Lotus gone & back!!!!

Last Monday I went to the ridinghall where I use to have classes every Monday, very nice as usual :o). After that I went to my hometown to leave all the papers for 2009 to my auditor. On the way back on Tuesday I stopped at my cousins place for a visit. We went for a walk in the wood with all our dogs. We were the first to walk there so the snow was deep, good for Zaa but a little bit hard for Lotus. He did it fine and hold close to us all the time.

We hold a little paus and Lotus were standing close to my cousin, the we went on through the snow. After 2,5 minutes (I measured the time later) I find out that Lotus was gone. He doesn't hear so well anymore so I ran back to look for him. It was almost dark but he had a little light in his collar, couldn't see him. We thought he had went to the small road and back to my cousins house so we went out again. Back home, no Lotus!!!! Went back to the wood and drove around to look for him. No dog, no sound, nothing!!! We started to call a friend who is police, she helped us with some numbers and people we could call. Soon their came a searching-dog and more people to help us. We looked for him the whole night without any results... I was so frustrated and if it wasn't for all nice people that helped me I would have got total panic. At 5 am we went in for some rest and to organize the work for the morning.

We started a facebook-group, called radio, newspapers, printed messages to hang up in the village, called people, knocked on doors and put a reward of 500 Euros for the one/ones who could found him. Not a sign, no one had seen him... :o( I had hundreds of terrible thought wath could had happend and my worst scenario was if we would NEVER find him...!! At last I just had the wish to find him, dead or alive... We decided to start two organized searching rounds at 11 am and 3 pm. When we all met at 11 and get out of our cars there came a young guy out from the forest... with Lotus in a tiny roope...!!!! We couln't belive it, Lotus was back, alive and healthy!!!! :o) The happiness was total and we all attacked the young boy Max and old Lotus with hugs and kisses!! What had happend, where had he been???? Max told us that he went up in the woods (as he knows pretty well) and tried to find some tracks... he went through the deep snow about three kilometers in to the wood and there he found Lotus, walkning away from where we came..! He was lost, totally lost and I think he just walked at random, totally in the wrong direction. But our hero Max luckily came and saved my old Lotus!! Everybody were so happy and it has never been such a pleasure to give away 500 Euros... ;o)  Max was a hero and worth every single cent!

Lotus gets water and cookies from Linn.

Lotus in his tiny roope, the hero of the day, Max and a crying Jenny...

Some of the dogs and people in the happy searching team!!

The rest of the day I talked in telephone  and informed all people that Lotus was back. I was tired and decided to stay at my cousines place until the morning after. I was totally exhausted but so happy... My Lotus was back and all these fantastic people....!! Amazing. I can't belive it. It felt like the whole world were looking for Lotus. Friends, family, students and people I didn't even know. Everybody just left what they did and drove for hours to help me. I can never say thanx enough!!!

He was very thirsty and a bit stiff but otherwise he seemed to be quite unmoved by the incident. The day after my cousins kids trained tricks with him and at my friends place he played with a toy like a crazy... ;o) He looked very dissapointed when he had to stay at home while we went for a walk along the beach with the other dogs. My old, lovely superman!!!

Lotus with "welcome-home-flowers" in a Crufts trophy and Max's roope in his mouth  :o)

- "It's always good to have a roope in the pocket, Max says..."

Today I will go to Nettans place and we will train some agility, nice! Tomorrow I will go to Denmark for a competition. A bit slippery carpet but nice anyway. It's hard to train in the snow and there are so few competitions.

Have you heard about our Swedish Anja Pärson?? She crasched very bad in the downhill skiing race and yesterday she managed to start in the super-combination and she got bronze!! Amazing :o) I'm impressed about that she won over he fear and pain and just did it!! :o)

Zaa is back on track and I'm back in the blog... ;o)

Finally a new blog post! Now I have finished a lot of boring book-keeping and paper work that I had to do now in the beginning of the new year. Not my favourite job but it has to be done and it's a release after!

Månfares Jimi Hendrix
First I have to boast about one of Elvis pups. He is owned by Joakim Forsgren but his friend Johan Lindahl has been training sheep herding and trialing with him last year and now they are in the top in the ranking of the Young dogs cup!! Cool, I'm proud! Both Johan and Jimi is really talented when it comes to sheep work and together they are a superb team! Beside that, Jimi will probably became father again, can be a interesting litter I think.



Zaa
Finally!! It feel like an eternity. But I counted it has been at least two months with Zaa in leash and trying to keep him calm... Now we have been to the vet again to check x-ray and everything and he was pleased with his revovery! It was now ok to increase his exercise, start with some training and let him be a bit more free. I didn't almost belive him, didn't think this day would ever come... But it did, we are happy!! It's still a long way of rehabilitation but this was absolutely a step in the right direction. And I'm lucky with all this snow in Sweden, it's perfect training for Zaa (and my self... ;o)) I made a little video to celebrate.

New Year

We celebrated the New Year here at our farm. It's perfect a perfect place, without fire works and neigbours that can be disturbed.. :o) Here is Djurdja with Kalles New Year-glasses. Unfortunately you can't see the lights on the glasses that increased the new year-spirit... ;o)

New Year-walk!

Drinking Swedish "glögg"

Before the new year Zeljko come to visit me from Croatia and he stayed for three weeks. I arranged three seminar days with him during his stay and it was very appreciated. I plan for some follow seminars in the summer. We were also competing in Denmark and Gothenburg. A funny thing is that he had one wish before he came here, SNOW. And he got snow his whole stay, lucky guy! Usually snow doesn't stay so long here in this part of Sweden. But it's still not gone yet. It's just coming more and more... Over all it was three became three very nice weeks!
We made a training video with Zeljkos young dog Tip, a follow up to the one we made when I was in Croatia :o)

My friend Elin was here and we all went for a looong walk in the nice winter weather.  The whole pack on a rock.

Ogin and Tip by the river

Elvis and Tip

Djurdja and Tip on an ice floe in the river.

Nature is cool...

New day, new walk! Me, Zeljko and the dogs went to the sea. Beautiful in winter dress :o)

The crew seems to have some problems to leave the port... ;o)

Tip and Ogin on the beach, nice colours!

The old man is on the look...

Ogin on the run!

Frozen river.

Tip in action!

The pack.

A walk on "my lake" :o)  In the summer we swim here, hard to imagine now...

We went to my field in wind and snow. Sometimes it was a bit cold, sometimes a bit hard to run and the obstacles stood where they stood so to say...

Tip's training dog-walk

Zeljko plans to train with Ogin. Lotus plans to train with Zeljko... ;o)

Competitions
The carpet in Denmark were very slippery. I didn't get any good results because I ran in to a jump and Ogin didn't get that good grip. Zeljko got a Danish certificate! :o)

In Gothenburg it started good for me, a 1st place for Elvis and certificate with Ogin. I was pleased with my dogs in all run but I fucked it up a bit so to say... Continued from Denmark to run in to the obstacles... I have to stop with that!!! ;o)

Ina injured a nail the days before the competition so either Nettan or Ina came... :o( boring! And I had hoped to borrow her for some runs...






Ok, have to go. seminar in a riding hall today. Hope to came back sooner than last time!! Take care!

Merry Christmas!

Now it's soon Christmas and we have still a beautiful weather here in Sweden, I hope it will stay! And I hope you all will have a nice holiday with lots of Christmas spirit and love. Take care about eachother. Take care about your self, your family, friends, dogs and all other people around you. Eat good food, give away many hugs, take long walks and give your change to people in need. :o)

Here you have a typical Swedish "tomte" who is looking after the houses, animals and people here in Sweden. He's not the same as Santa. If you are nice to him he will be nice to you...  It says animals can talk to him during the Christmas night. Wish I could listen to that... ;o)

Finally I wish you all, a Very Merry Christmas, with a video from Lotus Education and the video team. Lean backwards and enjoy!

Winter!

Filip, Nettan and Alice with the dogs during a nice walk in the woods.

Finally we have got winter here in Sweden! It's snow and about minus 10-15 degrees, perfect. Last Wednesday I went to Nettans place to leave Ina (who I have borrowed for competition and training), play in the snow, train agility and do some X-mas shopping :o). We had two very nice days and here comes some pictures.

Lotus and Ogin have a strange game around trees. Ogin pretends he finds a squirrel and Lotus runs there to chase Ogin because he's not allowed to look at Lotus squirrels... There was a long time since there was e real squirrel though, I don't really understand this game... ;o)

Who is going to do the next move...?

Old Lotus, still "the King"

Pretty papa

Ina, always ready!

Filip loves the snow

"The pack" - me and Nettans dogs, plus a little(!) bonus retriver in the left corner.

Filip and dogs in the wood.

Trees covered with snow, magic!

Our little garden stream has frozen and a beautiful work of art is created by mother nature

Nordic Championship
Last weekend there was the Nordic Championship in Stockholm. I didn't perform any good results even if I enjoyed to compete again. Already on the first day (with normal classes) Elvis started to limp on one leg. I got really depressed and I couldn't find out what the problem was. I cooled him down after the run and then I put him in the crate. I talked with the team leaders and after a while we took him out and checked him. He didn't show anything on his leg and we decided that I should continue.

I ran also with Ina and Ogin and the runs were good but I did one stupid mistake in each run. I was a little bit dissapointed but I thought it was still fun and the dogs did really good. I were also thinking about Elvis leg and it worried me of course. He didn't show any more strange walking but I didn't either know what had been wrong. When the important Sunday came I really tried to focus on the competition and not on how Elvis was walking. I think it disturbed me more than I first thought and I did mistakes in all three runs, again. I think I have never ran nine runs in a row without a single result. I was more than dissapointed. After the competition he walked normally and he's still doing that but as I said, it disturbed me and it's not the first time he's injured. His rear-leg, were we amputated a toe from, has healed perfectly and he has no problems at all with that. But I just wait for another injury to hit him sooner or later... what will come next??

So... I have been thinking and made a very hard decision. There will not be any more commissions for the Swedish team with him. I realize it's a too big responsibility to perform for the team when I can't trust he will stay in a good physique. It takes too much energy from me.


I hate it but I have to face the fact. I love that dog and he's really the dog of my dreams and he has still so much to give. I hope I will get many more years to compete with him still, but just not for the Swedish team. Then only me and Elvis has to care about if we compete or not. Maybe it's a stupid decision that I will regret but I have to stop worry about if he will be ok for the important championships or not.

Anyway, Congratulations all medalists! Especially Janita from Finland with Hitti who won gold in large. And Peter with Tempo and Paul with Djiini from Denmark, who won Silver and Bronze. Well done!

I would also like to thank the judges, Mia, Kees and Ninnie for good work and nice courses. You guys inspire and develope the sport!

Next year I will try for the team with Ogin and hopefully with Ina as well (if I can borrow her again... ;o)

I complete this blog post with something more fun than boring decisions. It's a video from my trip to Croatia. This time I'm not in the video, I'm only the producer :o). Željko is doing foundation training with his young dog Tip. Turns, 2on2off and running contacts, enjoy!

News in English!

Elvis always likes to have something in his mouth, here he has found some X-mas-tinsel...

Finally I will have some news in English as well! But still there will be some more info in the Swedish blog I think. But Welcome to read this one, enjoy!

The agility-hall
My neighbours have stopped their work with pigs on our farm, so now we have barns that are empty. We got an idea about redoing it to an indoor-hall for dog-training!! It's alot of work but finally our project is going!!

Here's the hall from the outside. Just beside the outdoor agility-field and with the same nice walking area around :o)

This will be cleaned, painted and very nice with the new carpet!

Thommy is struggeling with the concrete...

...and Anita is struggeling with throwing it away...

...and I'm hacking loose some old shit and dirt and sweeping the floor. Long time since I worked in the stable I could feel, aches in my muscles after...

The carpet
The carpet is ordered and it is a rubber-matting from USA. It's the first time it will be used here in Sweden and I think it will be super! It's very pupular in USA :o)

The rubber matting made of Zedlan TM

I got some smaller pieces of the carpet to have in the crates, it was very popular! Zaa used it immediately to relax on with a nice bone... ;o)

Here's some info I have read:
One of the first facilities to install our Comfort-King was Clean Run... After installing the product, they were amazed at the results.



* The superior slip resistance provided excellent traction for dogs for both jumping and turning, practcally eliminating the slipping and pad burns caused by other rubber surfaces.


* The product performed well with even the fastest and heaviest dogs.

 * The softness and resilience (extra bounce) of Comfort-King reduced landing impact on the dog´s bodies.

 * Dogs training full-time on Comfort-King performed equally well outdoors on grass. With other matting Clean Run tried , the dogs had to adjust their takeoff position the prevent themselves from sliding and had difficulty making the transition when competing outside on grass.



AND for the handlers, Comfort-King is ideal!!!!

 * The softness and resilience of the matting make running around the course much more comfortable.

* The benefits of traction and reduced stress on joints also applied to the handlers. "

It's a big project but it's also very exciting! Think when you don't have to care about rain, snow or darkness!!!

Training
I have been training some more than usual, very nice!! Me and my friend Åsa trained courses last week. Tried some things from Kees Stoel that will judge the Nordic Championship in Stockholm this week. Most of his courses are nice, you have to run alot! But in some of them I would have liked some more turns...

Today we will train again, this time an interesting course by Mia Laamanen... always a challage! She will also judge in Stockholm this weekend :o)

A few weeks ago I trained discrimination with Elvis and Ogin, and here's a video from the training!



Last sunday my friend Elin was here for some training. I helped her with her young BC Lix. She didn't really know how to go on with the contact-training with him, he didn't really understand and it was like he didn't really like it either. First I helped her to get more intensity with the target behaviour. Then we introduced the target after a flat DW and we got pretty far in the training in the end of our session! :o) Lix is a very nice and work-willing dog with alot of drive!

I introduced the target on the DW for Lix. He got a very intense and nice behavour... so good that in the end of the session he had made a nice mud-hole... ;o)

Ogin looked a bit depressed after Lix had made his DW so dirty...  He got happier after some training :o)

Take care and have fun with your training!