That dog running competition; Mansen Murre 2008; was yesterday. It didn't go as well as we hoped but it was fun anyway. We had to wait there for couple of hours before it was our teams turn. Pancho seemed to be excited to get to the track, but Chili was just scared of all the people and dogs. It was also a very cold day. Luckily it didn't rain.

Here boys are watching when some other dogs are running before them
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I wasn't too happy how the competition was organized. The track was there in front of everyone so that the auditorium was in the middle of the track that dogs were meant to run. It was even allowed to bring dogs there. From our team Oona ja nakusalamat (Oona and naked lightnings) Pancho ran first. There had to be one person sending and one person "catching". I was the catcher. I barely made it to the other side of the track when they already started pulling the lure and Pancho started running. I missed half of the run and didn't have time to take any pictures. Pancho ran well. He didn't ran as fast as he normally does, but he did well anyway. He started fast but then slowed down half way where the auditorium was. His time was 8,30 seconds.

Then it was Chilis turn. He was horrified in the start. Then when the lure started moving he started running really fast. But then when he reached the auditorium part (where also me and Pancho were standing because that's where the gate was) he stopped and then turned back. Then we managed to get him to turn back and cross the finish line. His time was not good since he ran instead of 80 meters over 200 meteres :) His time was more than 40 seconds. When we were practising he did really well, he is a fast runner. It's only that he was so distracted by the audience that he got totally confused or scared.
Here is Chili almost in the middle of the track. At this point he was going really fast to the right direction :)
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The third dog in our team was Oona. She ran really well! Even better than last week when she tried it for the first time. So if Chili would have ran like he did in the practice the overall time would have been good. But it was more about fun together than competition. I just hope that Chili will still like this lure-running.

After the competition Pauli wanted to stay to watch his colleagues dogs run so me and my sister took our boys for a walk. There was a big stone where Chili jumped. Then I asked my sister to take Pancho there also so that I can take some nice picture of them. When Pancho jumped to that rock Chili desided to jump down and jump into the next rock. He was posing on that other rock. I thought that was funny. It was like "how dare you to come on MY rock. I will only pose alone" :)
Here Chili is on his pedestal
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Chili is chilling on the front seat of our Saab and enjoying of a rare phenomenon this summer: the sun
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Our small drived :)
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-Johanna