In Hungary there are two types of dog trainers. First is the real one, who is working with german shepherd and malinois, using same methods for 40 years and is always shouting to the dog for showing his dominancy. Second is the goodie-clickie user, who has hipersensitive doggie from a dog shelter. His (no, mostly her) dog doesn’t know what is a „revier”, but it can do funny and useless tricks. And there are some aliens, who represent the hard line, but use positive training methods. One of them had a clinic last week, and we went to learn more about the „other side”.
His name is Ferenc Tóth. He is working with German Shepherds for 20 years. Mostly he uses classical methods, but for some steps he also tried clicker training and other types of shaping. He told us about his training methods, rules of IPO and the situation of German Shepherd breed in Europe. Well, I didn’t become IPO fanatic, but learnt a little about this strange world.
This guy’s dog is eight years old, healthy and happy – totally untypical in Hungarian IPO sport, but good to see it.
This is the short summary of 2008 by my side. It’s interesting to see that every negative thing has a positive pair:
- Falling out and engagement
- I lost a friend because of a stupid war in herding sport, she wouldn’t to talk with me anymore. But this summer I found a new friend, and it’s about a dog sport too.
- I didn’t travel abroad to compete, so I got less trophys than last year. But I have a new dog, and we started agility, a brand new sport for me
- Somebody died who was an important part of my life. And next day was born my friend’s baby.
2008 was a strange year, so much things happened… I hope next year will be a little more boring.
And an other list (I love writing lists). My New Year Promises:
- I will pay more attention to closing dates of my work
- More herding training
- More blog posts (I PROMISE!)
- More patience to people
- Saving money for travelling
So Happy New Year all of you!
Hey, you all
I hope you have a beautiful Christmas tree
get cool presents
feel relaxed and happy
Merry X-mas!
I would write something cheerful about my sweet doggies, but Morgan left me on the field during agility-training and she came back covered with human feces, so I can’t write anything cheerful about my dogs at the moment. But I found some interesting pics, so I’ll show you some shots of important milestones in my very ancient disc-dog career.
She is Sparrow, one of the first disc dogs in the country. He arrived from Florida with some other disc-fanatic kelpies.
This was the very first freestyle-presentation in Hungary (nobody knew including me what is freestyle frisbee). Look at that discs! It was in 2006, Moss was one year old
The first clinic, February 2007. We heard first time about competitons, rules, divisions and other interesting stuffs.
We begun organising competitions, in first year there were only D/As. At first we used strings on the field, but it was dangerous for the dogs, so we started painting lines.
We tried a freestyle competition in September, 2007. It was In the Czech Republic, judges were Ron Watson and April Lea. It was an interesting trip, I crashed my boyfriend’s very expensive car on the first day, so we arrived home in ambivalent mood. We finished in 4th place
Abony 2008, first international competition in Hungary, and first freestyle rounds. I promised after the event that I never will organise and compete at the same time.
Hungarian Qualifier, 2008. In this year there were 7 Hungarian teams who qualified for the Worlds. Two of them were there in Chattanooga: Nora Prenner with Berian and Judit Heiczinger with Fly.
And the present: training with my brand new disc dog, Netty 
She is the slowest retriever whom I ever met, but I don’t care. Moss is still my disc dog for competitions, and the others are playing just for fun.
This is my very first post from home: we have a net-connection at last. The procedure brought back sweet memories of my childhood: that time you had to wait years for a phone line, and you needed secret connections with the government for buying a car. I missed night chatting with my friends so much, and I hope my readers didn’t leave me during this silent period.
I’m sure that it’s herding. At 11 o’clock you are on a muddy field with some sheep and waiting for a tractor to help your car (my poor little car had a hard week as you see), and two hours and 90 kms later you are sitting in a conference room with suited people. And that’s all because you are a judge for herding - and a collecting style working test and an election for the Herding Judge’s Committee are on a same day. An average weekend in my life.
Is there any chance that somebody could lose both of the license plates on a car? I can say that it is possible, I did it last night. Of course it happened in the middle of the night on a deserted road and it was raining. Fortunately (always look on the bright side of life) I found the plates, so I put them back with an extra-long and strong leash - that was the only object in my car which was suitable for fixing anything. This morning I made a little stir in the news service, so everybody knew me in a few hours in the whole of Szigetszentmiklós.
I don’t like dog shows. It could be weird for my closer friends because I’m a frequent figure of Hungarian dog shows as a handler. Sorry, guys, but it’s mostly about the money. A dog show is one of the few jobs for a dog trainer where it’s easy to make lot of money. A dog show is an interesting place: you can observe the new trends in your favorite breeds. F.i. the Border Collie: at the moment the American show type is preferred in Europe. Short legs, furry coat clear white marks and round, expressless eyes. I bought Moss 3 years ago, her father was one of the top show dogs in Europe. She’s just three years old and an “oldie” in type, because she is an Australian type, not American. Maybe I should exchange her something trendy!
Fortunately dog shows are not just for breeders. We can also take advantage of the popularity of dog shows for showing other doggie-activities. Well, this part of the show is not about money… and sometimes we have some problems with showdog-f
ans, as we did at the Euro Dog Show. Every presentation is a chain of compromises, but spectators will remember the smart dogs, not the fluffy posing ones.
Don’t worry, I didn’t find the Philosopher’s Stone, I just got a phone call from the Kennel Club. There will be a final dog show this year in Budapest, and we have 3 hours to hold a presentation. We are planning something special this time. We have a disc-dogger in wheelchair, his name is Richard Mányik. He is one of our most experienced judges and a very important person in Hungarian disc-dogging. He organised a presentation group of wheelchaired disc-doggers, and this dog show will be their debut. I think, this will be the real “Best in Show.”
Gloves? Are you sure? OK, let’s take a closer look:
As the winter came, my hedgie thought he needed gloves. It’s not really his size, but it’s better than nothing.
Life outside of the city isn’t boring at all. This is the first snowy weekend in Hungary, and our very first snow in our garden. My car’s summer wheels were crying this morning. My tough sheep dogs spent the day beside the radiator. I tried to tell themabout beauties of winter fields but they don’t believe in fairy tales. Especially Brandy – yesterday he had a little problem with fences, and from that time he find safer to be inside… I wasn’t home for hours, and dogs were in the garden. Brandy found some tasty grapes on the other side of fence, so he jumped to the next garden for some dessert. Border collies are the smartest dog of our planet: he couldn’t jump back, so he spent the afternoon in my neighbours garden. Of course they were somewhere else, so I had to climb over the fence for saving my heroic dog.
Before we moved I swore that I’m not buying more animals until springtime. I’m really proud of myself, beacause this promise lasted for a whole week. Our new family members will arrive in a week, and everything is because of Judit (you know, the girl who were at the Worlds), she accidentally became a lovebird-breeder, and she knows that I hardly say no for cute little birdies.
