Jenny Damm

Jenny Damm

Ogin- the Champ!

A proud Ogin and a proud owner!
Rasspecialen – Breed Championship
I have been to my last competition for the year and it was a good final! We have a special breed championship here in Sweden, held in a wonderful indoor hall about two hours drive from me. It’s a very nice and fun competition with a great spirit and a bit different to normal events. I like this kind of new ideas! This is the second year this Championship is held. Last year it was cancelled because the hall was burned to the ground… :o( But now the rebuilt it and it was actually even nicer this time! :o) I hope more clubs will organize events in this hall. 
Well, Ina and Elvis was qualified for the championship and Ogin was the first reserve. But one week before the show I trained sheep herding and Elvis stepped in a mud-hole in full speed, get stucked and made a very bad spin… :o( He was limping for two days and I thought it was better not to train and compete with him so close to the injury, even if he was walking normally the days before the competition. So, Ogin got the chance to participate instead! 
He made a very nice competition with three nice clear rounds and we had really fun. I was happy to get a top result in a bigger event with him, he is worth it! Ina had also good runs but in the first one she broke her start line for the first time in her life (??!!) and I didn’t see her coming so the first part was messed up and she jumped the contact on the dog-walk… Hm… Ina use to be very stable and trustable, I don’t know what mode she was in… ;o) It seems she had fun and we did the rest after that good at least, but with faults no results of course.

Ogin and sister Ina

Prize giving ceremony
Rättvik
The weekend after I got back from South America we went eight hours north, to one of the biggest (and last) competitions of the year in Sweden. In the beginning of this year I promised my self not to care about the title ”The Swedish Agility Dog of the Year”. If I care about that during the year it can disturb the thoughts and goals I want to have when I compete. I don’t want to think about results but only run for developing my self and my dogs and to have fun. But during the summer I was suddenly in the lead and of course it was fun… then Malin and Nick (a very good team here in Sweden!) was passing me in the list with some 20 points… the only chance for me to get the first place back was to get very good results in Rättvik… hm… So my brain had some fun and annoying discussions about this… ;o) I decided not to care and the other second I got into the fighting mode and ran for my life… ;o) First it was a bit irritating, I was beaten with some hundreds of a second and I got the third place in the three first runs… Then finally I won the last one!! So now it’s just to wait for the ranking list for The Agility Dog of the Year to see if I got the first place again… as I didn’t care about… ;o)
Axis – my new little student!

The first Croatian in Sweden!
Finally we got our first croatian sheepdog to Sweden, it has been a long process and it was not a good timing of bringing him here. Next year it will be much easier to import dogs to Sweden. But now he’s here and that’s fun! One of my students, Ulrika, has a very nice (and totally crazy ;o) puli and she has been training with me for a long time. When she told me she was looking for a new dog I got an idea… I was pretty sure a croatian sheepdog would be a great dog for Ulrika! I like this breed very much and it would be nice to try something new :o) So I told her about my idea and after some videos and pictures Ulrika was convinced about this was her breed! I have some good contacts in Croatia and we found a perfect litter pretty soon. I imported Ogin from Finland and it was not that complicated but unfortunately it showed up to be some special rules from Croatia… so Ulrika had to wait for the blood test to be ready before she could bring him to Sweden. But now, after a lot of work she could go and pick Axis up and bring him home! The week after she came to my place for his first class and we had a fun night…! ;o) He is a quite special dog with a special character. He has a lot of humor, speed and an own will. We played with tunnels, wings and straight lines and tried to let him find out what to do and realize that the right choice will always give a big reward. He was a bit difficult to take in the collar and lift up, so Ulrika got some homework for that together with some clicker exercises and bringing back the toy. I’m sure both Ulrika and I will have a lot of fun with Axis and I already look forward to the next class with him!


Italy
When I’m writing this I’m on the flight from Italy. The day after the championship I went with Ina to Sabrina Rossi in Italy. Ina has been like a little princess and she is now spoiled with Italian delicatessen, and has been eating lunch and dinner in a resturant. We will see if she eats her food when she comes home… ;o) 
It’s my second time there and I really enjoy the people and the place for the stage. One of the good thing is that they want me to bring a dog when I go there and that makes it much easier for me to travel. First of all I can show some things for the seminar and it’s usually much easier for people to understand what I want to explain. Then I have the opportunity to train during my days of travel. I’m away from my dogs too much time (I really hate that part of the travels) and I rarely have time to train… :o( So this is perfect for me! Especially this time because I could also train with sheep :o) First day we had some time after lunch and the second day we took away all the obstacles from the riding hall and brought in the sheep :o)). Now we have big plans for next time in Italy, both sheep and agility seminar! I think this can be a really good and fun idea. Hope we can work it out in our schedule!