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.