The highlight of this year was for sure 1. Croatian Sheepdog Working Championship which took place on 20.,21., and 22. November in Zagreb. From the moment I heard it is going to happen, I was anticipating it with great excitement. Having a possibility to compete in so many disciplines at the same weekend + to see a big number of Croatian Sheepdogs at once was simply the best thing I could imagine. And when it finally happened, it overcame my expectations by far. First of all I was pleasantly surprised by the level of concern for us competitors. Everything from accommodation, welcome diner and some beautiful gifts was just great and gave the event a special note. Technical crew that was in charge for the competition itself did their job flawlessly, so you only had do think about your performance. But 1.CS Working Championship was way more than just a competition. It was a tribute to the Croatian Sheepdog as a breed. It was a display of a enthusiasm, stamina, speed, intelligence and courage of a little black dog that can do it all. It was a great and educational gathering for all fans, and a really nice promotion of the breed. And last but not least, I see this championship also as a tribute to Cita (Drava Certisa), little dog that charmed Europe, brought Croatian Sheepdog under spot lights and gave me the best doggie on the whole wide world – Šaj.
I felt truly honored to participate, and I sincerely hope this Championship will be the beginning of a nice tradition that will contribute to promotion and breeding of this wonderful breed in the future.
When I first heard about this championship, I decided to prepare my dogs for as many disciplines as I can, so in the end I entered Kiša in all the disciplines of the event –search and rescue, tracking, herding, obedience, protection and agility and Šaj in agility, obedience, herding + special dog show for Croatian Sheepdogs in the end of the championship. The problem was that due to my illness, I wasn’t really able to do much with my dogs from the end of august and I was actually thinking of reducing the number of disciplines, but than I thought –well, my dogs will have more fun if they do more stuff, and this championship is not really that much about competition, so I decided to stick with the original plan.
On Friday, the day started really early for us with area search competition. Since I am totally clueless in this field and I Kiša only had few trainings before the competition, I didn’t really expect much. I was curious to see how she will react to unknown territory and people. She surprised me with really nice work. She knew immediately what we were doing, she was highly motivated and responded to my guidance perfectly. She found both decoys, but she was quite insecure afterwards, she barked a few times but than she ran away to check where I am and only after she found me she ran back and continued with barking. The winner of search and rescue competition was Kiša`s mom Miška who showed her kids that it wont be so easy to step into her shoes…
As soon as we finished with searching, we were rushing to the tracking field. When I was driving from point A to B I had all sorts of worries in my head. I was haunted by my bad memories from our IPO exam, and worried that Kiša is tired, but in the end I came to a conclusion that I just have to go with the flow and see what happens. I guess my carefree approach was the right one, Kiša had absolutely no problems on the track, found and marked both articles and everything was over before I could even think about obsessing about something…
Next discipline that day was herding. I started with sort of serious trainings just shortly before this event, and my dogs were not ready for the task, even though it was a really easy one. Šaj had a really bad experience with an angry ram and nasty electrical fence a few years ago and because of that she didn’t want to do anything with sheep for a really long time. I was really sad about it, but after I started to train regularly she showed lots of progress, so the pure fact that she again wants to work is a big victory for me. She got all points for herding instinct, but we failed to do the task. Kiša on the other hand got a little bit too crazy. She got just enough experiences with sheep that she starts off in a totally wrong mood. She wants to get there fast and kill them all… Only after a few minutes she is able to switch from hunting to herding drive and cooperate. Honestly I don`t really remember much from her performance. With lots of arguing we managed to get sheep from one point to another and even through the gate, but I am sure that was more or less a happy coincidence. So my big goal for next year is to train them properly in herding, because I really don’t want to relive this experience. 
Saturday started with agility. I was prepared for the worse, considering the fact that my dogs had only 2 trainings in three months + I am totally and completely out of shape and cannot run really fast, but I guess that worked for them, because they both did a fantastic job. Šaj won agility, Kiša knocked one bar but she was even faster than Šaj. In jumping they both ran clean, Kiša finished first, Šaj third, second was Cita, Šaj`s unbelievable mother who just gets better and better with age…
Next discipline on the schedule for that day was protection. Again I totally miss judged Kiša. I thought that she would be a little bit tired from agility and confused because of the strange surroundings (the competition was held indoors in best in show ring of CACIB Zagreb) so I let her observe a tiny bit of Rudi`s work (Kiša`s brother who was 1st to work) to get her into the right mode. I guess that was a BIG mistake, since she became completely crazy. She rounded the blinds nicely, but than she immediately grabbed the decoy instead of barking at him and once I got there it was quite difficult to get her out of the blind. She continued in the same furious style, refused to let go of the sleeve when asked and was very very difficult to control in general. I cannot really blame her for that, she really loves to bite, and she was totally without any trainings for several months, but for sure that was her worse performance so far.
The same thing happened the next day in obedience competition. Again she was furious, sloppy and hysterical, barking her whole way through the program. The judge was quite funny, he really didn`t care about the rules but mostly only about impression he had about the dog, and he placed her on the second place which she truly didn`t deserve. On the other hand Šaj was doing a great job. Her performance was calm, precise and focused. Her retrieving is not really at Kiš`s level, because I didn`t have time to train it properly, but she did it quite nicely anyhow. I was mainly worried about send-away exercise, because she absolutely hates to go away from me, but to my big surprise, she did it flawlessly. I was honestly happy with her performance, and quite disappointed that the judge placed her so low…
But I didn`t really have much time to be sad, as the final agility run was about to start. After the previous runs, Šaj had a leading position, and Kiša was third. The final course was a little bit more challenging. Kiša was still doing pretty well just until the end, where she got eliminated after she chose to go into the tunnel instead on the A-frame. Šaj had an accident quite early on the course. She miss judged the jump (that is her common problem ) and got her self hanging from the bar that didn`t fell down until the whole obstacle collapsed. We both got quite distracted after that accident, but we finished the run with several fault’s. Because of her nice runs the day before, that result was enough to win agility large at this championship.
beautiful Šaj...
Final agility run was the last working challenge of the Championship and a special dog show was about to start. I saw that there are 49 dogs in the catalogue, and I was really happy about it. It is quite a high number, and you don`t often get the opportunity to see that many Croatians at once. From obvious reasons Kiša was not participating at the dog show, but I entered Šaj, mainly just for fun and to help increase the number of dogs at the show. There were 12 bitches in her class, and I was only hoping to get excellent. From that reason I was quite confused when the judge (mr. Damir Skok, president of Croatian kennel club) has not only chose us for the best 4, but even gave Šaj CAC. It was a huge surprise for me, and I went out of the ring joking with my friends, that now I really have all the rights in this world to claim that my Šaj is the prettiest dog on the planet. But CAC was only the beginning of our success that day. Šaj clearly impressed the judge, who gave her not only CACIB, but also BOB. To be honest, I must say that Cita (who won veteran class) would deserve the title more, she is a bit stronger, has darker eyes and more hair, but Šaj really is a show-off. I think she was screaming “i am beautiful” from the moment she fell out of Cita. Her performance in the show ring is really shiny so probably that was the attribute that worked in her favour. As a BOB dog, she went into the BIS program as well, where she was third in 1st FCI group and third among Croatian breeds. That kind of results were beyond my wildest imagination, and although I am really not into shows I am honestly thrilled about all this.
