20.10.2008

Deerhound´s weekend 2008

The time runs so, so fast…. We didn’t believe, that a year since the last deerhound weekend (and the first in history), had passed. For us it is connected with Terinka’s last trip, who died two days after our return. It wasn’t easy for us to walk through the gate of camp Kalich in Kamenice nad Lipou again. This time on Friday, 12th September.

Back, in the car was Asi, Terinka’s grandgrandchild, peering out to see more. Randis, Molly Terinkaś grandchild, Dracek, and, of course, Gina, accompanied him. Cassy, Baltazar and Andy stayed at home. It would be a stressful trip for the old three and looking after the dachshund, wandering about camp…. No way!

There was quite good company of 24 human and 35 dog friends. This time, there were some friends of the camp owner, very cheerful lads from Jihlava, so we looked for a better place to talk about the last year. In the a dinning room, where we first met, everyone was singing (and the sang good) and we couldn’t hear ourselves, so we moved out under the stars.

We talked a lot and everyone brought something to keep us warm, but the cold midnight forced us to beds. We were looking towards Saturday.

We met again in the morning and we set up a short agility track, where could everyone train himself (or his dog, or both) to show, what they had learned at the end of our meeting.

After a breakfast, we made some IQ quiz to count down our (ehm… dog’s) IQ, despite the fact, that some owners also wanted to try it. The quiz was about finding a hidden food, how thea react on words like „fridge, cinema,“ how fast they threw a blanket off their head and other tasks.

Then we set up coursing - a short track, mainly for puppies to test their racing and running abilities. Those, who were used to do coursing were restless to catch the bait and they show the others what it means to „do coursing“ by themselves. The star was Gina, who gave her heart into the race. Her barking attracted the attention of all present persons and dogs…

After difficult tasks, we went for a walk…

And some done some racing there… The chase themselves, jump around and run on the fields, in the woods and meadows.We were everywhere.

The best was about to came in the evening. Shortly before the session, Iva Rihova got married, but we thought, that the marriage is not in order, just because it was not sanctioned by the deerhounds. We sent her a letter of complain through our deerhound emissary, Monika Bousova.

So, it happenned, that a czech-scottish marriage in the deerhound’s style was arranged. Preparations began shortly after the „official“ marriage, and we kept it in secret. For Mr. and Mrs. Kouhout a „love cottage“ was prepared, wedding gifts, flowers for the bride, coursage for the groom, the wedding supervisor eith a deerhound emblem, a lane of trimmed and shaved deerhounds was prepared and then the celebration. Bastian Jevees Irater took bride to the altar and Bijou Terri Irater took care, that the groom would not be late.

The newlyweds, joined together by a wedding collars,

received, among them,

the symbol of their new name „the cocks,“

of course in the scottish style, a nice wedding cake with their eatable photo

(by the way, our colleague Aleš, the gardener, who searched his house and brought us a couple of old taps, left there by his grandfather. We asked some workers of Komaxit to help us to get rid of the rust and to made them to look as new, so we could decorate them. The next stage was sewing a scottish kilt for one of the taps and a small wedding dress for the other. When our creation saw our freind, a florist and the author of the wedding flowers, the first thing, she told us was: „Well, the signs of getting old after your fifties, are shown out in many different ways“, but then she made a small bridal veil and looked out for a small basket to improve it a bit more…. so a typical women after their fifties… )

After parting the wedding cake,

which was invented by Daniela, owner of Azalka of Tylš, Iva ate the head of her husband and he followed her example and ate hers. We can prove it. We have some photos of this act.

This strange wedding attracted a lot of people, curious about what is going on here. The truth was, that this was not an ordinary wedding, we are used to, but Iva and Jirka enjoyed it like it was their first wedding.

And then, we just celebrate it late in the night. We baked a whole pork rump, got some refreshments and everyone was satisfied.

The feast was invented and arranged by Olinka Brand and her husband. Everyone enjoed it, except Mr. Tylš, who suffered from a diarrhoea and sits outside our society…

On the sunny Sunday morning, we went for a long walk. The weather was awesome, so we enjoyed it as well as our dogs did.

Hungry we were, when we returned to have a lunch. After the meal, we show the others, what tricks we had learned on agility and we tried our best. The extreme of our effort was that, when the dog refused to do it, his owner did it instead.

And everyone got an award for his effort.

Finally, we packed our things, said farewell to our friends and did a bit of deerhound play.

It was a beautiful weekend… it left many beautiful memories in us.

Thanks a lot and farewell, friends!

Photos by Hana Voborníková and Igor Bělský