My sisters Ana and Jasna with 4 month old Gaja
Gaja's first snow
Gaja 10 months
Agility
What is Agility?
“Dog agility is a dog sport in which a handler directs a dog through an obstacle course in a race for both time and accuracy. Dogs generally run off-leash with no food or toys as incentives. The handler can touch neither dog nor obstacles, except accidentally. Consequently, the handler's controls are limited to voice, movement, and various body signals, requiring exceptional training of the animal. In its simplest form, an agility course consists of a set of standard obstacles, laid out by an agility judge in a design of his own choosing on a roughly 30 by 30 m area, with numbers indicating the order in which the dog must complete the obstacles. Courses are complicated enough that a dog could not complete them correctly without human direction. In competition, the handler must assess the course, decide on handling strategies, and direct the dog through the course, with precision and speed equally important. Many strategies exist to compensate for the inherent difference in human and dog speeds and the strengths and weaknesses of the various dogs and handlers.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_agility)
We won same nice titles and the best one was the year’s Champion of our ‘Primorska’ region.
One day another dog joined us…a little brown cutie that we named ‘Pafi’. Somebody must have left it in front of our house and we couldn’t resist adopting it.
Gaja and Pafi
Gaja and Pafi got along great, but Pafi remained kind of a wild dog– we couldn’t pet her too much and we, naive as we were, were sure it was a boy. Until one day she gave birth to 3 wonderful little puppies. What a surprise that was! And we thought ‘he’ was just getting fat!
With Gaja and the puppies - black and white Piko (Spoty), brown Buco (Fatty) and black Šeri.
The little babies got their new owners and that summer we went on holidays for a week. When we came back… Pafi was gone. We never learnt what happened to her but we hoped she decided to continue her journey after spending some great times with us.
Gaja was growing up and so was I....
When I started going to high school, I didn’t have time for professional agility anymore but we still practiced it at home, just for fun. We had all the obstacles needed and for us Agility was better than any other game.
Gaja and me, 8 and 18 years old
When I was 21, I went to USA for 4 months and later to Spain for 6 and I left Gaja with my parents and sisters. It was a great time, but I really missed Gaja so much. When I came back she was really offended that I left her for so long and she needed some time to forgive me. After that experience I didn't have the heart to leave her alone for such a long time again.
When I was away...
...my sisters looked after her.
But she still missed me a lot :(
Gaja was getting older and older, but the only sign was that her hairs were getting whiter.
Gaja 14 years
She was still proudly watching the house...
She stayed in great condition until she was 15 and a half years old. But she became sleepier and would sleep all day long;)
Gaja 15 years
We thought she would stay with us for much longer. She still had so much energy and an amazing will to live. But then the saddest day in my entire life came. A night before my B.A dissertations exam, she started to feel sick. We thought she was just feeling a little bit dizzy. I didn’t want to leave her like this but then she started feeling better and I was sure it was nothing serious. So I went to a town where I studied, 3 hours away from my hometown. I was still a little bit worried, so the next day I asked my dad to take her to the vet. They performed an x-ray and said everything was ok, so I was calmed. I passed the exam and was very relieved. But on the way home, my sister called. She said Gaja was feeling really bad again. When I got home, she was laying there, not being able to move and was hardly breathing. We took her to the night vet and they gave her oxygen, a transfusion and took an x-ray of her whole body. We were all so worried and scared…I had never felt so nervous in my whole life. When they took all the tests, the vet came. He told us that there was no hope for her anymore. I heard him but couldn’t believe my ears. I knew the situation was serious, but I didn’t expect it to be so bad. We had to put her to sleep, to save her from suffering. I stayed with her, by her side, till the very end. I just can’t describe how I felt in the last moments of her life…tears were falling down my face and I could hardly breathe…even the veterinarian was left speechless. It was a terrible night for all of us. The next day he discovered that she had a huge tumor in her lungs, which had collapsed, and her entire body was filled with liquid.
I really miss my little princess. She was my best friend, she was always there when I was sad and I needed somebody who would listen to me. She was great…she would listen to me patiently, she would kiss me with her wet tongue and we would cuddle until all the problems were gone. She helped me growing up and she stayed with me all the time until I became an adult. She will always be in my heart, Gaja, my biggest dream come true!
Gaja, my little angel R.I.P
