"Hello. I am Joey!  I am a 1 year old cocker spaniel. This week I am staying with my new friends the Barbets Yatzie and Moët. We got to know each other at the dog training school KynoQuest. I love to play with Moët. On the beach some days ago we were having so much fun chasing each other. But one moment she really scared me when she suddenly appeared from the side when I was happily retrieving my ball. On one of the pictures you can see how surprised I look! I am crazy about balls and sticks. The funniest game I play with the humans is to run away with the stick or the ball exactly when they think they can get it! Or get me! They used to never get me. Hmm, but this week Elisabeth put a long line on me and then I can never get away. I hope she will not tell mum about that trick cause I do not like it. For the rest I am quite in love with Yatzie. But she does not realize what a great guy I am even though I try to show her in every possible way. I am sure she will soon get it though! Got to go! The ball is rolling here on the floor asking me to play with it -  or maybe eat it. I eat shoes too! Yummie yummie! Buy! See you soon again!"

Moët's first course at KynoQuest (clicker training for hunting dogs) has come to an end. I am impressed with her attentiveness and ability to learn new things. During this intensive base course (twice a week for 6 weeks) under the guidance of trainer Let Stevens and quite some traning at home she has learned sit + wait, lay + wait, follow, foot and no. Moët follows very well now, not only at the training but when we are out walking together. I have been using the clicker to teach her each of these commands and rewarded her with very nice goodies and playful retrieving. She retrieves everything to me already. At home we are now practicing hold the dummy, since she lets go of it without waiting for my command. In three weeks we will start the follow up course. This last training session the dogs were allowed to play on the grounds at the end. In the pictures you see Moët with her good friend Joey, a cocker/springer spaniel and a fast vissla. Moët is very fast as well and loves to run after or be chased by her friends. She finds a friend in every dog is seems!

Videos

Here links to some videos the trainer made of us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDxZN1Uhbsk&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrQJAW-J8Do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbwP3D9LZl4

Under these sticks, logs and bushes one, two or maybe a hundred (judging by the intensity of the dogs) rabbits were hiding. Yatzie and Moët tried to push their way down to their hiding places. For hours... While Bart and I were enjoying the afternoon at Bart's brother's house, situated on the beautiful countryside of Gelderland. In the area buzzards and storks are breeding, wild boars are a common sight. Sitting comfortably in front of an open fire we experienced both sun, wind, rain and hail. Thanks Jeroen and Harriët for making the afternoon so warm and cosy! What I did not realize until this morning was that the dogs were pushing their noses between the narrow logs so enthousiastically that they scraped off their front nose hair! We now have two bold nosed Barbets in the house! Hopefully it grows back! :-)

Charleys owners, Gert and Monica, gave us this amazing bouquet with tulips on bulbs last Saturday. I had never seen this kind before. You just put them on a plate and water the bulbs. We are enjoying the sight of them so much that I want to share them with all of you. I put them outside on our garden table to make a picture. Then another sweet tulip jumped up on the table! And I took some shots of her as well! Enjoy!

Hey Dad, tell us what is in the news today! When the whole newspaper was read this morning Yatzie and Moët agreed that it was time for a nap!

Saturday four of the six Dutch puppies from Yatzie's Champagne litter came to visit us for the first time all together: Charley (Henriot), Fenna (Elyssia), Hunter (Chandon) och Teddie (Ayala). And Moët of course! The sun that had not been around for days shone on us the whole day and we had a wonderful day. The puppies played constantly for five-six hours. No grumbeling, no fights what so ever. They only took a time out to eat Margot's appreciated dog birthday cake as we were singing for Yatzie for her 5-year birthday. Moët had already started eating from it, jumping up on the table. Fortunately someone saw her before it was all gone...

I and Yatzie demonstrated the popular dog sport Rally obedience and the puppies got to try a track of 20 stations. We then drove to a nearby lake where the dogs could run freely and do some water work. Yatzie became the hero when she did a very far out retreive of a dummy that was floating away with the wind. Thanks Yatzie - Martijn who volunteered to get it ;-) did not need to get himself wet! Towards the end we tried to make a group picture but gave up - it was easier handling the ten small puppies than these few excited half grown up ones! The males were already higher than Yatzie and the size of the bitches differed a little. The fur vary a bit on all of them, some wavy, some curly. But they all have that open and friendly character that is the trade mark of our beloved race Barbet! Videos will be added later on.

Tomorrow Yatzie's puppies will get together for the first time after they left us. We are looking so much forward to it! Margot has made a fantastic birthday cake for all the dogs to celebrate Yatzie's 5-year day all together. It is so yummie we could eat it ourselves! But I am also working on one for the human guests too! This is what we put in the dog birthday cake:

Brown bread in a round shape (pieces just mounted together)

Liver paté

Second layer of bread

Salami-type sausage

Cheese

Topping: a mixture of whipped cream, créme fraiche, grated cheese

Decoration: Dog biscuits, soft liver paté to write with

Yatzie, my love, turns 5 today! Looking back at the years passed we have experienced so much together. After the wild puppy years and the bubbeling youth Yatzie is now a mature "lady". She is also an experienced traveller and mother. She has moved to a new country and extended both her human and her dog family. She has learned many skills and proved herself a working dog in the hunting training. She has done excellent in the exhibition rings but most of all - she loves her family and we love her! Yatzie has a soft and loving spirit that melts your heart. She is so close to us, and she is always eager to show us her love with her kisses and her cuddeling. Many, not only her family, say that Yatzie is not  just a dog, she is like a human. She talks to us with her beautiful, brown eyes but also with different sounds that she makes and with her clear body language. Today we celebrate Yatzie's fifth birthday and the privilege of having her as part of our family and we will spoil her even more than we do every other day. Happy birthday beloved Yatzie! Xronia polla! Gefeliciteerd! Grattis!

"We want to wish all of our friends out there a very Happy Easter. We are wishing for many Easter bunnies to chase and we saw that dad bought loads of eggs today, so maybe we get to taste some of those! Usually mum hides an Easter egg for the kids somewhere in the garden - and for us something yummie to chew on. We like to search and find! We will have some nice. long walks and many friends coming over. We hope that you will also have a happy weekend and rejoice in the joy of Easter!" 

Woff, woff - Yatzie & Moët