New Home

Ghandi and Wesha will be moving to a new home in July. Now, don't worry, we are moving with them! We are building a house in Würenlos, because it is much closer to Reto's office (he now has to leave very early and he comes home very late because of the traffic jams between Dachsen and Dietikon).

We have taken Wesha and Ghandi to the new house twice. The first time, they were extremely nervous, running around and Ghandi was whimpering. Yesterday, it went a lot better. They were not nervous any more. Wesha did explore a bit on her own, but with joy instead of nervousness. And Ghandi was calm, staying near us.

These are the first photos of them in our new home:

Places to hang, birthday and swimming

Wesha has discovered some new places to "hang"... not very practical places. One of them is not so bad. When she is outside and the garden chairs are stacked and covered, she likes to crawl underneath. She did that last season already, so it isn't a completely new one. But funny just the same.

The other one is definitely impractical: it is on the mat in front of our front door. So every now and then she gets disturbed roughly by kids coming home. But even after a few of those experiences, she still likes that spot.

The last one is the most impractical one: she likes relaxing on the floor of our guest toilet! So it often happens that we have to chase her out of there before we can go. And when you have to go urgently, that is really a pain! Especially since she often just looks at you and remains put until we come up with a really good reason for her to leave (think: something to eat or a ball game).

On the 18th of April, Ghandi turned 3 years old. He is a really grown up boy now. He is cute, stubborn, sweet, brave, curious, a glutton, and very persistent when he is hungry and much more. He is happiest when he can be with us 24/7. We love him to bits and we are still very grateful that he came to us 2 years ago.

Spring has been unusually warm and dry sofar, and Wesha has already done a fair share of swimming. This afternoon Reto and Lorenzo threw the stick into the Rhine, so that I could take some action pics.

Training on the longe

Well, to be more precise... without the longe. But still... this was an impromptu training for Wesha in Davos. The idea is, that Wesha does not enter the rough triangle that is formed by the 3 heaps of snow. It was the second time that I tried this exercise outside of our normal traininggrounds. The first time was the day before and Wesha did everything perfectly! When I asked my mother to film the next day, there were a few small glitches, but we still had lots of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu0JAsBHfVQ

A bird, a mouse and a fight

Yes, lots of excitement over the last few days. The short story: the bird got away, the mouse didn't and no dogs got seriously hurt.

Let's start with the bird. Last week, I was walking the dogs along the Rhine - both off leash - when I saw a black bird a bit further on. It was sitting on the ground and as soon as Ghandi saw it, he took off. I was expecting the bird to fly off, but unfortunately, it was wounded and it only skipped a little. I immediately called a very stern "NO! LEAVE IT!" to Ghandi. And to my relief, he turned away from the bird and looked at me. By that time, Wesha was catching up too (she definitely wanted to know what all the "fun" was about!). To my surprise, she smelled the bird, but didn't see it. It was sitting very close to her! But anyway, at that same moment, I started throwing dog goodies as far away as I could and both Ghandi and Wesha went for the goodies and left the bird in peace. PFEW!
While I walked on, still very generously throwing goodies for the dogs, I called my vet's practice to ask what to do about the poor bird. Picking it up was out of the question for me, with Wesha and Ghandi there. The assistant told me it was probably best to let nature take its course. That gave me mixed feelings, although I did agree with her.
So the bird got away, but I know that it couldn't have survived much longer. There are too many birds of prey and foxes around here.

Then, last Sunday, on a lovely walk with Reto and the dogs, Ghandi caught a mouse! Incredible! You should have seen him, he was hunting like a cat, with big jumps. Wesha was right next to him and surprisingly managed to take the mouse from Ghandi (maybe he hadn't expected it to squirm?). We told her a very stern "OUT! LEAVE IT!" and oh miracle... she dropped the mouse and both dogs came to us! I doubt that the mouse was still alive though, I saw Wesha chewing it a few times.

Yesterday morning, Ghandi got into a fight. Well, to be honest... he was more or less attacked by a dog (a Salukki) that we know. They usually tolerate each other, but this time she went for it. It was loud and Ghandi squeaked a few times, but no serious harm was done. Ghandi first defended himself and then he tried to get some distance and gave all the right signs for peace. The Salukki was put on the leash by her owner and that was it. Ghandi was not visibly hurt and the other dog only had a scratch underneath her eye.
Wesha didn't mix in, because she is extremely submissive towards the other dog.

The owner said, that she would keep the Salukki on the leash the next time we see each other. She has another dog (a Whippet) and that one gets along fine with both Wesha and Ghandi.
I wasn't seriously worried about Ghandi, because I know he will defend himself. And for the rest of the walk, he was not acting differently. Not scared, not hurt. It was actually kind of interesting to see this little fight. It was very clear that Ghandi at no time tried to really hurt the other dog. I am glad about that.

HOHOHO! or... STOP!

Wesha and Ghandi had a pretty exciting Christmas Eve. We were invited by my sister in law. In her household there are 2 dogs, 1 parrot and 1 cat. Wesha and Ghandi know the dogs and they mostly ignore each other, which is fine. The parrot, however, was a whole different story. But let's start with the beginning.

When we arrived, the dogs went through the hallway, kitchen, living room and sitting room like two little whirl winds. They found some dog food on the kitchen floor, what a treat! No need to say, it was gone in no time. Ghandi discovered the Christmas tree in the living room and he must have thought that was there for his convenience... because he immediately peed against it! Wonderful! (NOT!)

And then Wesha discovered the parrot. She could not take her eyes of him! She stood up and just stared and stared at the parrot:



A little later, the parrot sat on someone's shoulder and we were all having a little snack. The snacks were standing on a low coffee table... oh my... THAT was a huge temptation too! I was constantly saying "No!" "Leave it!" or "Stop!". And Ghandi still managed to lick something (but he didn't eat it)... Wesha was still trying to hypnotise the parrot and Reto and I did not feel very relaxed. So that was the moment we decided to put the dogs in the car for a while.
Soon we took them out, because we were going for a little walk through the village. It was snowing and it was really very Christmassy.
After the walk we put Wesha and Ghandi back in the car again and gave them their dinner. We left them in the car and we had dinner too.

After dinner, Wesha and Ghandi could come back into the house. Ghandi was sitting on our lap all the time, and Wesha went back to staring at the parrot. Somewhere along the way she must have forgotten where she was, because we found a puddle on the carpet! (Can you imagine how I felt?! Visiting and BOTH dogs peeing in the house!)


So now we know what we have to teach Wesha and Ghandi:
No peeing in other people's houses! and
everything that is on a table (even if it is a low table) is OURS, not yours! and
parrots are to be left in peace!

More snow

There was a whole load of fresh snow just waiting for us this morning. Wesha was excited and happy as usual about it. Walking the dogs proved being hard work, as you can see in this video.

Wesha does have problems with snowballs that get stuck to her coat. It was really bad this morning... She had snowballs as big as tennisballs around her elbows! When we got home she was even standing still patiently, while I tried to free her of the snow. Ghandi helped too... eating the snow off Wesha.

Here are some pics of this afternoon (the snowballs on Wesha weren't as big as in the morning).

Snow fun

The first snow of the season arrived here in the night from Thursday to Friday. It was so much fun to walk the dogs Friday morning! Wesha was like a little pup, running, jumping and playing in the snow. She LOVES it! She was running into fields and then stopping to stare at me, her eyes begging me: "Snow ball?! Snow ball?!" and if she thought it took me too long to throw her one, she even started to bark at me.
Ghandi also enjoyed the snow, but not as much as Wesha.

Today we went for a long walk with the whole family and Lorenzo was throwing a lot of snow balls for Wesha. We tried to restrict him, because we were afraid that Wesha might eat too much snow. But it was hard. Both Lorenzo and Wesha were having so much fun.

The only obvious result of Wesha eating all that snow was, that she had to pee a lot when we got home.