Latest news at Wolfsprung Kennels...

The big news is that Angelo is back!!! When I arrived with Suhail at the kennels, I saw a dog looking just like Angelo and assumed that it was his sister who looks very similar and stays at the kennels from time to time when her owner goes on holidays. So I told Suhail that Angelo would look just like this dog...Well, I soon found out that it actually was Angelo!! His 80 year old owner just couldn’t deal with him and gave him back! On one hand I was of course incredibly happy to see him and I am now back to work with him every day. But on the other hand, I am now in a big dilemma because he is available for me to own and I can just not take him with me to Abu Dhabi...Angelo is not exactly the type of dog that you would take on a yacht or that you would let run around in Suhail’s parents house among sheikhs and ambassadors...He is a great dog to have, loyal, well-trained, beautiful, lot’s of energy...Well, let’s see what happens...

As for my training, I have now started the second part of it which focuses on me working a lot with Liwa to apply everything I have learnt so far. At the same time, I actively assist Hans with his private lessons and seminars instead of just being an observer. Tomorrow we will be going to Salzburg for a 3 day seminar and let’s see how this works out...I guess that I will be writing after the seminar again as the hotels we usually stay in don’t have internet connection!

Long time no hear...

Well, I haven’t written for some time and of course got a couple of complaints...
The two reasons for not writing were:
1) I was busy day and night learning for my exam which finally didn’t take place! The reason for this was that one day before the exam, we sat down with Hans to summarize the important points for the exam and this is when we found out that we hadn’t learned a major part of it! I got extremely upset and did the ‘washing-machine’ (only insiders will understand this term) with Hans. Anyways, the exam got postponed until the end of July and I will have to start all the studying once again...it’s difficult to get back into ‘exam stress’ when 32 years old...I took 10 days off as Suhail came to see me. We were disconnected from the world, no phone, no internet just the way I like it...We spent the 1st weekend at my parent’s home in Germany because my father celebrated his 60. Birthday. Then we went back to Zurich where we spent a couple of days swimming in the river, enjoying romantic walks through the city and seeing some of Suhail’s old friends. Finally, we rented a car and drove to the Laubberg where Suhail was happy to find Paulo and Liwa and my new luxury home: the caravan. It was hot and we enjoyed swimming with the dogs in a nearby lake, visited Luzern (great city) and did some trecking and biking (the latter was of course Suhail’s top favourite as you can imagine...).

Puppy time...

Today we had another seminar on how to have your dog run in a circle (like horses). It was so hot outside that we finished earlier as dogs and dog owners just couldn’t take it anymore. Then Martina and Hans had the idea to go to a well-known breeder who breeds ‘Riesenschnauzer’. They are bread for mainly people who are into dog sports or protection training and are therefore very strong, athletic dogs with a lot of impulse. So Hans was interested to buy one and Martina too as she didn’t have a dog before and needed one for her training. The only challenge was that this breeder was located in Germany, about 460 km away from Gansingen. As there are no barriers for Hans, we went anyways and arrived there after a 4 ½ hour drive at about 9:30 pm. We were greeted by 3 cute 12 week old female puppies. They were really self-confident and energetic and within a few minutes my trousers were full of holes thanks to their sharp little puppy teeth. Hans was trying to convince me to take the third puppy as I would need a sports dog like this if I wanted to become a professional dog trainer. Well, they were cute but when I saw the parents, I definitely stopped thinking about taking one. They were HUGE and powerful dogs, and although they were friendly, it was obvious that they need a really firm and professional hand to be kept in control! Maybe in the future...but for now Paulo and Liwa keep me busy enough! The breeder was a real character too! She told us about how friendly and nice her dogs are and at the same time showed us all her scars from when she was bitten. Also she told Martina that she should immediately buy a electric collar to stop the dog from hunting...When she saw that Martina was a bit hesitant about taking a puppy, she said that she shouldn’t worry as she could just hit the dog on the head if he was not behaving well...She wouldn’t stop telling us all these stories about biting dogs and how she won so many competitions and finally we left the place at midnight with two puppies. It was a loooong drive back and I was holding Hans puppy on my lap which was crying non-stop. We reached home at about 4:30 am and I was happy to fall asleep with Paulo & Liwa, my two lambs...

On the right track...

On the third day of the seminar, we had decided to start one hour earlier so that we could take the dogs and drive somewhere else to lay some tracks for them to follow. I was looking forward to it as Liwa seemed to like this. I took Liwa with me in the morning and had a coffee while Hans was packing some stuff into the car. After a while, everybody was ready and as we wanted to leave, I couldn’t find Liwa. Finally, Hans opens the back of his car and there she is sitting in a giant bowl of meat balls that Hans had prepared to lay the tracks!!! So Liwa had already been on the right track! As Liwa had eaten enough for the whole day (or 2), we had to leave her behind. Well, as you can imagine the rest of the day was quite boring for me...

Liwa, the 'Schnueffeldog'

We started the second day of the seminar with an introduction on how to teach your dog to follow a track. Hans prepared the first track which was about 80 meters long by lying down small meat balls with each food step in a straight line. At the end of the track he placed a handful of meatballs to reward the dog. Then he walked the track together with Liwa. She did a great job and immediately understood what she was supposed to do. She liked it so much that afterwards her nose would stick non-stop on the floor, which was a rather unwanted side-effect...

Longieren-Bringen-Suchen seminar - day 1

Today a 3 day seminar started where different productive methods of entertaining your dog are presented. Surprise, surprise, Hans introduced me to everybody saying that I would explain and show most of the stuff. Great, I was not prepared but fortunately had my notes to get through the stuff. Well, I realized that I have to study and train much more...but it was a nice group and fun to work with them anyways. When the course was finished, I went back to the training field with Liwa to continue teaching her to stay ‘down’ while I go away. The aim is for her to stay down for 30 minutes while I am out of sight!!! Well, although she did a great job today (I could stay away for about 5 minutes at about 100 meters in her sight), I guess that the task is not over yet...and only once she can do this perfectly well, we will take the next step...

Funny couple...

Finally we had a really lazy day! I got up at about 08:45 as I had agreed with one of the girls, Ulrike, who had come from Germany for the next 3 day seminar to go for a power walk. She has a giant ‘Dogge’ (don’t know what they are called in English), Lola, who looks just like a cow when you see her on the field as she is the same colour and nearly the same size! Well, we went for a relaxing walk instead and it was a lot of fun to see Paulo, Liwa and Lola run together in the fields! We couldn’t stop laughing when ‘mini’ Liwa started chasing after ‘giant’ Lola. Liwa would lose orientation in the field because she couldn’t see through the high grass, would go back onto the street, locate Lola and start jumping like crazy through the grass making little squeaky noises. After the walk, Martina and I drove to Germany for a massage. We felt like new born after and went for lunch. Once back home, we packed our back pack and went all the way up the Laubberg where we enjoyed a fantastic view and took a little nap (it was really little as Arthos, Martina’s dog, would make sure to wake us up by licking our faces immediately). In the evening, we went to a cosy Italian restaurant, ate a lot of food and drank a lot of wine before we both fell asleep at Martina’s place while talking on the phone (!!)and listening to Bibi Blocksberg tapes...