Voiturette

On the way to Chana's grooming, I finally took a picture of a "voiturette." I thought it was a regular Kei-car, but it is not! It is a voiture sans permis = car without license. Its weight is light and most of all its top speed is 45km/h, hence you can drive without having a license.









This one is a Chatenet, and I learned that there is another voiturette manufacture in our region (Rhone-Alpes) called AIXAM. I am looking forward to seeing more of these tiny cars, and more importantly, I want to make sure that the driver is "not too old or young to drive legally" and "not too drunk!"

Rules (No.2)

Chana must be so proud of us. The poster reads "Your dog wants to can be proud of you. Thank you for picking up."

I like how they are using "the positive reinforcement" rather than shouting "PICK IT UP!!" In many cities in France, dog poop bags are distributed for free encouraging the owners to clean up after their dog. I guess these mild approaches are necessary to gradually change the old habit, as many French would overreact by saying "Mais non!" if a harsh reinforcement is introduced.

So voilà, a cute poster of a pooch in the same posture as "La liberté quidant la peuple" by Delacroix.

Rules (No.1)

Here is one of the publicities done by the city of Grenoble with a slogan "Not possible at your home? Same in the streets."

Are the bladders made smaller or something here?

Heat is on

Brrrrr. It is cold in Grenoble. We turned the heat on for the first time this year, and I am so grateful that we have the heater working!

For quite some time, our gas water boiler and the hot water tank were both leaking quite bad. We had the maintenance guy come and they recommended that we should replace both of them. When we came back from FCI Agility championship in Liévin, we had one last hot shower and the water boiler died on us for good. The maintenance guy told me that "In France, customers are kings." So I telephoned the real-state agency like one saying "Having no hot water is intolerable!" They were mightier. The agent said it was totally doable, and she thought it may take days before she can give the go sign to the plumbers to do the work. Luckily (from the French standard) we only had to spend three days without hot water, but the filths we have accumulated over these three days seem to haunt us that Nathan and I are still sick.

Although I am sick, I am now operating at my full capacity. My French courses are demanding that I should quickly finish reading L'étranger and move on to L'écumes des jours. Besides teaching at the Japanese complimentary school, I now teach Japanese to the adults in French! I hope they will learn more Japanese than I learn French from them. Chana has a busy schedule too, and she is going to agility three times this week. She is so bored during the day because I am not at home. She seems to help herself jump up on the bed and take a snooze... We need to find out how to retrain her not to do so... Maybe having the heater on will keep her off as she prefers to stay cool :).

Chana is somebody finally ;).

News flash! Chana obtained "le CSAU (certificat de sociabilité et d'aptitude à l'utilisation)" and she can participate in dog sports in France!

The CSAU exam is the first thing doggies have to pass to do any dog sports in France, and dogs should be able to 1) show no fear to strangers, 2) loose leash walk or heel, 3) show no fear to noises, 4) stay 30 seconds when the handler is absent, and 5) come when called.

Chana passed it with remark "excellent" and we are excited to get a license to do agility competitions. Thank you Dr. Vet for confirming Chana's ID (microchip) and special thanks goes to Noëlle from CCDU for helping us take the CSAU exam.

As she does not have the paper (registration), she cannot do all of the exams. It is better than nothing though. The Canadian Kennel Club rejected our application to obtain the Performance Event Number (PEN) as Chana came from a backyard breeder. She was nobody in Canada but at least somebody in France.

FCI agility championship 2011

The agility championship in Lievin!

Hello from Bruxelles

Three of us are finally traveling together again. This time we are in Bruxelles, Belgium for three days before we head down to Liévin, France to see the FCI world agility championship.

Today is our second day here, and we have already accomplished eating Belgium waffles, chocolate, and mussels and fries.

The city centre is small enough that we have walked around pretty much everywhere. Chana may have to have a quiet time tomorrow at the hotel when we do some visits inside buildings.

The area we are staying is close to the Muslim quarter and we had merguez and kefta (unfortunately served on french baguette instead of hubuz) for dinner together with mint tea. We had to wonder the demographic imbalance as those who were dining/socializing were all men!

We are really enjoying a country with true bilingualism (trilingualism?).