Jean, komaj čakamo reportažo iz Madžarske! 
Evo, tukaj je, bolj na hitro in zato tudi v anglescini (sori):
So, on Wednesday April 30 Monika and I and Oli and Lyra set off for Hungary--agility competition, frisbee seminar, and Skyhoundz frisbee competition. We stopped at a rest area shortly before Ptuj and who should we see but Majchy with Nia and Ziva! (And her boyfriend, whose name I am afraid I don't recall). What a pleasant surprise!
We got to our destination about 9:30 p.m. The place was further than I thought. All the dog events were held at Kincsem Lovaspark/ Kincsem Equestrian Park, an expansive facility in the middle of a vast open plain not far from the town of Tápiószentmárton (cca. 60 km from Budapest). They have several hundred horses there (Lipizzaners and various warmbloods) and a variety of other animals--sheep, pigs (including wild boar), ducks, chickens, ostriches, emus, goats, deer, cattle...and numerous dogs primarily of the traditional Hungarian herding breeds--Pumis, Kuvasz, Puli--who mostly live with the livestock. Our dogs got to meet them all! They were fine--Lyra mostly hung back and avoided getting too close, Oli was curious and liked to approach them for a closer look, but did not bark or otherwise act aggressively towards them. Except once, when we were calmly walking by the pen which held the ostriches and emus (together with various other species, from pygmy goats to pigs) towards evening, when most of the animals had bedded down for the night. With absolutely no provocation, a particularly nasty ostrich flapped its huge wings at Oli (who was minding her own business), reached its long neck over the fence, and squawked maliciously right in her face, which understandably gave her a scare so she barked back in defense.
website for Kincsem Lovaspark:
http://www.kincsemlovaspark.hu/en/main/index.php3We stayed in fairly rudimentary accommodation--there's a fancy (and expensive) hotel in the main building but people with dogs are relegated to one-star accommodation in smallish double rooms in barracks-like buildings. Comfortable enough beds, though, and much cheaper than the other rooms, so it was all right.
On Thursday Monika attended the first day of seminar with Jakub. There were about 12 people total, all the others were Hungarian (seminar was in English, with translation). Nice variety of breeds--some border collies of course, but balanced by kelpies, bearded collies, Pulis, Pumis, malinois, and others. Oli was the only aussie. The day was sunny but rather windy, so they moved into an indoor riding arena for training.
Lyra and I competed in an agility competition in an adjacent field. We did A2 agility and open jumping. Zeljko Gora was the judge for the agility. We had a clean round but a relatively slow time and finished in fourth place. Jumping was less successful; uncharacteristically, she dropped a bar on the second obstacle, missed the slalom entrance the first time (also uncharacteristically, she's been pretty good on that lately, and the approach to the slalom on the agility was much more difficult and she didn't have any problems at all), then ran by the jump she'd knocked over earlier (I think she was confused because the bar was down) and picked up another five faults, for 15 total plus a few seconds in time faults due to redoing the slalom, so we finished in something like 28th place (results aren't posted yet). Even with a clean run we wouldn't have placed highly since our times even in jumping are slow compared to other dogs. Interesting course, I liked running it, though my handling was unfortunately sloppy. It was really windy in the afternoon; while we were walking the course some bars fell due purely to the wind!
On Friday I was free of any commitments so I watched some of the seminar and took part in some of the throwing practice, also walked around with the dogs a lot. There was a herding clinic going on, which we watched from a distance. That evening there was a party held about 35 km distant, near Monor, at the residence/kennels/herding and training center of Jozsef Arkosi:
http://arkosliget.dogheart.hu/He's a major organizer of the frisbee events in Hungary, a breeder of kelpies and Hungarian breeds (Puli, Pumi, Kuvasz, Komondor, Mudi). There are about 30 dogs of various breeds and ages there (and some sheep, for herding training). They're kept outside on bare dirt in wire-fenced pens, several to a pen, and pace and bark a lot. Monika and I weren't sure we wanted to go since we were really tired and it was already quite late, the place was a half hour drive away along poor roads, and I don't like driving at night. Plus Hungary has a zero tolerance law for alcohol and drivers, so I wouldn't even be able to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine while there. In the end, under pressure from Peter (Seftsik, with the kelpie Choki), we decided to go. Got there a little after eight, still just light enough to see. It's out in the middle of the countryside, reachable by a 1.5 km poorly maintained sand/gravel farm track (kolovoz). Some of the herding folks also came out. Jakub didn't get there till about 10 p.m. We were hungry and tired and cold and stiff so I can't say I enjoyed it too much. Some people were cooking bograc in a big kettle over an open fire; I was starving and it smelled delicious but when I asked about 10 p.m. when it would be ready and they said about another hour, I gave up. Monika and I decided to go home to bed.
The next day, Saturday, was the competition. Things got moving about 10 a.m. There weren't a lot of competitors, less than 25 total (and none at all from other countries apart from me and Monika; all the others were from Hungary). Since dog frisbee is pretty new in Hungary, I had assumed that many people would compete in the beginners' category, but in fact there were only three registered, and of those three one chickened out at the last minute, so it was just Monika and one other woman. Monika hadn't wanted to compete either, since she didn't feel ready but let herself be talked into it, and ended up winning. I'm not sure how many were in the open freestyle, but I think there, too, people chickened out at the last minute. Lyra and I won, Peter and Choki were second, and a nice woman Jutka and one of her two border collies were third. You can see the videos here:
Open freestyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbjxA32eci0MicroDog, and Beginner freestyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeD06AAKOcMThese are from the first rounds. My second round was a completely different routine; since under Skyhoundz rules you only have 90 seconds (and 5 discs), our first round was over well before I got through our planned moves, so the second time around I sort of picked up where we'd left off and then improvised wildly. I thought the second round was a disaster, but Jakub (the judge!) told me later he thought it was the best round he'd seen all day. Go figure. Don't know if anybody filmed it. Most of the dogs had better second rounds. Choki's I thought was excellent. Unfortunately (as you can see in the video) a dog ran onto the field while he was performing the first time, so he got another chance to go but it wasn't nearly as good as when he'd started out. Oli's first round was better; she didn't catch many frisbees the second time (windier and poorer throwing by Monika).
I don't know where we finished in the minidistance. Not in the top three, that was Jakub (who got to compete), Peter, and Jutka. Monika threw well and Oli caught consistently in both rounds, but mostly in the 2-point zone. Lyra had a couple of high-scoring catches in both rounds I think but some misses as well as some nice catches that were unfortunately out of bounds (my poor throwing). The width of the field under Skyhoundz is much less than in USDDN; I need to work on throwing straighter downfield.
The whole thing (including closing ceremony and awards) was over by 3 p.m. Good thing, too, because right about then the wind really whipped up and it looked like a storm was brewing.
Some photos of the seminar:
http://gallery.site.hu/u/HoKa/080502/Sunday morning we took one last walk around the park with the dogs (no ostrich attacks this time!) before loading up and heading off about 10:30 a.m. Drove back by way of Croatia--MUCH better than going up to Lenti and Lendava, but previously I'd had an (unjustified) phobia about hassles at the border. Stopped at Jahalni center Starosince near Ptuj
http://www.jahalni-center.comon the way back to visit our friends Metka and Saso, who are very active in hippotherapy. Monika met them last year when she spent a couple of weeks there na praksi. Delivered the frisbee shipment to Manca in Ljubljana (actually, Domzale), had a meal in Unec, dropped off Monika in Sempeter, and finally got home about 10:30 p.m. My grass has grown half a meter since I left. Too wet to mow! Maybe I should just keep some sheep out in my yard to keep the grass down, and play with Oli.