On holiday

We are on holiday in Davos at the moment. It is Ghandi's first time here. He is feeling really well, especially since the apartment is so small and he can be around us all the time. The dogs are sleeping in the same room as us and that is going really well. Ghandi usually sleeps on a chair that stands next to my bed and Wesha sleeps on the sofa.

Ghandi sitting on the sofa like a human being:


Wesha sleeping on the sofa in the evening:


We are going for 2-3 hours hikes almost every day and both Wesha and Ghandi are enjoying that a lot. We mostly hike in forests, so that we are not in the hot sun. There are streams/rivers everywhere, so they can get there feet wet (and drink) on almost every hike.




Wesha and Ghandi are behaving very well. They walk off leash where ever possible and when we see people (hikers, joggers, bikers) approaching, we call them to us. They then walk "heel" until we let them go again. It is wonderful. When they have to walk on the leash, they mostly walk "heel" together. That has improved a lot lately and I am very proud of them.


Wesha enjoys jumping on tree trunks, to see if that brings a reward (and usually, I do reward her for that).

Posing together:



Waking up Tina on her birthday:

We were sitting on a bench after a climb:

Wesha wasn't really thirsty, but she enjoyed playing with the water:

Ghandi swims too!

Yes, I never would have thought so... but Ghandi swims too! Two days ago, I took them for a walk along the Rhine, on the "other" side (German side). We came to a nice spot, where they could walk into the water. Ghandi had already walked in quite far a couple of times. I was throwing sticks for Wesha to retrieve and suddenly, Ghandi went after the stick too! And he was swimming. He did really well, not even splashing about. And to show that it was not just a "mistake", he did it another couple of times. Once he even retrieved the stick before Wesha could do that! I am very proud of Ghandi!

"testing the water"


More good news: Yesterday, during dog training, Ghandi and I did almost a whole hour off leash. Ghandi was doing absolutely perfect. He was fully focused, walking "heel" unless something else was expected of him. We did a littlebit of agility and he seem to enjoy the jump and the weave. I also started to teach him "crawl" and the tunnel. We worked with the target stick and he likes that a lot.

Cuddling with Lorenzo today:

Two beauties

Swimming in the Rhine alone

Wesha now also enjoys swimming in the Rhine without me. She swims after the stick I throw in the fast moving water until she gets it.

Swimming in the Rhine

Today we went for another swim with Wesha. The kids came into the Rhine with me and Reto documented the experience on photo and video for us. We all enjoyed it very much. Ghandi didn't venture into the water this time.





A great jump!

Photo header

The photo that I am using as a header for the blog now, has been taken by my good friend Brian N. Frandsen. He visited us last week and took a lot of very good photos of the dogs. Thanks for letting me use this one, Brian!

A dream come true

It has been very hot here lately and we have been walking the dogs along the Rhine a lot. Both Wesha and Ghandi like getting their paws wet, but neither of them really swims. This morning, we decided to have a look what would happen if I would go for a swim in the Rhine. Would Wesha come along and swim with me? Reto would walk alongside the Rhine, probably with Ghandi, as we didn't expect him to swim. He doesn't enjoy water that much.

We got into the water where it is shallow for a while, Wesha was walking along with me, whereas Ghandi had already returned because the water was getting too deep for him. Wesha jumped back onto land a couple of times too. But as soon as the water got deep and I started swimming, she came back into the water and swam right back to me! She deed seem a bit scared (I was prepared for that and I was wearing a t-shirt) in the beginning and she tried to climb on my back a couple of times. After a few minutes, she climbed back on land. But after a few meters of walking, she JUMPED back in and swam over to me. It was an amazing sight to see her jump like that, she had never done that before! If only I could have a camera with me while swimming... the photo would have been spectacular!!

So we repeated this for a while (Wesha swimming for a while, then going back onto land and then soon jumping in again), until I thought it was enough for her. I asked Reto to take her on the leash, as I wanted to swim a bit more. The water temperature was just perfect and I loved it in the water! Once Wesha was on the leash, we got a concert of Toller Screams! LOL! She was really loud about it too! So after a bit of walking, Reto let her go into the water one more time. And even Ghandi came into the Rhine with her this time. I was very surprised (and a bit worried, because he has got long nails...). Ghandi swam only about 2 metres and then he quickly climbed on land again. I swam a last bit with Wesha and then we both got out of the water.

It was fantastic! I loved it! And Wesha too, although she was almost too excited afterwards. She was really hyper, so we let her do some "nose work" (sniffing for the tiny rewards that we had thrown on the ground) to calm down a bit.

It was a dream come true for me this morning and we will repeat it many times this summer. I hope that we will be able to take some pics next time.