Baxter at 9 months

Ok, so I'm cheating a little bit. Baxter will be 9 months on New Year's day, but close enough.

All the pictures were taken in Luzern at Simon's place.

He's such a happy dog. His tail is always going

   

 

We will be taking Baxter to a few of the more "local" shows this spring as well as Spurlaut training

Where is my white Christmas?

 I'm originally a Wisconsin girl. I'm used to harsh winters with grey skies and snow that falls and piles up so that the ground is white from roughly November until April. After my Bachelor's degree I moved to Colorado to pursue a Graduate degree. Now Colorado is synonymous with mountains and skiing and I never thought that the weather would be better than Wisconsin. To my delight, the average temperature in Boulder, Colorado was 45F and had 300 days of sunshine.
These pictures are a few years old now, but they were taken on a hike that I went on in January 2006. Yep, this is Boulder in January.









About 2 years ago a friend called me on Christmas from Boulder to tell me that it was 70F and they were grilling out for Christmas dinner. Boulder did get snow and when it snowed, it tended to be epic snow. It would snow like crazy for a couple days and be cold, then later in the week it would be sunny and everything would melt. It was a fun place to leave for a few years.

In 2008, I moved to Basel, Switzerland. I have to admit I had gotten soft after living in Boulder for 3 years and was terrified to move to Switzerland with cold, Wisconsin-like winters again. Well, after 4 years I am happy to report that Wisconsin still reigns as the worst winter place I have ever lived. Basel is in this little, wonderful pocket where it is relatively sunny, warm and milder than the rest of Switzerland. It was over 60F (17C) on Christmas Eve and sunny. Christmas day was similarly mild, but with a bit of rain.

My view from Simon's parent's house in Luzern (central Switzerland) on Christmas day. The only snow present was on the mountains

I have to admit that there is a little part of me that misses a white Christmas, but at the same time the mild weather suits me well. I've become soft after being out of Wisconsin for almost 8 years. We may still get snow this year, but for now, I'm enjoying running the dogs, shopping, and enjoying the rest of my winter holiday.

I promised pictures from Italy

So as you know, we were in Italy for Dachshund trials two weeks ago (the 15th-16th of December). Frankly, I can't believe that it was only 2 weeks ago! It seems like much longer...

The trip was about 430km (267mi), which is quite a distance by European standards, but not by my American Standards. It is really a beautiful area with a lot of rolling hills, castles, and great food and wine. What more could you want? (Maps courtesy of Google Maps)

Anyhow,  the weather in Basel had been quite rainy, but relatively warm.  I had been watching the weather in Italy and it was hovering around 5-10 C (40-50F) with a bit of rain, but mostly cloudy. I thought that it would actually be quite good for tracking and trials in general since it would be above freezing and a little moist. Wrong. When we arrived it was dark and there was light rain. I couldn't see much out the car windows since there is very little light on the roads in Switzerland/Italy aside from the car's headlights. When we arrived at our bed and breakfast (a beautiful place in Gropparello -Torre del Borgo), we saw the snow. It was at least a few inches deep and had obviously fallen a few days ago.  Great. We settled down for the night, grabbed dinner at a nice pizzeria down the road, and headed to bed.

Woke up the next day to a cold, grey, brisk day. Checked my email to ensure I hadn't gotten anything from the trial organizers. Nothing. So we headed to the trial location at 10am to check in and pay for for our tracking trials at 11am. When we got to Cimafava, this was the weather situation:

Not the nicest conditions.

Freddie and Simon December 17th, 2011 after their SchwhK

/20.

We were told that tracking would not happen today as the past couple days had caused everything to ice over, making tracking too difficult. In addition there was quite a bit of wind that day, which isn't common for the area. We were disappointed that 2 of our 5 trials were cancelled, but so be it. The weather was not on our side. We were told that this type of weather was not common for Italy this time of year and that this year had been especially snowy. It reminded me of our nice weather the year before and wished that we had the same luck.

Since we had all afternoon free, we went shopping at a local shopping center to pick up lots of wine, meat, cheese, and Christmas goodies to take home. Went back to the agricultural center in Cimafava where the trials were held for a delicious Italian lunch and got updated on what was happening tomorrow and when we should meet back for the exams. We then made what was left of the day into a site-seeing adventure to the nearby town of Castell'arquato to walk around the old town and see the castle.

This is the same field pictured above 1 year later.

All of us enjoyed the old town and stretching our legs walking through the city and up the hill to the castle.

The snowy road up

The dogs weren't sure what I was doing, but they both seem concerned for my well being.

We ended the day kicking back at the bed and breakfast, having tea with the owners, who are some of the nicest people that I have met, and chatting for a while about life, work, dogs, travel, etc...

Everyone looks pretty comfy!

The next day we got up early and headed back to Cimafava for Sauprüfung (Wild Boar trial) and 2 Fox trials. Unfortunately, the weather was even crappier than the day before:

In addition to iced over snow, due to thawing and melting the day before and freezing over night, we had very, very thick fog. It was so thick that you couldn't see a car more than 10m/30ft in front of you. The result of which was us almost getting rear-ended trying to turn into the parking lot of the trial grounds. The picture above was taken around 10 in the morning when some of the fog was starting to lift a bit. Supposedly, fog is common in this area due to lack of wind. I don't know, but we certainly aren't used to conditions like that. It was Freddie's first time in with the Boars and although we hoped for the best, the reality was that he was too inexperienced to find them. He searched well enough, but without any visual cues (due to fog), he wasn't sure what he was searching for. He got about 5 minutes to search a wooded, enclosed area containing two boars. Supposedly even the conditions were bad for the seasoned dogs. We were told that only 10% of the dogs entered passed the exam and normally this number was closer to 50%. Mr. Palladini did invite us down to practice on the boars in the future if we would ever want to try the test again.

After Boar we had 2 fox exams. I won't go into too much detail here as I explained them (more or less) in a previous post. I am happy to say that Freddie walked away with 2- 1st place ratings and 1 second in trial. There were 40 total Bauprüfung (fox or hare) that day, so it was quite a lot of waiting. We started at about 9 am and finished around 2:30 pm. After that we were on our way home.

Freddie with his 2nd place medal, ready to head home.

 Even though the fog had started to clear throughout the morning, it was back in full-force by the drive home.

My view from the Italian highway

Funnily enough, the fog started to lift just as we hit the Swiss border, leading to a wonderful view of the Alps at sunset. What a great way to be welcomed home!

Merry Christmas!

Here in Basel it looks like we will have a very green and rainy Christmas. The weather is expected to be 16ºC (61ºF) and sunny for Christmas eve, so we will have to take advantage of the nice weather. I foresee long walks in the woods for the next couple day and I'm sure the boys will be excited that the rain is supposed to let up so they can really stretch their little legs!

I'm going to try and do quite a bit of updating in the hunting trials section and *finally* put up pictures from Italy. So keep a look out for some pictures of Emilia-Romagna region of Italy coming soon! 

Fallilou du Sangre Bleu "Freddie" and Barbwired Better than the Rest "Baxter" wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

From our house to yours, we hope everyone has a very happy and healthy holiday season and a great 2013.

A little more about last weekend's trials

So I promised to write a bit more on each of the trials. 

We we're planning on doing 5 tests: SchwhK/40, SchwPoR, Saupr, BhFK95, Fbja

Due to the weather in Italy, the two tracking tests were cancelled. Bummer. It had snowed at some point earlier in the week. We were told that the weather had basically fluctuated from above zero and sunny to -5˚C or colder at night. This basically led to melt during the day and icing up at night. In addition, the night the we got there it was rain/snowing and on Sunday until at least noon, the fog was so thick that you couldn't see more than about 5-10 meters in front of you. Not ideal for a lot of tests, especially not tracking as any of the sprayed blood would be underneath an ice layer or washed away completely.

Since we didn't have any tracking tests, we ended up eating a really nice lunch at the area where the trials were held, doing some shopping, and doing some sight-seeing. Near Cimafava/Piacenza there are a lot of castles and we ended up going to Castell' Arquato and taking a nice walk around the town and up to the castle. We also loaded up on a lot of nice wine and Italian Salami, Parma, and other assorted meats.

On Sunday we were up bright and early to be at the trials in order to compete in Saupr. Freddie had never competed or tried to find a boar, but we thought it was worth a try. For Saupr, basically the dog is put into an enclosed area containing a couple of wild boar and he is supposed to track the boar and bark at the boar and work it until the hunter can get there. Freddie searched, but again, due to the snow, wind, and very heavy fog, he was not able to find the boars in the time allotted and was eliminated from the test(Not completed). Antonio was very helpful though and offered for us to come down early before the next tests that we competed in, in order to have a practice on the boars. I think we will take him up on it.

 Freddie then competed in 2 different fox trials.

  In one, he had to first find the fox and then work the fox and "push" it through a series of boxes. The "pushing" only begins after the dog has already bayed at the fox for 2 minutes and then they have a maximum of 5 minutes to move it. They can only receive 100 points if they move the fox. In the other he had to find the fox and work it continuously for at least 3 minutes.

Freddie did well in both, but did not receive full points in because he had a few breaks in his barking (maybe 10 sec, but this was enough to take off a bit) in one test and in the other he was spot on and really wanted the fox, but he didn't push it hard enough to move it. He had never had to move a fox before, so we didn't expect him to ace this test. This didn't matter to us, we were more excited that he performed so well in a completely unknown Bau and really wanted to work. He went in the hole for the second test without a second thought.

Even though Freddie is a fairly high and big dackel (though he is more long than he is wide and looks very proportional), he loves the fox hole and is very passionate when working the fox. I think we will be competing in more fox trials with him in the future.

Just a quick update

So tonight will be a short post as we just got home and everyone is tired.

Due to really crap weather, all of the tracking was cancelled. Bummer. This left us with the entire Saturday to eat, drink, and sight see around the beautiful countryside. We visited a local castle and gave the dogs a nice walk around in the town.

As Baxter is 2 weeks too young to compete, Freddie was our working dog. This worked out fine as Baxter would have only been tracking anyhow.  Anyway, Freddie has really found his forte in the fox hole. He did 2 fox trials:
Prova in tana artificiale su volpe (Fbja:Fuchsbodenjagdarbeit)
Prova in tana artificiale su volpe DTK/FCI (BhFK/95:Eignungsbewertung fur die Bodenjagd)

I'll explain more about them later.  Anyhow, to our delight, Freddie received 94 points (1st prize) in each trial and was the second best dog in Fbja which got him this pretty little trinket:

The fox hunter taking a well deserved nap

It's not a CACT, but we had a great time and look forward to going back next year.

Trials this weekend

Last year we went down to Italy to participate in our first Dackel trials. The advantage of driving the 4.5 hours to Italy versus sticking around up here and doing trials is:
1.) Timing
2.) Cost
3.) Variety
4.) Need for hunting license

Since neither Simon nor I are hunters and mainly participate in these trials for the fun of working with the dog and harnessing its natural talents, we do not yet have hunting licenses. To participate in certain hunting exams such as blood tracking in Germany or Switzerland, you need to have a hunting license. The German and Swiss hunting licenses are INTENSE. They are, more or less, equivalent to a Master's degree and a lot of work and money. Right now my German is not up to par to pass a test like that and we don't have the time or money at the moment. Several Swiss hunters actually pass the French hunting exam, which is not as intense and perfect for people like us who don't necessarily want to hunt at the moment, but may some day. Right now we just want to be active and train our dogs and will consider studying for the French exam after we are both finished with our degrees.

The variety of tests that you can participate during these weekends are mind boggling. They have fox, tracking, Vp, Sau, etc... Last year at the same trials they had 170 exams in one weekend. Crazy. This was a bit insane and we were only 1 of the 170 signed up for. This year we will participate in 5 exams: Fbja (Italian Fox test without contact), BhFK/95 (according to DTK rules), Sauprüfung (Wild boar test), SchwhP. o. R. (blood tracking without judge), and SchwhK/40 (40 hour old blood tracking). We're hoping for positive results in all trials, but we will see.

The timing for us is great. Italy is warmer and drier this time of year (on average) than Switzerland, so it's a nice winter holiday.

Lastly, the cost. Most things are cheap compared to Switzerland, but these trials are a great deal, especially for first timers like us who just want to try out a bunch of trials and see how our dog does and have fun with it. As members of the DTK/SDC, we would pay ~ 300 Euro ($390) to participate in these 5 trials, in Switzerland we would pay ~250 CHF ($270) for only 2 tests (Switzerland doesn't have the equipment/ability to host Fox tests or Wild Boar tests). With the Italian tests, we will pay around 150 Euro ($195). For PhD students with a limited income that still want to work with the dogs, this is great to try out, plus it's Italy. The food, the sights, and the people are great. It's a really nice weekend.

I can't wait to see how Freddie does and to hopefully see his natural talents shine!

Schweissübung (Blood Tracking Practices)

This weekend is a weekend of rest for our little "family." Normally we would be laying a finally training track in the woods for Simon and Freddie to practice for next weekend. Due to the snow and other life engagements, we are spending a weekend at home.

For the past 2 months, we have been working with both Freddie and Baxter with blood tracking training. Freddie tracked last year, but for Baxter this was a first. Baxter has some nose on him! I'll give you all a little insight into how we train our dogs.

Simon and I usually go to the woods either the day before (20hr track) or 2 days ahead of time (40hr track) with a spray bottle that can be turned 360 degrees or a common a lab spray bottle. For marking the track we use clothespins in red, orange, and silver and on the corners we have orange ribbons. We try to make the longest tracks possible, but we usually can only get a maximum of 600m (they should be 1000m or so). For a track of this length we use 2 dl (200 ml) of blood diluted by 1/2 with water, which gives me more wiggle room with spraying.  I always make sure to have the bottles on the sharp spray/jet setting so that the blood doesn't spread everywhere. We always make sure that our tracks go over a road, stream, or heavily used path to really test the dog. We also do several(2-3) 90 degree turns, at least 1 with a simulated wound bed. At the end of the track (the day of the tracking) we put a thawed piece of hide or a foot and the dogs are always very sad to give up their prize. There are several ways of tracking and everyone has their own style, but this style has worked well for us thus far. Freddie has been tracking well this year and has really fallen into a moderate pace of tracking. Simon is EXTREMELY happy that he doesn't have to sprint through the woods like he did last year. A 500m track takes Simon and Freddie ~15 min to complete. In a test situation, they would have 45 min to 1 hr to complete a 1000m track (I would have to double check the times).

Baxter gets much easier tracks. We started him on a 50 m track with ~1dl of blood, one turn, and sausage pieces on the track to get him to associate blood with interesting stuff. With time we increased the length of the track and the time that the track was aged. Until now, Baxter has been upgraded to a ~175m track with 3 turns and 2 dl of diluted blood and aged overnight. He has a great tracking style that is relatively slow. He will often go back and check if he is unsure and is VERY good about pointing out blood droplets to us. His turns so far have been perfect and he shows a lot of promise.

Winter is coming!

This past Sunday we had our first real snowfall in Basel. Instead of tracking, which would have been futile, we decided to take the boys to play in the snow. I will upload the video soon, but until then, here's Freddie at 9 months enjoying a snowing day around Christmas time.
Happy Holidays!

A successful year thus far...

I think it's always easy to look back at a year and think of all the things that you didn't do. Didn't read the books or blog enough or diet hard enough, etc...

With the dogs, it is much easier to look back at all the tests and trials that they have achieved and feel a sense of accomplishment. This year Freddie really shone.

Freddie's accomplishments thus far:

December 2011:
SchwhK/20 (2nd prize) IT-ABC

April:
BHP 1 (1st prize) DTK
BHP 2 (2nd prize) DTK

September:
Sfk
Sp (2nd prize) DTK

December:
BhFK/95 DTK

This was all in addition to adjusting to have another dog in the house and learning to "share" his time with us. Even though Freddie received Gebrauchshund status last year after passing his SchwhK/20 in Italy, it was nice to see that his hunting instinct runs deep. For Gebrauchshund status in Switzerland a dog must have one of the following: SchwhK/20 (1000m) or Sp+St or Sp+BhFK/95 or Sp+VP. Freddie has now fulfilled 2 of the 4 scenarios.

I guess that means that after our degrees are finished, Simon and I should start working on getting a hunting license and trying for a few more tests with our little brown hunter.

BhFK/95

December 2nd, 2012

Happy Advent! We woke up to a Winter Wonderland this morning and had to convince Freddie to trade in his burrowing under the covers for an artificial fox den.

4 dogs were entered in the trial today and I'm happy to report that all of them passed! Freddie received special kudos from the judge for his work. He said that he really liked his style working the fox.The judges cut his test off early because Freddie started trying to bite through the bars to get the fox and they didn't want him to wreck his teeth. Supposedly 3 of the 4 dogs had to be stopped early for this reason.

For passing this test, Freddie can add BhFK/95(DTK) to his list of trials.

Congrats Freddie!