Last night, after another delicious meal (Hans and Andrea had cooked a huge salmon with wild rice), we decided to go for a full moon walk in the forest together with Angelo, Artos, Amani and Amigo. The 4 young brothers looked like wild wolves in the moonlight when they were running in the fields...a truly pure, wild and energetic moment! When Amani (the ruler of the pack and therefore Hans’s dog!) and my Angelo (the wildest of the pack after Amani) finally disappeared in the forest (against all rules of our current training), Hans just stood there and said with a smile: ‘Now, Sonja, they are gone...but I love them...
We ended up going to bed a 1 am just to get up 4 hours later to again join our wild friends. At 9 am we assisted Hans with an exam that people here take to ensure that they have a 100% stable, well-trained and safe dog. This exam is endorsed by the Swiss Government (Die Schweizer Halterpruefung) and Hans is the founder and official examiner. It was interesting to see as I will have to pass this exam with one of my dogs at the end my 6-months stay (Hans suggested to train with Liwa for this). Well, nobody passed the exam today! It is a challenge as in the exam the dogs need to sit quietly while you go away out of their sight and then face a number of confrontations such as passing dogs, running people etc., immediately stop and go down when one gives the command only once while they are running fast, heal perfectly with and without a leash etc. Basically, you need to have complete control over your dog...and more!
Once this was done, for the rest of the day we worked with a group of people and their dogs to follow-up on the progress they had made with training their dogs.
Once everybody was gone, I could finally join Paulo & Liwa and we went for a walk together with Christine (another trainee) and her fox lady (her dog just looks like a fox). Liwa now goes off the leash as she perfectly heals. Just when we were quite far, a thunderstorm started and we got COMPLETELY wet. It was a wonderfully refreshing feeling after a warm day at work and ‘cleaned’ my mind...
Now I am sitting in my caravan after a hot shower wearing an aloe vera mask as my face is burnt (and even my ears!!)and with vaseline on my lips which are swollen thanks to a passionate kiss from Angelo. With my red face, my swollen lips, my wet hear and my farmer style clothes full of mud, dog hair and fox shit (as Liwa rolls in it every day!), I look into the mirror and scare myself! But hey, I am truly happy and the dogs don’t seem to bother too much!
Hans just called as dinner is ready...huge juicy steaks...well, I am definitely not losing any weight at this rhythm...but our cosy and interesting dinners are definitely worth a few extra pounds...adding volume to my new look...Suhail, get ready!
Just back from dinner and as every dinner, this was a unique experience once again: All of a sudden all the dogs started a howling concert. Hans started hauling too and encouraged us (Martina and I) to join in as well. At first we felt a bit intimidated as we never howled before (as you might expect) and when we first tried, we of course felt ridiculous and we wouldn’t get any response from the dogs. Hans explained that only a ‘true’ howl that comes from the very inside will get to the dogs. And indeed, I could feel that in the few seconds that I would finally let go and just live the moment without thinking about what I was doing and why, my howling would come through. In the dark, Hans walked us to the wolves. First he entered the fenced area howling in a certain way and then he asked us to come in and howl too. Soon the wolves joined our concert and I lived one of the most intense and truthful moments in my life...howling is indeed liberating...try it!
As tomorrow is Sunday and I haven’t had 5 minutes off since my arrival last Friday, I was planning to sleep long and chill out...However, the plan has changed as Hans invited us to go to the zoo together with his 6 year old daugther Tanahya. Martina (another trainee) and I first thanked him for the invitation saying that we were planning to do some training and learn some of the theoretical stuff but he insisted that we would certainly learn and enjoy more by joining him and Tanahya in the zoo...as a compromise, he even suggested to leave at 7 am instead of 6 am...Also, I should take Liwa so we could do a demonstration to the people in the zoo...I am pretty sure that I will have some interesting stuff to write about when I am back from the zoo tomorrow...
We ended up going to bed a 1 am just to get up 4 hours later to again join our wild friends. At 9 am we assisted Hans with an exam that people here take to ensure that they have a 100% stable, well-trained and safe dog. This exam is endorsed by the Swiss Government (Die Schweizer Halterpruefung) and Hans is the founder and official examiner. It was interesting to see as I will have to pass this exam with one of my dogs at the end my 6-months stay (Hans suggested to train with Liwa for this). Well, nobody passed the exam today! It is a challenge as in the exam the dogs need to sit quietly while you go away out of their sight and then face a number of confrontations such as passing dogs, running people etc., immediately stop and go down when one gives the command only once while they are running fast, heal perfectly with and without a leash etc. Basically, you need to have complete control over your dog...and more!
Once this was done, for the rest of the day we worked with a group of people and their dogs to follow-up on the progress they had made with training their dogs.
Once everybody was gone, I could finally join Paulo & Liwa and we went for a walk together with Christine (another trainee) and her fox lady (her dog just looks like a fox). Liwa now goes off the leash as she perfectly heals. Just when we were quite far, a thunderstorm started and we got COMPLETELY wet. It was a wonderfully refreshing feeling after a warm day at work and ‘cleaned’ my mind...
Now I am sitting in my caravan after a hot shower wearing an aloe vera mask as my face is burnt (and even my ears!!)and with vaseline on my lips which are swollen thanks to a passionate kiss from Angelo. With my red face, my swollen lips, my wet hear and my farmer style clothes full of mud, dog hair and fox shit (as Liwa rolls in it every day!), I look into the mirror and scare myself! But hey, I am truly happy and the dogs don’t seem to bother too much!
Hans just called as dinner is ready...huge juicy steaks...well, I am definitely not losing any weight at this rhythm...but our cosy and interesting dinners are definitely worth a few extra pounds...adding volume to my new look...Suhail, get ready!
Just back from dinner and as every dinner, this was a unique experience once again: All of a sudden all the dogs started a howling concert. Hans started hauling too and encouraged us (Martina and I) to join in as well. At first we felt a bit intimidated as we never howled before (as you might expect) and when we first tried, we of course felt ridiculous and we wouldn’t get any response from the dogs. Hans explained that only a ‘true’ howl that comes from the very inside will get to the dogs. And indeed, I could feel that in the few seconds that I would finally let go and just live the moment without thinking about what I was doing and why, my howling would come through. In the dark, Hans walked us to the wolves. First he entered the fenced area howling in a certain way and then he asked us to come in and howl too. Soon the wolves joined our concert and I lived one of the most intense and truthful moments in my life...howling is indeed liberating...try it!
As tomorrow is Sunday and I haven’t had 5 minutes off since my arrival last Friday, I was planning to sleep long and chill out...However, the plan has changed as Hans invited us to go to the zoo together with his 6 year old daugther Tanahya. Martina (another trainee) and I first thanked him for the invitation saying that we were planning to do some training and learn some of the theoretical stuff but he insisted that we would certainly learn and enjoy more by joining him and Tanahya in the zoo...as a compromise, he even suggested to leave at 7 am instead of 6 am...Also, I should take Liwa so we could do a demonstration to the people in the zoo...I am pretty sure that I will have some interesting stuff to write about when I am back from the zoo tomorrow...
Awww, at least the lovely Liwa is still doing the rolling around in shit trick. I suspect an expert amount of training will be needed to stop her doing that :) !
ReplyDeleteGreat!! I send Hans a Svelte Sonja and I get back a steak munching farm hand! Thanks alot Hans!
ReplyDelete