back in time)

Veronica — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:06:23 +0000

Since we still have reoccurring talks about that it would be better if Alisa had some job to do i.e. herding, I’ve told my husband that if he wants it he can do it himself, I’m not going back doing a sort of pointless training with her (we don’t own any sheep just yet, LOL).

I believe Alisa was OK at herding after taking just a few lessons, but she for sure was doing it very different from border collies. I’m guessing our trainer was a bit at a loss what to do with us when I explained how this breed is working, so was I.

I later found out that Icelandic Sheepdogs are considered to have an “upright and loose-eyed style”. And Alisa surely fits to this description perfectly. We can’t turn her into a “strong-eyed” like a border collie and that looks like the style our herding club was specializing in.

Here are Alisa’s four herding videos; the first video was just a very first try to see what herding instincts she had if any. The sheep farmer we found was very kind to help us when we called and asked if we could come and try Alisa. He was as curious as we were to see an Icie herd and after seeing Alisa’s performance he probably still is (LOL). It was far from ideal conditions for her first introduction to sheep (first time for me too!) but at least the man redirected us to a herding club and a friend of his who could help us and Alisa more.

On our first visit (second video) to the club I was totally lost as to what I should do, so the trainer was training me more than Alisa. On the last video I think we both have noticeably improved our skills. But still it was kind of unclear where to go from there… so after some reflection I stopped it. Oh yes, after these lessons Alisa suddenly started to chase motorcycles… though she is now getting better not doing it.

As you’ll see on videos # 2-4, Alisa kept trying to run back to check on my husband. She couldn’t understand what’s wrong and why he is being so far away from us. I suspect that if he wouldn’t be there she would have focused a bit better on the sheep.

I pretty sure that if we would have a proper farm with all kind of animals, Alisa would do just a brilliant job to herd, watch and protect. She is a natural!

P.S. These are old videos, sometimes there can be an error when loading them. It’s nothing wrong with files, but YouTube has a slow response. So just try again if nothing happens the first time.

Few new pictures with wide-angle lens

Veronica — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:53:45 +0000

Spring is here! Everything is blooming, wildlife is very busy (meaning Alisa is now strictly on the leash inside the forest). With all the sunshine and rising temperatures she is already panting almost constantly and Stanley keep “frying” himself in the garden as well as in every sunny spot inside the house. In other words – our normal spring pattern.

At least it is enough light outside to start to play with my not yet much used wide-angle lens in field conditions. Neither the dogs nor I are quite used to it yet or how to make the best out of it. So these pictures are more like a training session for all three of us. The dogs are getting calmer to have the camera so close to them, but I suspect it will take some time until they really feel relaxed about it.

No more agility

Veronica — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:41:48 +0000

I’m always falling behind with writing about stuff happening here and occasionally forgetting them totally. I just realized I never wrote that both my dogs stopped taking agility classes quite a while ago.

With Stanley, who never really had the right spirit for this fast sport, I just reached the point when I stopped enjoying the classes. This despite that Stanley, for being such a late beginner, was doing pretty well with all obstacles and was obviously enjoying the whole experience very much. Even now he sometimes is pulling me in the direction of the agility area! He still remembers and wants it… The problem was that the more experienced he was becoming the more I was pushed by the trainer that I should speed him up, to make him run faster. This is impossible really, it’s just not Stanley’s way – to rush, so a couple of times I ended up screaming at the poor boy to make him go faster and I found it a rather unpleasant experience, it left me with a bad taste of disgust of myself. So I stopped it once and for all.

He can run fast! BUT he only does it when HE feels like it…
You can’t trick or force him.

I’m still a bit sad about all this and even thought about finding another agility school to go and train him at, but after some thinking decided that it was just silly. He is a smart boy but he is not an agility dog, besides, I never was too serious about it, I just wanted to enjoy it and have some fun together with him… apparently not to be.

Maybe I make it sound like Stanley was a guru in agility. Of course he wasn’t, very much a beginner, but he was learning everything incredibly fast, just doing it very slowly in his own leisurely pace!

Alisa on the other hand is of the right stuff for agility, good focus, energy and speed. She, like Stanley, also enjoyed the agility classes! But due to her speed and because she is Alisa, who has moments when she knows better what she want and don’t want to do… was much trickier to train and it would for sure take a lot of time and determination, which I don’t mind. What I couldn’t overcome was the fact that she had to jump 50 cm high hurdles… I believe it is too high, perhaps not so healthy for a dog of Alisa’s size.

And anyway, while the dogs were doing okay in agility, I totally and absolutely sucked. I was getting confused with my hands and body signals, and remembering which order to do the obstacles. Maybe I would have learned too one day…

So now instead of racing between agility and obedience classes with two dogs (was a challenge!) I’m concentrating on one thing – obedience. It is also great fun and a chance to get a good bond with the dogs. Games and cuddles is one thing, to work on obedience is something else and not to say, it can be pretty challenging but that is when all the fun starts.

About our little obedience achievements and future goals I’ll may write some another day.

New ball (video HD)

Veronica — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:29:20 +0000

Have at long last found the battery charger for my little video camera. Took me a while (like 2-3 weeks) and apparently, found out in the meantime, they don’t sell this model in Belgium. Weird.

I don’t think our latest addition to the ball collection will last long, the dogs surely enjoy it!

Who is next to perform?

Veronica — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:03:17 +0000

Looks like our family are on the roll. Yesterday evening while I was with Alisa at the obedience class, my husband was walking with Stanley in the neighborhood as usual. When Alisa and I were finished and came out, the first thing I heard was “Don’t touch him”. Apparently using the darkness to his advantage Stanley, while inspecting an empty property lot, smelled “something” wonderful and rubbed himself thoroughly on this “something.” Unfortunately this “something” appeared to be an oily, smelly substance with a grayish hue. We don’t know what it was, but my “source” said that after Stanley did the crime, he behaved idiotically for the next 10 minutes just like he got “high” on some drug. Probably he was just very happy with himself, but hey, you just never know…

Took a lot of shampoo and some time to wash everything off. It was on top of the head, ears, one side of the face, neck and shoulders, top of his back and up the tail, oh wait that is basically all of him. No pictures though, I wasn’t in the mood for that and (ouch!) neither was Stanley after 20 minutes in the shower.

I’m just wondering how in the world people are managing to live their lives when owning 3-4 dogs and some also have children. To me this is an absolutely amazing feat.

Sticky walk

Veronica — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:49:34 +0000

or Our Nutty family…

You are probably already thinking what Alisa has done this time… Actually nothing and no, it wasn’t Stanley either, it was me.

This event happened a couple of weeks ago, before the “Siberian winter” and snow came…

Part I.

While taking the dogs out for the lunch walk on the field, I thought the weather was nice enough (sunshine) to take the camera with me to try and get a few nice pictures of the dogs. It’s been a while since last.

Everything was going pretty smooth until almost the end when I got the idea to get some shots of the dogs in this (not very wide) water filled ditch along the edge of the farmer’s plowed field.

To get some lively shots of the dogs I started to throw leftovers from the last corn harvest into the water. Now imagine how fast I had to be, throw pieces some distance and not miss the water and then quickly find the best position to get some pictures. Of course I wasn’t getting what I wanted, so I kept trying again and again, when I suddenly saw Stanley standing still in the water, in perfect light, apparently in deep thought about something. The only thing I had to do was to move the camera a bit over the water to get a “perfect” shot. In these circumstances when I’m alone, I only have a split second to act if I want to get it right, so without thinking I did my disastrous move.
Continue reading here…

Alisa wants to play II (video)

Veronica — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:10:13 +0000

A short video clip from yesterday evening showing how Alisa was trying to engage Stanley to play. Here she had a “muffler” (as I call it) which can be any toy, mostly a ball or a stick, then she doesn’t bark as much at him and is not so loud when she does. (Old video of her without “muffler”)

The freezing temperatures are still holding on, but with this sunny weather the snow keeps disappearing anyway. I wish we’ll get some more snow very soon!

A “lovely, quiet” evening walk

Veronica — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:10:15 +0000

I had to walk dogs alone because someone here managed to get sick (grr). This is also an answer to this someone who keeps asking me why this stuff only happens to me. Wrong, it happens to him too, I can remember quite a few times with him coming home from walks totally drained and fuming like I don’t know what… It’s only when we walk the dogs together it is calmer, so much easer to control them (oops wrong, not them, HER!) having 4 eyes to watch and 4 hands to grab.

It was Alisa of course. She was playing like a demon (when snow and minus temperature it’s like she’s on some drug(s)!) and was annoying Stanley who kept refusing to play with her. As a result she was barking at him and everything else almost non-stop. After a while I turned for home before my head would explode.

This is when, while walking back trough the forest, the red haired mischief suddenly without any warning (usually are some signs) took off and in a very bad direction (busy road at that end of the forest). It’s always a gamble to walk with her off leash in the forest in the evenings, though 9 out of 10 times she will turn back when you call her. Yesterday was this one time when she didn’t. There are steep slops, thorny bushes and a lot of trees, so there is no way you can see something or chase after her, your only chance is that she will come back by her own free will.

Stanley as usual understood what had happened and was actively helping to find her. He’s been doing it over and over again through the years! He is absolutely amazing, we never even trained him for it. He just knows what he should do! It was also he who spotted her at the end (I never heard or saw her) by suddenly shooting off inside the forest. So when I called again he came to me together with absolutely drained red-haired hooligan.

When we came out of the forest onto the sidewalk along the road, surprise, surprise, turning the corner from our street further up the road our neighbor came with his two dogs (huge male Beaucerons). I don’t know if there are any issues with them, they’ve never shown any signs of aggression but he always keeps them on extremely short leash and never allows them to get close to other dogs. As a result Alisa has never managed to say proper hello to these dogs so she is barking at them every time she see them.

The man was kind enough and stepped aside a couple of meters inside the bushes to give us more space to pass and holding his fellas tight, who were becoming a bit agitated, why? Because Alisa just wouldn’t shut-up! As I was passing him I turned my head and gave an apologetic smile and then turned to Alisa to say another hopeless “quiet” and that is when all hell broke loose.

It all happened in a few crazy seconds. I suddenly had a flash of something big and black landing just behind Alisa’s back. It was so sudden that I made a little shriek, my dogs got startled, all this made the black dog (it was a dog!) freak out too and did a side leap into the air and ended up on the road. Luckily he wasn’t hit by a passing car and no car accident occurred either after that car swirled to avoid him. On top of this there was also a Jack Russell terrier dancing around between all of us. These sudden newcomers came from a house next to the road, for the last 3 years I’ve never seen them come outside the property, ever!

I did a quick glance over my shoulder while rushing away from all this and saw the Jack Russell standing very close to the by now very excited Beaucerons and our neighbor pressing his dogs down on the ground with his body, he was literally almost laying on top of them! This is actually why, even if I’m a big fan of some big size breeds, I never had one and never will. I don’t have enough body weight to hold them if needed.

Today Alisa was on the leash in the forest all the time and she was so calm, quiet and so well behaved, just an innocent angel. Makes me wonder if everything that happened yesterday was just a figment of my imagination.

Yippee!

Veronica — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:12:49 +0000

I was in middle of creating a long post for the blog (keep trying to make it shorter), when Hurray the snow at long last came to Belgium! So sorry to say, I have abounded everything for the moment because we are extremely busy here having FUN!

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Blog changes. POLL: public or privet?

Veronica — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:20:44 +0000

Maybe some changes will come, still looking at pro and cons of this decision.

I’m seriously thinking of making this blog sort of privet. Only registered users approved by me will be able to read it. Not too much hassle I hope, especially if you will not overcomplicate your password of course, like for example I usually do…

The big plus with this is that I can post things that I’m not too keen on to be open to all the public to see or read; post the best of my favorite pictures, that I now usually avoid doing; more videos… And anyway, since I think we don’t have that many readers, I don’t think anybody will notice if we will go “underground”.

In case of new or some unknown (to me) readers of our blog they’ll have to drop me an email to introduce themselves before I’ll approve the registration. Of course our few existing subscribers wouldn’t need to do that.

I’m not having any state secrets here, so maybe it is too drastic change… Well… I already have my husband voting against this idea and me for it. Besides it feels like I need a bit of feedback to see if all my time and energy I’m spending on the Blog is worth it (it does take some).

So, what do You think?

To make it easier for you, here is a poll. Everyone’s opinion will stay discrete and the result will be only for me.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to do the poll. Cheers!

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Still here…

Veronica — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:19:59 +0000

Hello, was it a long silence in our blog or what? Though I’m not sure if somebody were missing us, expect for my husband of course who was bugging me for quite a while with “when, will you write something?” and then even he gave up.

I had some problems here and now when everything seems getting back on track (knock on wood), hopefully very soon I will be back with our silly doggy “news”.

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Stanley says Happy Halloween!

Veronica — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:01:28 +0000

Stanley took matters into his own paws and got ready for Halloween. Looks like he intended to be a skeleton or a ghost. Pretty good job he did, though we were ruthless and washed away all his good intentions (it was not oil paint luckily).

It was by no mean an accident, on the walk when he was passing by this freshly painted garden stone wall (which we at that point was not aware of) he first sniffed it and only then he did properly rub himself against it.

Isn’t our boy a dog of taste and artistic talent? Perfect execution and I think he looks rather dashing in white.

Alisa wet and dry

Veronica — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:31:00 +0000

It takes time to wash her properly (we don’t do it often). It takes nearly 15 minutes just to make her all wet through, she is soooo water resistant and when you think she is wet enough you turn to take the shampoo, she shakes and all your “wetting success” disappear in a second and you have to start all over again. Isn’t it a great fun to wash furry dogs?

and a bit later…

When I see her wet I think that we for sure need to feed her more, she kind of looks too skinny. Alisa though thinks it’s a perfect weight for her, since I noticed that when ever she’s going over her usual 14 kg she starts to do this eating strikes and cuts off her meals (even favorite treats!) until she drops back to her perfect 14 kg limit. It’s kind of funny see her strict diet controlled approach compared to Stanley who is totally obsessed with food and ready to eat anything, anytime, day and night. Not Alisa, our pretty girl surely cares about her thin waist and good looks. LOL

“Off to England… “

French vacation 2011 (video)

Veronica — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:03:03 +0000

Back from our vacation. We rented a little house outside a small village in Normandy, close to the D-day beaches and once again we were lucky with the weather (like last year on German vacation). It was sunny most of the time, almost no rain (these days it’s a rare thing) so we and the dogs had really a great time, pity it was too short – again.

The house had a big perfectly rectangular shaped fenced in garden. Now I wish we had something like that here, it would easily fit an agility course and still have space left. At least Alisa could run after the ball at full speed without the danger to end up with her head in the bushes or fence.

Of course Stanley, with his normal good timing, managed to lick up a really bad wound on his back leg just before the trip, so half the vacation we had a none-stop battle with protective collar and all the bandaging, which he persistently was trying to get rid of. And of course as usual on travels’ Stanley was loonier and weirder then ever and Alisa was a very calm and well behaved dog next to him (except when beach time) which is all becoming quite a typical pattern for us.

We did have one little episode when I at a Sunday market in a fishing village were looking at pretty table cloths. Alisa suddenly decided that she wanted to make her personal suggestion and placed her front paws on the one of her “choice”, leaving two big nice prints (it had been raining at night)…. so what could we do but to buy it for her Luckily it was only a €40 napkin and not a €150 table cloth. Strange she did it, she never ever tried anything like that before so I wasn’t even thinking to be careful, but yeah, with dogs never say never…

Alisa also cut her food intake right from the start to one meal, breakfast wasn’t needed apparently. It’s not the first time she is doing that when we travel. I have no idea why, I mean with the double/triple amount of extra activities she gets you would think she would be constantly starving, nope. Weird.

Well, the dogs totally exhausted their energy reserves; they had long morning walks to the bakery, road trips with walks until late afternoon, followed by beach playing with the low tide, no time for long day naps. So by the end of the week they were sleepy all the time.

Here is a bit of video and just a few pictures out of a ton I made from the trip…

And Alisa just had her birthday, she is 4 years old now!

Tracking the tracker…

Veronica — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:51:44 +0000

Yeap, she did it again. We probably got a bit more grey hair and lost a few months of our lives when our Icelandic Bloodhound decided she had to do a bit of scent tracking and went off despite our disagreement.

The thing was that we suspected right from the start of the walk that this might become one of Those days… with Alisa acting utterly loony and nearly jumping out of her skin, bursting with energy. And did I not say to my husband that perhaps we better keep her on the leash, instead to do so I tried to keep her mind focused on the ball and Frisbee (felt sorry to keep the hairball on the leash). But that is very much like playing Russian roulette and this time to no surprise it didn’t go well.

Continue reading here…