The Paulo & Liwa show...

We took Nixi, our small boat, to a nearby island for an early morning trip. It is definitely worth getting up early as the mornings are the dolphins favourite ‘chill-out’ time in the shallow waters. Indeed, as soon as we (Suhail, Michelle, Luka and me) approached the island, we were surrounded by dolphins...Paulo & Liwa as always got very excited and as soon as we arrived on the island, Paulo went on his usual dolphin hunting swim. He swims far out into the open sea trying to catch up with the dolphins...at one point I have to call him back as I am not sure how far he would swim and if he would have enough energy to come back all the way to shore. Once Paulo was back, we decided to walk from one side of the island to the other and while walking we could already sense that Paulo and Liwa had a great deal of energy that day...Soon we found an idyllic spot nearby the water where we sat down to ‘chill out’...However, very fast this very ‘idyllic’ spot looked like a hurricane had just come through. The Paulo & Liwa show had started.: They would just run around us as if they got completely insane or they had been injected a considerable dose of ecstasy, dug holes in between us and ran again. It surely is a first class entertainment. At the same time I wonder why they always choose to do it right in the spot that we choose to relax when they have a whole island to themselves...The Paulo & Liwa show was repeated soon after this when we got back to the boat and took out the chairs on the beach to enjoy a few drinks. Paulo and Liwa worked very well in a team to dig holes under our chairs in a way that we would suddenly sink into the sand...Finally, we decided that they got enough fund and that now it was our turn. We drove to another island where there are no dogs allowed to enjoy a nice lunch in the beach club. I tied they dogs up inside the boat and after they drank about 2 litres of water, they took a long nap in the shade enjoying the fresh sea breeze...

Scary dogs...

Challenges dog owners would face with their dogs in Switzerland, Germany or Austria were most of the time very similar: dogs would go hunting when they were not supposed to, they would not come back on command when off the lead and something became more interesting than their owner (for some dogs, anything would turn out to be more interesting than their owner...) and when on the lead, they would tugg their owner around the block...
Well, in the Arab world, things are different! I was soon to find out that the most common challenge faced in this part of the world is that people are actually scared of their own dogs! In Europe this could certainly happen if for example a strong willed dog reacts with aggression when his owner tells him off; but this is not what I am talking about here. One of my first clients is the perfect showcase. She called me one evening asking for help because she could not take her dog out anymore. As she sounded extremely desperate, I went to see her immediately and while I was expecting a ferocious dog, I am facing a 4 months old Golden Retriever puppy! I took him out of his kennel and his owner, a young Palestinian mother, runs away lifting her hands up and screaming hysterically while the puppy is jumping up her legs. This immediately gave me a clear picture of the situation. I caught the puppy, calmed him down and got him to sit so the owner could approach him. However, she still refused to touch him because he was too smelly. Indeed, since he had not been taken out of his kennel for quite a while, he had been doing his business inside and the poor guy surely needed a bath! So the first lesson consisted of showing my new client on how to clean her dog...Given this situation, the same evening we agreed for me to come every day until things are under control. The second lesson consisted of showing my client how to approach and touch her dog. I put him up on the table and had him sit while she had to touch his ears, paws, etc. This lesson was more challenging than you would think as my client asked me several times if her dog could potentially bite her and was very hesitant to touch him. As soon as he would move or try to lick her hand, she would jump back. It seemed like a desperate case and indeed another trainer had given up after the third lesson but Buster was soon to become one of my best students...

Cobe adventures...

Very soon, we went back to the desert and this time we took Cobe, my new doggy student, along. Since he was still a bit insecure back then (this has completely changed now for the good and the bad :-)), we thought that it would be good for him to join us on one of our adventures. Indeed, he very soon got into it...He loved the desert! As soon as he got out of the car he started running up and down the dunes and it seemed that he would never run out of energy...Funnily enough, his colour was so similar to the colour of the sand that sometimes it was difficult to see him and he would become one with the desert...Cobe’s favourite thing to do in the desert: eat camel poo...

Another big adventure for Cobe was his first time at the beach. We took him on our boat ‘Nixi’ to a nearby island and he got his first swimming lesson: while he, Paulo and Liwa were going wild on the beach, he barely noticed that suddenly he was in the middle of the water. He immediately swam like a seal and it seemed like he had been born in the water...while we humans take a long and sometimes painful time to learn how to swim (I have quite a few bad memories about that...), dogs don’t even have to think about it twice: swimming is part of the dog’s natural instincts...Cobe’s favourite thing to do on the beach: pick up empty water bottles...

Desert delight...

Soon after we came back, Martina (my training colleague and friend from the Laubberg) visited us in November and we all decided to go to the desert. It was the first time for Paulo and Liwa to go there since we got back from Switzerland. Well, they had not forgotten how much fun it is to run up and down the dunes...Liwa got particularly crazy and soon her tongue was touching the sand. Paulo, was back in his element. You can literally feel how he belongs there and while we were enjoying a nice bottle of champagne during sunset, he chilled on top of the dune from where he had a breathtaking view over the desert...

Doggy New Year...

My first strategic targets here were the veterinarian clinics. The British Veterinary Clinic (BVC) had already shown interest in dog training before I left to Switzerland and we had then agreed that I would come and talk to them once I was back. This is exactly what I did and they quickly became my first strategic partner. As they were interested in creating more value to their customers, they would recommend me whenever one of their clients would need dog training. Soon after, I came to the same agreement with the German Veterinary Clinic (GVC) which I consider as a perfect match given the ‘German’ connection and the fact that many dog owners here are indeed asking for a ‘German’ dog trainer (Germany still has an extraordinary strong brand value over here!). Since the BVC is located in the city centre of Abu Dhabi and the GVC in a fast growing residential area outside Abu Dhabi, I immediately got an excellent coverage across Abu Dhabi. Once this ground work was done, I quickly started getting phone calls on a daily basis and my agenda filled up at a breath taking speed until I was fully booked with 5 to 6 training sessions a day throughout the first month of 2010!!!

Xmas visit to the Laubberg...

Since I didn’t get to spend too much time with my friends & family while I was in Switzerland, I went back to Germany for Christmas. Together with my mum we decided to spend a weekend in Gansingen, mostly because I had to pick up some stuff which I had to leave behind because I had too much luggage but also because I wanted to buy training material for all my training sessions and because I had been fighting with Hans over the email which had left a very bad after taste. We chose the coldest weekend with minus 15 degree Celsius but despite everyone telling us not to go, I very stubbornly stuck to my plan. Once we arrived, we immediately drove up the Laubberg which was completely covered in snow and BEAUTIFUL and it was a truly nice feeling to be back and to see everyone: Hans the lonely wolf, Andre the trainee, Andrea the dog trainer, Claudia who takes care of the animals, teacher the fox who lives next to my caravan, Sedona (Hans ‘Riesenschnauzer’ who is not so much of a puppy anymore) etc. Angelo was finally gone and with his new owner. Once I picked up everything we drove down to the village and checked into the ‘Baeren’, my favourite local hotel restaurant. Soon after, Hans the lonely wolf and Bryndis the Viking goddess joined us there for a fun filled steak meal with lots of ‘Most’ and wine...Hans and I stopped fighting from this moment and this surely made this trip invaluable...

Doggy boot camp...

The most important point of my action plan was to initiate my dog training business. The second most important point was to keep me and my dogs fit. For the first month, I opted for ‘boot camp’. This is a military kind of workout where a group of crazy enough people get together to work out for 1 intense hour on the beach while it’s still dark at 6 in the morning. It’s tough and you often reach your limits but that’s what I like about it. The negative aspect here was that I soon got very tired: I had go get up at 5 in the morning, work out from 6-7, rush back home to walk and feed the dogs, have a quick shower and get changed, go to my first dog training session from 8 to 9 and then finally have breakfast at about 9:30. This felt like a whole working day to me already and by 10 am I was literally ready to go back to sleep...So by 9 in the evening I was definitely ready to go to bed...due to this, another rather negative side effect was that Suhail soon decided to sleep in a different room as he didn’t want to be disturbed so early in the morning and wouldn’t like to disturb me in the evening when I would go to sleep so much earlier than him...At the same time, since boot-camp was only 3 times a week, the days in between I would get up at the same time in the morning and lunge my dogs in the park (have them run in a circle). This was a nice and idyllic activity especially since Suhail started to join me and while I was having my dogs run in a circle in the middle of the park, he would sit on the bench and draw. I thought that this was pretty romantic even though we were sleeping in separate rooms...


Well, soon (after aprox. 1 month) this routine changed. Since I was getting much busier than I thought I would in such short amount of time, I had to save time and energy to be able to focus on my dog training sessions. So I decided to go jogging every morning with the dogs before the first lesson. And this turned out until now to be the perfect solution: I still get up early (part of the action plan), keep fit but now, the exercise is less intense and the best part of it is that at the same time Paulo & Liwa get to exercise too which makes me save time, so it’s like 2 in 1! Also it turns out that it is an excellent way of enhancing teamwork and cooperation with the dogs. It seems that we have created our own type of boot-camp: doggy boot camp...

The action plan...

After my initial ‘cultural shock’, I kept on feeling a bit weird over the next few weeks, not being sure if I was happy or just sad to be back...However, I focused on getting myself organized and follow through with my action plan. I had actually written a list when I was still on the Laubberg about what to do once I was back since I knew that my return would not be easy. I wanted to make sure that I would stick to a certain structure and not just drift away as it tends to happen over here: getting up early every day, working out intensively, eating healthily, organize my home and working space so I would feel comfortable, set up my dog training business, keep up the training with my dogs...

Well, this action plan was initiated much faster than I had expected...The very first day of my return (before we left to the F1 moon event), Suhail wakes me up after only 4 hours of sleep saying that my first client was desperately waiting for me! So I got up and went to my first lesson. And this first lesson, I must say, was key to my mental survival. This first lesson resulted into daily training sessions for the next 3 months. Not only that this was giving me my first business but also I was fortunate enough to be able to train a fantastic dog-man team: Nadia&Cobe. Cobe was a 4-months old Golden Retriever puppy and his owner Nadia is one of Suhail’s best friends. This was the first time I could practice all I had learned over the past 6 months in Switzerland on my own in the desert. And it worked. This experience gave me the confidence that I needed and initiated my new life as a dog trainer.

A new start...Landing on the moon...

I missed writing...The original idea behind the creation of this blog was to have my friends and family and especially Suhail (my fiancé) take part in my ‘Laubberg adventures’ while being far away from them. Now, not only my old friends outside the U.A.E. but also my new ‘Swiss’ friends are asking me about how things are going in Abu Dhabi. And since there are countless interesting stories to tell, I decided to continue this blog. So let me go back a bit in time to get you the whole story:

The first day of my return to the desert, the whole world seems to be meeting in Abu Dhabi to see the Formula 1 race. So from my little idyllic caravan in the Laubberg, I suddenly find myself on our yacht in the luxury marina of an island in Abu Dhabi that has just been built to host the F1 race (this island didn’t exist before I had left to Switzerland). It came like a cultural shock to me: dressed up VIP’s, futuristic looking buildings, fancy hotel lobbies, noisy racing cars, tons of people partying on every corner of the island...I had already been wondering how I would feel about coming back but this surpassed all my nightmares...It was such an extreme change that my first reaction was to hide in the bottom of our boat. There were just too many people and noises around...Although I started having some fun at this place (we stayed for 3 days), I kept on feeling like an alien and once back at home, I really doubted if I could live here again...