Big Business & Big Dog

Let's talk about something silly... dog poo!

First of all, here in Switzerland there are special dog poo trash cans everywhere. The idea is, that you scoop up the dog poo with a special plastic bag, tie a knot in it and dump it in the "Robidog" (name for the dog poo trash cans). On the side of the Robidog, there are plastic bags, so you can then take another one for the next time your dog does its "big business".



This is a great system, that unfortunately is still being ignored by many dog owners. Yesterday we even saw a huge pile of dog poo right next to a Robidog! That makes me shake my head! I will never understand those people!

Wesha will never do her "big business" on a road, a sidewalk, a trail or a path. She always looks for a spot to the side (grass preferably). I really like that. It seems so "clean". Now, here in Davos it often happens that we are walking on a trail with walls of snow on either side. Those walls are about 1 - 1.5 metres high. The snow is piled up and frozen. Often, Wesha will jump up and do her big business there. Wonderful. Well... not really, because the snow is frozen and hard enough to support Wesha's weight, but it cannot support my weight. So if she does her big business too far out, I cannot go and scoop it up without making a fool of myself (not even mentioning getting all white and wet). A couple of times, I was in time to pull Wesha closer to me, so that I could still scoop up what she left behind. Not very nice for Wesha maybe, but very practical for me!

Today, Wesha played with a huge black dog (Danish Dog, maybe). He was 80cm high and had huge paws. But he was really very gentle with Wesha and they had a good time playing together. Wesha stood on her hind paws and "hugged" his head. She also loves hugging people like this, it is too cute. The dog was laying down after a while and Wesha could jump all over him, it was really fun to see. Wesha tried to animate him to run after her, but he wasn't too much into running.

7 months old

Wesha is 7 months old today. It is VERY cold here in Davos. We went for a walk at 07.45 this morning and as you can see, Wesha was partly frozen. (And so was I!)



The morning walks are great, though, because there are always so many dogs around to play with. This is a heavenly place for dogs!

Sleeping on the sofa

Here in Davos, we have allowed Wesha to sleep on one end of the sofa and on one chair. She enjoys it a lot and the arm rest is a perfect pillow for her. It is amazing how quickly Wesha understood that she is only allowed on one end of the sofa (it is a very big corner shaped sofa). She is so clever.



For the nights, we have taken the transport box out of the car. However, in the transport box she cannot stretch out anymore. So Reto and I were not feeling to happy about letting her sleep in it. But we also didn't want Wesha to sleep in our bed (the bed comes out of the wall in the living room here. The kids have the only bedroom there is). So we were wondering if we could let her sleep on the sofa and sneak into bed ourselves. We tried that last night. Of course Wesha woke up when we went to bed and jumped onto our bed. We sent her off and Reto even carried her to the sofa to let her know that she could sleep there. Wesha jumped on our bed another 3 or 4 times, but then she got the message. And she went to sleep on the sofa. Everybody happy.




She sleeps very well here. She wakes us up every morning at 07.30 hrs and then I get dressed and take her out for a walk first, because dogs are only allowed off leash early in the morning here. It is nice, because almost all people we meet here on our morning walks are walking their dogs. So Wesha has lots of friends to play with.

Tiefschnee

Enjoying lots of snow

We drove up to Davos for 11 days of holiday yesterday. It was snowing when we arrived and it is still snowing. During our walk this morning, Wesha just about disappeared in the deep snow. She tried to run accross a field, to get to another dog. But she hardly got forward. It was funny to see! Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of it.

Here are some pics from the last few days.

We had a good laugh when we saw Wesha sleeping like this, with her paws not touching the ground:


Or here, all twisted:


There was enough snow in our village too:




Wesha: "you are a funny looking dog!" Sheep: "Well, you are a funny looking sheep!"

Catching snow balls

More snow fun

Fun

Wesha had lots of fun the last two days. Playing in the snow and playing with Pepsi, a "Riesenschnautzer".

Lovely Temperament

As you can see on the pics, Wesha did absolutely great! I am so incredibly proud of her!

It was a very long day. There was a huge delay and we had to wait for about 3 hours before it was our turn. Wesha was in the car for most of the wait. We took her for a walk twice and showed her the venue once. When it was finally (almost) time for us to go onto the stage, we took Wesha into the hall. We were there with 3 of Wesha's sisters. I found this last bit of waiting the hardest, because Wesha just wanted to play with her sisters so badly! I had to restrain her all the time. It was tiring. After a while, Wesha got tired and I could get her to lay down. That was a lot better.
Wesha and Sawenta trying to play with each other while we were waiting before we could go on stage:


Once we were on the stage, Wesha was totally focused (didn't even get distracted by one of her sisters trying to jump her while we were waiting!), she was enjoying it, she let the judge touch her without any problems (well... with one funny moment. When he touched her tail, she tucked it in and sat down, lol. It made the judge laugh and when I let her stand again, Wesha let her tail be touched without tucking it in), she didn't pull the leash, she didn't try to go to her siblings. Our presentation was far from perfect; the trotting went well on and off, Wesha once changed from my left to my right (so that I was between her and the judge) and she sat down many times while the judge was dictating the report. I got her to stand up again and again. But even with these flaws, I am very proud of Wesha and to be honest... I am also a bit proud of me. Because I was calm and not nervous at all and I am sure that also influenced Wesha's behaviour.

AND.... Wesha got the third place and a "very promising"! Now, there were only 5 in our class, but still!

From the report, I loved this best: lovely temperament, a baby that needs time. That is spot on.

Other bits of the report:
- good size + body proportions, but needs to grow a littlebit more
- .... head of correct shape (can't read the first word)
- good eye + expression
- good neck
- enough fore chest
- bit loose in elbows
- well aug. rear
- enough bone for age
- typical movement

When we came off the stage, we said goodbye to the others and went outside. Soon, Angi and Steve with Weta came out too and we went to a little field to let Weta and Wesha run free. They enjoyed a well deserved couple of minutes of play time. We even got them both to sit to pose for this pic:


It was so much fun to see the 4 siblings of Wesha. Her brother Wakass became first in his class! I hope we will have a nest reunion once. It would be great to see them all together and I am also curious how the 2 that were not there today have turned out.

Bath

Since we are going to the Christmas Exhibition of the Swiss Retriever Club tomorrow (and it was a very wet and muddy day today), we gave Wesha her first bath ever today.

I prepared the bathroom and put some treats and the filled kong within reach. When everything was ready, Reto carried Wesha upstairs. This was the first time that Wesha has been upstairs. Reto put her straight into the bathtub. I first gave her some treats and then I turned on the tap and let the water flow out of the shower head. Wesha liked that; she tried to "catch" the water with her mouth. Then I sprayed some water on her paws and she tried to back out. So then Reto distracted her with the filled kong and I sprayed water all over her back and quickly rubbed in some dog shampoo. I tried to do her paws and belly really well, because they were still black from the walks today. But it wasn't all that easy, because she didn't enjoy it so much anymore and she tried to get out of the tub. Reto held her while I rinsed her down.

After I rinsed her down, I gave Wesha some more treats and then put a towel over her back and started to rub her dry. She managed to shake herself twice during the whole bathing experience (which only took a few minutes).

After rubbing her dry, Wesha looked so pitiful:


Reto lifted her out of the bathtub to bring her downstairs again and then Wesha discovered herself in the mirror:


Now she is lying in her bench, chewing on a bull's pizzle and drying some more.

Wish us luck for the show tomorrow, we shall need it. Wesha doesn't like the show leash around her neck and often sits down to scratch at it. Oh well... we are going for fun and to see her siblings, so it doesn't matter if our presentation isn't perfect.

Video clip Elm

Elm

We spent last weekend in Elm (Glarus, Switzerland). We had two hotel rooms with a door that we could open in between. Upon arrival, Wesha enjoyed herself by jumping on the bed in our room and then jumping off, running to the kid's room and jumping on the bed there and back again.

Wesha on the icy balcony:


We didn't bring the bench (or transport box) into the hotel room, but we put one of Wesha's vet beds under a small table. The make-shift bench was fine for Wesha to eat in. She stayed on her vet bed and didn't drag the meaty bone anywhere. But sleeping in that make-shift bench was something else... we did give her the filled kong on the vet bed (she gets a filled kong every evening when we go to bed). And quickly turned out the light to go to sleep. We heard Wesha empty the kong and then pitter-patter-JUMP! She was on our bed. Since Wesha was on holiday too ... we decided to let her sleep with us.
Well... let's just say that Wesha slept fine, but we didn't! LOL! Wesha seems to think she is a cat... she likes to sleep on/next to our heads and pillows (instead of near our feet).
During an afternoon nap:


In the hotel, Wesha met Emma. Emma is a French Bulldog that belongs to the hotel owners and thus lives in the hotel. They played for a bit indoors and on Sunday, before we left, we met Emma during our walk and they played in the snow.
Wesha and Emma playing in the lobby:



We went for a few walks. There was plenty of snow, but the roads were very icy. (They don't use salt in Elm. Good for dog feet, but bad for road conditions) I was worried about Wesha slipping and hurting herself. She did slip many times, but at least she didn't get hurt. It wasn't too much fun to walk with Wesha on the leash. I don't know if it was because the environment was new, but Wesha was pulling the leash all the time. Usually, I will just stand still when she pulls the leash, but it was so icy in Elm, that it just didn't work... Wesha would just pull me with her.
At least there was a nice trail where we could let her run free. She enjoyed playing in the snow with the kids.

6 months old!

How time flies! Wesha is now exactly 6 months old. We went to the vet today for her rabies immunization. When I lift her out of the car in front of the vet's building, she immediately starts pulling on the leash like wild. She just loves going to the vet, LOL! She was whimpering in the waiting room, silly girl! She just couldn't wait to get into the examination room.

The vet said that she is looking very well, coat good, ears good, eyes slightly red (they are often a bit dirty too, especially after sleeping), heart good, joints good, teeth good. Her weight is perfect (almost 13kg), but he said we should be careful now and rather give her a little less food, because the most accidents with ligaments and joints happen when the dogs are 6 - 8 months. And the less the dog weighs, the less chance for injuries. He also said that Wesha is very pretty. Well... I of course agree, but I am not objective. :D

We are going away for the weekend. It will be Wesha's first time in a hotel.

Eye candy

A lamb

For lunch, Reto and I had a lovely piece of lamb. It was really good, but it was also a huge piece of meat. Too much for us to eat it all. The left over was tender, still fairly red and we decided to cut it into really small bits and use them as goodies for Wesha.

So when we went for our afternoon walk with Wesha, Reto had some aluminum foil with the tiny bits of lamb meat with him. After the first treat, Wesha didn't really react. But after the second, she changed.... and for the rest of the walk, she walked next to Reto, looking up to him. On leash or off leash, didn't matter. She was a true lamb. LOL!

I think I will need to take something similar to the Christmas Show!

Gardening

Reto and I were doing some gardening today (before the snow comes - we are expecting snow for Friday night and Saturday) and Wesha decided to "help" us...

Training for Christmas Show

We are going to the Christmas Show of the Swiss Retriever Club early December. I have never been to a dog show before and I didn't have a clue what to expect. Three of Wesha's siblings will come to the show too. One of them is Weta.

Yesterday, Nicole (breeder) had organised a little training for us. Angie and Steve were there with Weta and I went with Wesha. Nicole and Peter were there with Dazhitaa and Duscha. The training took place near Maienfeld, about 1.5 hrs drive from here. Beautiful nature there, a little rugged because it is the beginning of the Alps. We were lucky with the weather, it was a lovely, sunny afternoon.

Nicole told us and showed us what would be expected from us and our dogs. We tried the walking in the (imaginary) ring, going to the judge (Nicole and later Steve), letting the "judge" touch the dogs from the teeth down to the tails, trotting away from the judge and back again, in a triangle and finally standing while the "judge" was writing/dictating his/her report.

It was very hard to get Wesha to trot. She didn't seem to "get" it that we were training. (During the puppy course, she understood that so quickly and she is always so focused then.) She just wanted to play with Weta, Dazhitaa and Duscha. So when we tried trotting in the ring, she didn't pay any attention to me, she just pulled and pulled, trying to get to Dazhitaa or Weta. She managed to wriggle out of her show leash twice!
It went a bit better when we played the part of going to the judge, trotting away and back again. The first time, she wouldn't let Nicole have a look at her teeth, but the second time went better.

In between, we let the dogs run free and play a couple of times. We also practised walking on the (normal) leash when the others were near. But since Wesha didn't seem to understand that this was training, it was hard to do with her. Again, during the puppy course, she would look at me and do this soooo well!!

Oh well... at least now I know what will be expected from us during the Christmas Show. I will practise the trotting on the show leash with Wesha and hope for the best. We are going for fun and to make the experience. So it won't be so bad if we mess it up. ;-)

After about an hour, we put the dogs in our cars and went for a drink, before driving back home. Nicole presented Angi and me with a great Photobook that she had printed for the owners of the pups. It is a fantastic diary of the first 10 weeks in the lives of the puppies. So nice to see and read how Wesha developed. How she gained weight, on what day she opened her eyes, when she started listening to her name. Big thanks to Nicole!

Thirsty

We went for a walk near Uhwiesen today. Near the end of our walk, Wesha had a good drink from the well we passed.

More sleeping positions and a camouflage dog