New home sweet home!

As the departure date gets closer and closer, I am getting more and more excited about starting a new chapter in my life...
I am going to live on the top of a hill overseeing Gansingen, an idyllic village situated about 30 minutes away from Zurich. I will be sharing a wonderful view with my close neighbours such as Canadian wolves, Malingos (Hans Schlegel's breed: a mix of long-haired German sheperds and Belgian sheperds), foxes, ducks, horses and Ayiana the 'Hollywood eagle' (for more details see http://www.nfz.ch/detail.cfm?ObjectID=7F87A146-1422-0CEF-389CF64181207114) among others. In order to be close enough to those neighbours, I decided to live in a caravan for the next 6 months. I bought it after a 5 minute viewing (to the sellers very surprise) when I was in Germany and now my parents drove it all the way to Gansingen to set up my new sweet home before my arrival...Can't wait to see it.

True love...

My JRT, Liwa (a.k.a. the super dog) risked her life last weekend when we went on a 3-day Easter boat trip just to get back to me. The story is as follows: We had anchored our boat just about 25 meters off the beach of our favorite island. We would go on and off the shore with our dingy and as it was a windy day with strong currents, somebody would always stay on board to make sure our boat wouldn't just drift away. After lunch, as everybody decided to go for a nice walk to swim on the other side of the island which was much calmer, I decided to stay on board. So my boyfriend Suhail, our friends (Alex and Prisca) and our two dogs (Liwa & Paulo) left the boat and dissappeared on the island. I was cleaning the interior of the boat and listenting to loud music. After about 30 min. I went outside and as I looked down into the water, just by coincidence, there she is, Liwa swimming against the current and the wind, struggeling to reach the boat. Her tiny head was being covered by the waves every few seconds and you could see that she was running out of strenghts as she was swimming but not coming any closer due to the strong currents. I got ready to jump into the water but as she saw me, she managed to give it a final push and finally managed to come close enough so I could pull her out of the water. Even for a person it would have been a challenge to swim all this way with these weather conditions but this tiny little dog who doesn't really like to swim unless it is absolutely necessary, made it all the way just to come back to me!

The first task...

When I asked Hans what kind of training I could do with my dogs before I come to Switzerland, he said that I should simply teach them to sit quietly. Sounds pretty easy. Though both dogs already knew the command 'sit', I started to intensify this and had them sit down before I would put the leash on, enter the house, leave the car etc. The funny thing here is that Paulo, my 2 1/2 year old Saluki/Golden Retriever mix (abbrev. as Goldsuk :-)), who usually would follow this command promplty, would start to ignore it after a while and pretend that he had never heard this command before...on the other side, Liwa, my one year old JRT, who had always ignored this command unless I would offer her a giant steak as a bribe, started to sit immediately when I would ask her to very soon. First she was doing it reluctantly, whining, but then overcame her stubberness accepting that this was the only way to get out of the house for a walk...On the other hand, Paulo, who, as most people who know him believe, has a human soul, was probably feeling that this was just ridiculous and would ignore me completely the more I would try...Well, now he is back to normal and sits down most of the time but he remains a very proud dog...

First steps...

When I went to visit Hans Schlegel in Switzerland, he gave me 3 books that I should read before I start my training with him in May. I took them with me to Abu Dhabi without having a closer look at them, assuming they were about dog training. But when I opened the first book, I started reading about the perfection of the world and a specific formula of life which consists of acceptance, love and action. Much to talk about those three words and the book titled, 'Das LOL2A Prinzip by Rene Egli, fascinated me. When I started the second book I still thought this one would be about dogs but I soon realized that it was about living the present and mental energy...Immediately I had a glimpse at the third book and it's title reads 'the seven steps of mental training'. Then I remembered that when Hans gave me the books, he said that living the principles that are discussed in those books would help me to get direct access to people as well as to animals and to instinctively undertake the right steps...I think that reading those books have been an extremely interesting start to dog training...or shall we say life training...

The beginning...part 2

So I started doing some research on interesting jobs connected to the animal world...and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I want to become a dog trainer! And it was not just some idea, no, I was convinced that this was the right thing to do without having ANY doubts (which is a great feeling to have!). Why? I don't really know except that I very much enjoy spending time with my dogs and that I believe that especially in this part of the world there is a considerable disconnection between humans and dogs or the nature in general. You can be a dog trainer in many different ways, you can train family dogs, police dogs, movie dogs etc. and more importantly you can train them using different kind of methods. You can train dogs in a very technical way or you can try to establish a mental connection and learn their way of communicating. The latter, is what really attracted my attention. I do not want dogs to become littel robots that obey because they want a treat or even out of fear; the most interesting part is how to establish a connection with the dog and how to be able to communicate, how to establish a mutual beneficial relationship. This is when I came across Hans Schlegel who is known as the 'Swiss dog whisperer'. His speciality is to train police dogs worldwide, not using conventional methods but using his own style by working with mental energy, connecting with the dogs mostly without treats or punishment. The more I would read about him, the more I was convinced that this is what I want to learn. So I got in touch with him and after a few phone calls and email exchanges I visited him in Switzerland. What I could see in just two days there, was beyond my expectations...We connected well immediately and I got to assist in a number of training sessions what led me to my final decision: I will be Hans Schlegel's student for 6 months and work with him side by side. This will be a great insight for me and hopefully lead me onto the right path of life...

The beginning...

I am living in Abu Dhabi, doing well, which means: I am in love with my boyfriend, I am my own boss at work, I have a beautiful floating home...at this point there is always a 'but' and I realised that this 'but' is connected to my work life. Altough it is comfortable, I feel bored about what I do and there is a complete lack of enthusiasm. This is when I suddenly realised that at this point of my life I need to find a profession that I truly like, that I am passionate about. Although I have had extremely interesting jobs that would make me travel the world (I had the chance to live & work in England, Mexico, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, Hungary, Russia, Jamaica, Dubai etc.)meet some of the most interesting people (Vicente Fox, former President of Mexico, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, Peter Medgyessy, former Prime Minister of Hungary, Mintimer Shaymiyev, President of Tatarstan, Percival J. Patterson, former Prime Minister of Jamaica etc. and many more interesting people without such big names...) have a lot of responsibility and earn a good amount of money, the work itself was never something I would truly identify with. This was acceptable untill now since my jobs offered me so many other advantages and now is the time to find the right path to the job of my dreams...This is when I started thinking about what I really enjoy in life and I realised that looking at my past and looking at the present, I always felt truly connected to nature and animals. When I was a child ( I believe this is when we are most genuine), I always wanted to work in a dog shelter or as a Green Peace activist etc. and those ambitions got lost over time when it came to earn money and discover the world. I started doing some research and the results will be seen in my next blog entry...