Živa was born in June 2002. The exact date is not known, because she's a foundling and I took her from Maribor animal shelter when she was around three months old. After we moved to a new apartment, Dušan and I were thinking about a new four legged family member for a while, so we visited an animal shelter in autumn 2002. I whished for a younger female of a smaller size and "sports" build, because I had an idea that I would do agility with her. At the time Živa was the only puppy in the shelter, but she was exactly what I wished for. Besides she choose us before we even had the chance to express our wishes.

As far as the health is concerned, Živa was a very sensitive dog. The worst were chronic digestive problems and we had to try quite a few food brands, before we found "the right one". She still occasionally has problems with the ears and the skin. She was spayed when she was six months old. Živa was also very shy. Although we tried to get her used to all kinds of things from the day one, she's still scared of (some) strange people, the noisy halls, the water (specially the waves), commercial banners waving in the wind, the full garbage bags (specially, if they rustle in the wind) and the cracks of the firecrackers.

Živa is not enthusiastic about obedience training, but with tremendous amount of patience and persistence I managed to get her to cooperate. We practiced the basic obedience exercises between our walks in the park from autumn 2002 to spring 2003, when we enrolled in a puppy class with agility at KD Maribor. We liked the company and agility too (specially I liked agility). So we became active members of the club and started with competitions in A1 medium on spring 2004. It took Živa more than a year (from our beginnings in the puppy class) that with experience she gained some self-confidence and enthusiasm on the agility course. But the patience paid off as we finished the 2004 season as the national champions in A1 (beginners) medium and we already ran in the A2 at the last competitions of the season. Despite just a few winter competitions we managed to gather all tickets for moving up to A3 and began the 2005 season at the highest level. As expected we weren't between the best but we weren't the worst either. Toward the end of my pregnancy my sister Alenka started to practice with Živa and in the winter 2005 they started to compete in an A2 level.

Because Živa never showed much enthusiasm at the competitions, in the autumn 2007 we decided to retire her from the ring. But she still enjoys agility for fun a few times a week at the training.