Friday evening we drove to Zurich, where a familiar and dog friendly hotel waited for us in Sihlcity. Sihlcity is Switzerland’s first urban entertainment center. Though the outdoor recreation area nearby is the captivate for us. There we meet local dogs running free. Swiss dogs differs from German ones; they say "Grüezi!" in a friendly way but keeps their distance at the same time. This is exactly how I behave with strange dogs (sniffing but not touching), but Ciara is more German: she wants to play!

On Saturday after some free running, we aimed to the Wildpark of Langenberg, where we met Ruben (Faraoland Xcuse Me Desmond) with his family. Ruben has moved from Finland to Switzerland, so we will meet him more often. Ciara liked him immediately. Poor Ciara believed that Ruben was an another familiar basenji dog called Matti! But I showed that I was not confused. I told him, who is the older one and the boss, because I had met Ruben earlier when he was just a junior dog. Ruben accepted my conditions, so I let him to walk with us and even sit by the same restaurant table. Ruben and Ciara flirted with each others and acted like they know something about game animals. We continued the trip to France.

On Sunday I had to get up very early – even if it was cold outside. We drove about a 50 km to achieve the oval track racing area in Chatillon la Palud. After Cami survived from the registration process, we were warming up by walking around the area. There were no veterinary control and the competition started one hour later than estimated. We showed to the French audience that basenjis are faster than they expected. Of course, my special number is the killing of the lure more than the running itself. Ciara won the race with two seconds. Then we had a three hours lunch pause, when we visited in a local restaurant. We didn’t get any breakfast that morning, so my belly shouted for food. I got only little tidbits from the table. The reason for this appeared very soon: we had to run a final round as well. In finals I almost draw ahead Ciara in the beginning, but she managed to increase her speed. So she won the race again with two seconds. We both did the second run faster than the first run, even if the sand track was worn-out during the finals. I got a new porcelain dish bowl as a prize, while Ciara got just a big trophy, which is useless from practical perspective. After award ceremony we drove back to Switzerland to Lausanne. The day was very long so we fell into sleep immediately in the hotel.

On Monday we had a two hours walking session in a big garden of Lausanne. There were signs that dogs are allowed to run free between October and February. Unfortunately it was already March, so we had to be tied and the big birds in the park by lake avoided basenji company. It was night when we finally arrived home.    

Today we had average temperature of over +10 C warm. It was time to visit the Rabbit Park on lunch time. Now Ciara was more active than I with hunting the rabbits. Together we make an excellent team: Ciara is faster and stronger, while I am the strategic attacker. Cami found out that it was only matter of seconds for the life of a rabbit so she brutally interrupted our hunting session. Normally Ciara wears a muzzle to avoid hurting the rabbits, but Cami underestimated Ciara’s improvement of condition and speed. Ciara has been on resting period during the winter, thanks to the female hormones. Luckily I don’t have such problems anymore.

One challenge from this warm day: the housemaster shot down immediately the heating system (German's love to save costs with everything!) and it will become minus degrees on weekend nights. Now our folks appreciate the fact that the basenjis are allowed to sleep in the bed. They call us the friendly bedwarmers.

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Week 11/2009: My God the Sun shined first time warmly for me in Italy: I worshipped the sun with +20 Celsius temperature a couple of hours at the yard of a restaurant in Merano. Meantime it was only about +8 C in Munich and cloudy. To reach the restaurant I had to run beside Mika and bicycle for an hour upwards a hill. My folks were very surprised that my and Ciara’s condition was better than they thought beforehand: no tiredness after 15 km run (with decent pauses, of course).

I have an unmistakable nose of wine quality, maybe that's why my nose has turned red  Because I’m the expert of wines, we had to visit wineyards of Alta Badia (South Tyrol). We had a lovely picnic by wine trees, there I and Ciara sat by the same table with my people and our friend Jyrki from Finland. I have taught Jyrki to understand my needs as well as I have done it with my family, so he remembered to pass some Parma ham and cheese to taste the flavors.

Last year started with injury of a paw joint. Two laser therapy and massage sessions helped for the problem, but it took one month sick leave.

For several years I have tried to teach my distant family member Simba (Welsh Corgi Pembroke) to hunt. He did not have any clue of hunting before last autumn, when he suddenly realized how great fun it was to hunt with us a real rabbit or deer. You are never too old to learn something new: Simba was almoust 8 years old, when he became a hunter dog instead of a traditional cattle dog. Now he has successfully hunted by himself moles, mices and shrews. I AM SO PROUD OF YOU, SIMBA!

I attended only one official agility trial with the normal result of elimination by taking obstacles out of sequence. The same happened with lure coursing: zero points by interrupting running in the beginning as soon as I found out that the lure was only a plastic band. In dog shows I gained my fifth beauty champion title and some extra cc's by keeping company to Ciara in the international dog shows of Switzerland and Austria.

In track racing I had about one second better time than last year, but still my people think that I underachieved in the competitions, while in trainings I was faster. Most interesting lure was in Switzerland: a real (dead) rabbit! You should have seen how fast I ran there! I also liked the Mammendorf track in Germany and the warm weather on October.

This year we will visit more Middle-European running tracks and finally in the beginning of June I gain advantage of my age: I'll be allowed to run in veteran series with my half-brother Bobi in Finland!

Cami will take me and Ciara to some health tests in Finland. After all, our healthiness is her main concern. 

This morning Cami made an horrible mistake: she took me instead of Ciara to the dog show. She had promised me that I do not have to step in any dog show rings anymore, because I am already a beauty champion of five countries. This terrible mistake was caused by the last Austrian dog show, where I was supporting Ciara with my presence. There I got by accident (?) my third cacib of four. Four is needed from three different countries and four judges to become an international beauty champion. Dog shows are just for stupid dogs, which can’t do any other hobbies like agility, where brains are more required quality than beauty.

Anyway, I have always had excellent manners, where ever I have to represent me or my breed. It is normally written in critics: "Very good presented" as it should have been: "She presents herself very good". I was again the best behaving basenji in the ring, but the judge was more interested of the cover than the manners. No win this time.

There have been some judges (actually four together), who has felled into love with my character and put more beautiful basenjis behind me in the competition. Last time an Austrian junior handler (under 15 years) felled into love with my character, so I helped her to become third best of international junior handling competition. My folks were very proud of me, that I just went with a stranger kid to the big show ring and left about ten junior handler pairs behind us, just by my relaxing and co-operating behavior. That is better than many basenjis are able to do.

I just love to do shopping with my folks: there are always interesting smells and tastes. My favorite place is the hardware store. My folks arrange me seek and find program: there are lot of big shelves, where to find the target. I know a lot of people and things by name, for instance: ”Sök mat” (= seek food) get’s me find the nearest restaurant or grill. That talent has been very useful in the new cities that we have visited.

On Saturdays the shopping centers are full of people, so I have to be very careful that my paws are not stepped by shoes. Ciara do not handle the situation as professional as I do, so I help her by letting her walk between Mika and me, while Cami walks behind us due to the reason that she likes to do so called window shopping. My favorite delicacy is fish, which I prefer even more than fillet of beef. I was very lucky that this time we visited the fish restaurant, where I tasted some grilled salmon.

Every time when I eat something, which includes added ingredients E 320 (BHA) or E 321 (BHT), which helps the product conservation (but can also cause cancer!), I got furunculosis in-between my paw toes. Unfortunately in Germany the pet stores do not care what they sell and there are no product specifications in some domestic packages. That's why I get these allergic reactions once in a while. Today my folks realized that the yummy bones caused painful skin complaint and I needed first aid. Luckily the first aid helps in twenty-four hours. Odd that Ciara does not have similar reactions.