October news

It's been a while since our last report, but as usually that doesn't mean nothing has been going on in Groenenland. On Sunday, 12.10., the last RO trial this year was held; the Waffle and I fought against very good competitors once again. And won! For the second time in a row! This time I was really sure we didn't work that well and that our Croatian colleague, Tanja, deserved to win, but after seeing our video I realized we didn't do that bad at all. I would still deduct more points than the judge did and I still think that Tanja should have won, but I have traumatized about it enough at the trial, now I'm just hapy about our success :). The second big surprise was at home, when I took a look at our working booklet and realized our qualifications this year were disqualification, second place and then two first places. I didn't remember we were that good this year and I was even more happy about it because we were fourth alltogether this year, even though we attended only 4 trials out of 7.

On the 18th Sambo and I went to the last agility trial this season, where we enjoyed the nice weather and good company. A few days after that Gregor left us as he wanted some more vacations (and a break from us, probably), so he went to Morocco for a month. So, Sambo and I moved to Orle to guard the house, where I'm having a crash course in starting a fire and Sambo is making friends with the village dustmen and postman. But Sambo isn't the only one with a new friend… More about it next time.

This weekend we went to the last two shows this year. On Saturday we went to our international show in Vrtojba, where I worked as a ring steward and handled Bina, while Sambo and Ula competed in JH, where they were 5th. On Sunday we went to Zagreb to the Croatian specialty for BSDs. Sambo was entered into champion class, where he got an excellent, then we competed against the male from open class and won, and after that with our friend Essa, won again and so got CAC, club champion and BOB. After the judging of the Malis Sambo competed against the BOB male for the BISS title. The victory of the local dog wasn't a surprise, even though the judge's argumentation for it was very far-fetched to say the least. But this is part of the game and certainly not a reason for bad mood. Another reason to keep our spirits high was an older couple who came to me after the judge's decision and started appologizing for it, saying something like that should never happen, and I came from so far away, and how could the judge do that, how could that dog beat Sambo… They were certainly more disturbed by it that I was and I thank them for their kind support. At the end they did a competition in handling, so the presentation of the dogs was what was evaluated. Sambo and I won, to the great satisfaction of the above mentioned couple, so we got another trophy. I think such a competition is a very nice and useful decision as most exhibitors don't frequent to shows and don't know how to behave in the ring or show their dogs properly. A correct presentation of the dog makes the judge's work much easier and it certainly looks much better than a handler, lost in space, with a wild mustang jumping all over the ring. My compliments to the organizers, I truly hope they will keep up this kind of education in the future.

And so our competitory season has come to an end. We fought in agility and loved it, we fought in Rally Obedience, where we did amazingly well, and we fought in the show ring, where we also kicked some ass, and much younger, may I add. But now Sambo has to fight another fight; he will undoubtedy fight well and I believe he will win this one too. Sambo was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of November, a nasal tumor to be specific. Apparently it is not the kind of tumor you should aspire to have – they are malign in 90% of the cases and almost impossible to operate; the good news is that we discovered it at an early stage, so I hope and believe that we will be able to cure it. Right now I'm gathering info, making the arrangements for biotherapy and in a couple of weeks we'll decide what to do.

Greetings to all Belgian lovers out there from me and the blackster, who's enjoying muddy walks and cuddling by the fire. And to finish, here's some pics of our 3 day weekend in Bovec from the beginning of October

Take care, Urša and Sambo

Even though I had serious back problems I decided to do some hiking – and so we went, in an absolutely beautiful sunny day, and came into a totally cloudy area where you could barely see the tip of your nose…



One minute of sun!





Sambo and Essa