Photo shoot

It has been a long time since I did a real photo shoot with Wesha and Ghandi. But last weekend, my sister came to visit us and she had a new camera.... so here are some of the great photos that she took.
(The uploader messed up the order of the pics and I don't have time to correct that. You'll just have to use your imagination, LOL!)

Raw meat yes, dead animals no

I know that some people think that dogs that are being BARFED (fed raw meat, vegetables, fruit, meaty bones, etc), will hunt more or will eat whatever dead animal they find on their paths during walks. I can only speak for my own dogs of course. But I am happy to say that for them, this is not true.

Yes, Ghandi loves hunting and he is always looking for "food". This can be anything from a twig, a piece of bread or even other dogs, cat or even human sh*t (I always have yoghurt at home to neutralize his bad breath afterwards). But luckily, when it comes to dead animals they leave them alone. In the last few days we have encountered a dead bird, a mouse and a hedgehog. They both sniff at them and in one instance, Wesha marked it with a little pee. But they don't show any interest in eating the dead animals. Luckily!

Another birthday has passed..

Wesha turned 3 last Saturday. I was away for the weekend, so I didn't even take a picture of her that day. But my mother sent me this one. It is an older pic of Wesha edited with a cute app on the iPad. It is now totally formed with the words: "jarig" (birthday), "Hiep hiep Hoera" (hip hip hurray) and "Yes". Pretty cool! (Click on it to see the bigger version)


And this is a picture that I took 1 year ago with my cell phone. (Finally got it off my cell phone today!). Wesha in a ski-lift for the first time at the "Atzmännig" in May 2010. You can see she enjoyed it!


This is a recent pic that I really like a lot. It is Lorenzo's hand (like they were making a pact).

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.