We took off for another weekend in Vienna for a 3-day seminar. Since we didn’t have much space in the car due to all the material that we need for the seminar, I had to leave Paulo behind L Bryndis, a girl who comes for training to the Wolfssprung regularly offered to take him home with her family and I was really happy about this as I know that Paulo will very much enjoy sitting on the sofa with the babies watching TV and being spoiled instead of sitting around in the kennel. Liwa and Sedona (Hans giant Schnauzer puppy) were allowed to join us for their first trip by train. We would drive 3 hours by car and 7 by train. We travelled first class and looking at the new leather seats in the elegant carpet, we were a bit worried that Sedona, being a puppy, would pee on the floor. But we were very lucky as both dogs were perfectly well behaved and we managed to let the dogs out at one stop for a couple of minutes to do their business. We even managed to ‘smuggle’ them into the train’s restaurant and enjoy a nice meal. Well, now Liwa knows all means of transport: cars, boats, planes and now trains...
We finally arrived at 1 am at our hotel in a cute little mountain village and got a few hours of sleep before our ‘marathon’ seminar started. The next day, the hotel’s young dog, a mix between a dutch hound and a hunting terrier, welcomed us at breakfast and Liwa and Cora immediately became best friends: While I would be at breakfast or dinner, Cora would show Liwa the entire village, they would jump around in the nearby fields and rest together in the middle of the restaurant. In the mornings I would take both of them for a walk and Cora would introduce me to the inhabitants of the village who we would meet on our way as everybody knew her and was curious to know who her new friend was.
We spent the first day of the seminar with a group of hunters with their hunting dogs. The meeting point was at the organiser’s house and when we arrived there were maybe 15 dogs running around like crazy in the garden. I decided to let Liwa join the group but she was very intimidated when those very energetic dogs were jumping around her and soon started hiding behind me. We then drove to a nice mountain hut in the middle of the nature, the hunter’s hunting territory. The main topic of the day was the tracking of dear and the hunters had prepared a long track through the forest with dear blood that would lead to a dear’s leg. We then selected 3 dogs that would have to find the leg. The first dog was so fast that we had to hurry behind him off-road through the forest. I had noticed that most of the hunters had a lot of scratches on their legs and now understood why and wished that I wasn’t wearing shorts...I also realized why their bellies were not small: we had lunch that consisted of sausages and steaks twice and when we left, they were getting ready for another barbeque...It was a fun day although Liwa wouldn’t say the same. She spent most of the day in the car and when I let her out in the evening to run around with the other dogs, she got attacked by one hunting dog that was protecting the dear’s leg. Liwa ran away as fast as she could and jumped back into the car. At least she learnt her lesson not to steal a dear’s leg from hunting dogs...
The second day of the seminar was a bit shocking. The seminar’s topic was how to establish a stable relationship with your dog. This day was scheduled for ‘normal’ dogs and the next day for difficult dogs e.g. dogs that are aggressive towards other dogs or people. But when we saw the dogs on the training field, there was an aggressive pit bull and a Labrador and Hans had to send them away and ask them to come back the next day. Also we were amazed to see how badly behaved all the other dogs were. They had no training whatsoever and would pull their owners around, bark at other dogs and most of them couldn’t even sit. Not much we could do with such a number of completely untrained dogs and we started off by teaching them how to sit quietly. This took up the whole morning and in the afternoon we showed them the famous ‘hose technique’ so they would learn how to teach their dogs not to run away or pull on the leash. Well, the seminar was supposed to end at 4 pm and we stayed until 8 pm as those people were not really ‘easy-going’...In the evening Hans and I were completely exhausted and decided to have a quick glass of wine. To be honest, I don’t even remember how I got back into my room but we certainly had more than one glass...
The next day, Hans and I had a huge headache and swollen eyes...Our breakfast consisted of 2 aspirins and we left to meet the aggressive dogs and their owners...Luckily, there was only 1 really aggressive dog who we already knew from last time we had been in Vienna. In my actual condition, I am sure that any aggressive dog would have eaten me alive...Well, this dog attacked me twice (fortunately he had a muzzle on!) and I was happy when the day was over (again at 8 instead of 4 pm!). Liwa had been observing everything from the car. She would sit in the back of the car which was open on top of Sedona’s kennel to have the best view and everybody fall in love with her when they would pass by. In the evening, she decided to jump out of the car in order to steal a pizza that somebody had left close by. Liwa wouldn’t miss a single opportunity to steal food...Well, everybody was quite amused about it!
We finally arrived at 1 am at our hotel in a cute little mountain village and got a few hours of sleep before our ‘marathon’ seminar started. The next day, the hotel’s young dog, a mix between a dutch hound and a hunting terrier, welcomed us at breakfast and Liwa and Cora immediately became best friends: While I would be at breakfast or dinner, Cora would show Liwa the entire village, they would jump around in the nearby fields and rest together in the middle of the restaurant. In the mornings I would take both of them for a walk and Cora would introduce me to the inhabitants of the village who we would meet on our way as everybody knew her and was curious to know who her new friend was.
We spent the first day of the seminar with a group of hunters with their hunting dogs. The meeting point was at the organiser’s house and when we arrived there were maybe 15 dogs running around like crazy in the garden. I decided to let Liwa join the group but she was very intimidated when those very energetic dogs were jumping around her and soon started hiding behind me. We then drove to a nice mountain hut in the middle of the nature, the hunter’s hunting territory. The main topic of the day was the tracking of dear and the hunters had prepared a long track through the forest with dear blood that would lead to a dear’s leg. We then selected 3 dogs that would have to find the leg. The first dog was so fast that we had to hurry behind him off-road through the forest. I had noticed that most of the hunters had a lot of scratches on their legs and now understood why and wished that I wasn’t wearing shorts...I also realized why their bellies were not small: we had lunch that consisted of sausages and steaks twice and when we left, they were getting ready for another barbeque...It was a fun day although Liwa wouldn’t say the same. She spent most of the day in the car and when I let her out in the evening to run around with the other dogs, she got attacked by one hunting dog that was protecting the dear’s leg. Liwa ran away as fast as she could and jumped back into the car. At least she learnt her lesson not to steal a dear’s leg from hunting dogs...
The second day of the seminar was a bit shocking. The seminar’s topic was how to establish a stable relationship with your dog. This day was scheduled for ‘normal’ dogs and the next day for difficult dogs e.g. dogs that are aggressive towards other dogs or people. But when we saw the dogs on the training field, there was an aggressive pit bull and a Labrador and Hans had to send them away and ask them to come back the next day. Also we were amazed to see how badly behaved all the other dogs were. They had no training whatsoever and would pull their owners around, bark at other dogs and most of them couldn’t even sit. Not much we could do with such a number of completely untrained dogs and we started off by teaching them how to sit quietly. This took up the whole morning and in the afternoon we showed them the famous ‘hose technique’ so they would learn how to teach their dogs not to run away or pull on the leash. Well, the seminar was supposed to end at 4 pm and we stayed until 8 pm as those people were not really ‘easy-going’...In the evening Hans and I were completely exhausted and decided to have a quick glass of wine. To be honest, I don’t even remember how I got back into my room but we certainly had more than one glass...
The next day, Hans and I had a huge headache and swollen eyes...Our breakfast consisted of 2 aspirins and we left to meet the aggressive dogs and their owners...Luckily, there was only 1 really aggressive dog who we already knew from last time we had been in Vienna. In my actual condition, I am sure that any aggressive dog would have eaten me alive...Well, this dog attacked me twice (fortunately he had a muzzle on!) and I was happy when the day was over (again at 8 instead of 4 pm!). Liwa had been observing everything from the car. She would sit in the back of the car which was open on top of Sedona’s kennel to have the best view and everybody fall in love with her when they would pass by. In the evening, she decided to jump out of the car in order to steal a pizza that somebody had left close by. Liwa wouldn’t miss a single opportunity to steal food...Well, everybody was quite amused about it!
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