Swiss Working Dachshund Statistics

So I have been very impatiently waiting for the newest SDC member magazine to show up and yesterday it finally came. I raced through it, just glancing over the pages until I found this:

What is this table you may ask? This is the working statistics for Switzerland. Basically every test that is passed (that isn't something totally specialized like the Italian Fbja) is counted for points. The dogs are then ranked based on their point totals. Now, not every dog owner turns in their point totals, but several do and I like to see where we fall on the list.

This year I am happy to announce that Freddie is #4 on the list! We came right after the 3 dogs that all participated in Vp. For two relatively novice dackel owners who are just getting the hang of these trials, I think I can call it a success! So hopefully this year brings a hunting license into our lives and continuation with more hunting tests with our boys.

International Hunde Ausstellung (International Dog Show), Fribourg, CH

So this weekend marked a few things:

Freddie's first time at an "unknown" place
Baxter's dog show debut
Freddie and Baxter's first time being separated


We'll start with Freddie.

Although we could have taken Freddie with us to Fribourg, we decided against it because it is NO FUN to sit in a box all day with lots of dogs around. Freddie is always alert and ready to go (unless it's first thing in the morning) and would have been a barking maniac at the show. We had arranged for him to spend the weekend with a dog-loving colleague of a friend. We had a meet up the week before and her Yorkie got along great with the boys and all seemed great.  Notice the word "seemed."  Well, right before Baxter was to show on Saturday I got calls and a lot of text messages telling me that Freddie was a whining, crying doofus because the woman that she was staying with had rats. Sigh. They weren't an issue the weekend before, but supposedly he was crying at the door and trying to get to them from the time we dropped him off until the next morning (about 15 hours). Luckily, he didn't get to the rats since they were in a closed off room, because I think I would have owed Lou new rats...  Oh, our little hunter!  By mid-day on Saturday Freddie had more or less given up on the rats and took to snoring on the couch, playing with the Yorkie, and barking at the neighbor dog from the yard, which he continued doing until this evening. We picked him up tonight and, admittedly, I was a bit embarrassed that our normally well behaved dog acted like an annoying, whiny, brat, but what could I do? The little brown dog wanted to hunt rats! No one ever told him that he couldn't....

Now to the show!

Now that's a lot of bling!

This weekend marked Baxter's show debut. In Europe, dog shows are set up are set up according to FCI rules. Unlike in America, Dachshunds make up their own group (FCI group 4), which is made up of Kurzhaar/Poil Ras (short haired), Langhaar/Poil Long (long haired), and Rauhaar/Poil Dur (wire haired) in 3 different sizes: Kaninchen/rabbit sized (chest size under 30 cm), Zwerg/miniature (chest size under 35cm), and Standard. There are also several classes that the dogs can be exhibited in: Baby(under 6 months), Puppy (6-9 months), Junior (9-18 months), Intermediate (15-24 months), Open(over 15 months), Working (over 15 months with working certificate), Champion (over 15 months and a NON-junior Championship in another country), and Veteran (over 8 years). All in all this leads to a long day and quite a lot of waiting since one judge has to judge 50+ dogs.

Regardless, we had a rather nice couple days hanging out with friends from our local dackel clubs, doing a little wandering around and shopping, and showing off our little dog. Switzerland has 3 weekends per year (Fribourg, St. Gallen and now Geneva) with 2 international dog shows each weekend. This gives dogs the opportunity to win CACs (towards Championships) as well as CACIB (International beauty certificates) on both days. This weekend there were ~50 dackels on each day of competition, including 5 Wirehaired standards yesterday and 10 Wirehaired standards today. Most of the exhibitioners are Swiss, but this weekend there were also a few French, German, and Italian exhibitioners.

I'm happy to report that Baxter had a great start to his show career with 2x V1 CAC/J ie, Excellent 1, Junior CAC (towards junior Champion of Switzerland) and 1x Junior Best of Breed.

Our accomplishment for the weekend

 In addition, Baxter got to walk in the big ring for BIS-Junior. He didn't win unfortunately, but he did make it through at least 2 rounds of cuts and was one of the last 15 dogs in the ring. Not bad for a first show weekend! Now we have a couple weeks off before the next round of shows. We are going to shows that are roughly 1-1.5 hours away from home for now. Mostly for practice, but if we can finish off a couple Junior Championships, that would be great too! I really have to give a lot of credit to Simon for walking with this little guy in the ring. He is a great handler in the making and puts up with me signing him up for dog shows with the little man. I have to say I'm really happy with how well Baxter did in the stand. I worked very hard to get him to understand that "hold" means to stretch out and stand pretty. Both judges commented on how beautiful he looked in this position. The only thing that the judges really commented on was movement. Baxter is only 10.5 months old and still "loose" and so he has a bit of a shaky/wobbly walk, but both seemed confident that he would grow out of that. Next up will be another IHA and Special Zuchtschau in Offenburg, Germany in March.


Now for my favorite part of the weekend... The boys meeting up again.

Baxter has never lived without other dogs. He went from being in a litter of 5 with 3 adult dogs in the house to flying to Switzerland and coming into our home with Freddie. With only a few exceptions, such as separate trainings or vet appointments, the boys have never been apart, and we had no idea how Baxter would react to his friend being gone. He seemed okay the first day and we really wondered if he noticed that Freddie was missing. When we arrived home from the show, though, Baxter ran into the house full speed and searched every room of the house and walked back into the hallway with this look on his face like he couldn't imagine where else Freddie would be hiding. The scene repeated again this evening, which broke my heart a bit. We fed Baxter and then immediately went to pick up Freddie. Freddie was happy to see us, but by the end of his stay, I think he was having a great time with his new Yorkie pal. We packed everything up and headed home. When we opened the door and Baxter saw Freddie was home, you would have thought that we told him he had won the lottery! He was completely wiggly and kissy and just happy. It was really heartwarming to see them so happy to see each other. I really wish I would have taken a video.


Now everyone if pretty exhausted from our long, but very fruitful, weekend.

Dogs in the Media

So as my American readers probably know, this past Monday and Tuesday were the Westminster kennel club annual dog show. (http://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/) As a kid, I was amazed by this show. I remember seeing it on TV and all the beautiful dogs running around the ring and thinking how cool it would be to see a show like that live. I am not a dog show aficionado, nor do I pretend to be. We have attended Zuchtschaus (Breed shows) through our local German club with both of our dogs, Freddie has been shown in Croatia at the popular and very fun 4 Summer Nights show, and Baxter will make his show debut in Fribourg, Switzerland, this weekend. We are not show people, but we do like to show off our dogs from time to time. I like to prepare for dog shows by watching Best in Show. If you haven't seen it, do it! Such a great movie and any person who has been to a dog show or is a fan of a show like Westminster will appreciate it.

For the movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeifMjqpsg0

For a list of all the winning dogs(Best of Breed) at Westminster this year, there is a nice photo spread from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/12/sports/westminster-dog-show-best-of-breed.html

And Congrats goes to Banana Joe the Affenpinscher for BIS.

I was lucky enough to catch the judging of the Wirehaired Dachshunds at Westminster. It was very apparent that this was not the breed that I am used to seeing. All of the dogs just looked huge! It was crazy. Now Freddie and Baxter are not little dogs (at roughly 11kg and 9kg, respectively), but I think they would have looked tiny next to some of the Goliaths in that ring. It also made me really realize that the European dackels (even the big ones) are built to be agile and work. Looking at a dog like Biff (winner of the Wirehairs), he really wouldn't be able to work a hole or make it over any of the logs, etc... that our dogs have to while working. I know that this mantra has been said again and again, but sometimes it is hard to compare the different continental breed styles when you are only exposed to one type 90% of the time.


Now, to switch gears a bit, on Sunday there was the TV debut in Europe of Dackel! Kleiner Hund, ganz Gross (Literally, Little dog, very big). Now this was very talked about in the Der Dachshund Magazine and online in Dackel forums, so of course we watched it as well. (If you are interested in the film you can watch it here: http://videos.arte.tv/de/videos/dackel-kleiner-hund-ganz-gross--7302468.html?fb_action_ids=536006536432165&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366) I'm not sure if the link will work outside of Europe, sorry! The film can be watched in German and French, sorry for all the English speakers.

I had a bad feeling about this film from the beginning when they decided to have a longhair dachshund "narrate" the film and felt the need to animate his mouth. Oy! Way to cheese up the film. They start off at the home of Antonio Palladini, a prominent wirehaired dackel breeder in northern Italy. Some of you may recognize the house and ground from our Italy trip (see back to December) or notice that the Palladini's kennel is a link on our site (Baxter's father is Antonio and Barbara's dog Apollo: http://www.val-vezzeno.it/pages/our-dogs/apollo.php). The artificial fox den that is featured is where Freddie did his tests and won his prize (see Trials) and the boar is the one that Freddie failed to find in the crappy conditions this past December. This was all quite cool to see.

The rest of the film was, well, unimpressive. Some of the, well, "bad" points of the film:

The filmmakers saw how dackels live in Japan and this I think was negative for the breed. From 800 Euro (~1000CHF/USD), custom made clothes, to strollers, and hand made treats-read dog birthday cakes- the Japanese spoil their dogs. There are something like 20,000 dackels in Japan and tons of them end up homeless and living shortly in animal shelters or are killed. Moreover, there are Japanese DTK members and one even admitted to paying something like 10,000 Euro ($13,500/12,500CHF) for his German bred dog instead of buying a local Japanese dachshund. 

There really wasn't much on how dachshunds are used in hunting, which is sad as this was their original purpose and something that is very important to a large part of the European community.

The two dackel breeders that they focus on were big breeders. Antonio and Barbara own something like 30 dogs as do the shorthair breeders from Germany. The majority of European kennels (I would say) are small hobby breeders. I realize that it is probably easier to contact and get in touch with the big breeders, but I think that it gives a false sense that everyone that breeds dachshunds has a large number of dogs. Most of our friends and colleagues have 2-4 dachshunds at home, but they are like potato chips...you can't have just one!

There was also nothing on dachshunds participating in obedience (like BHP) or agility training, which is a normal part of a lot of active dackel people's lives.

There was a small bit from a man in France who was training his dackel to use his excellent nose to find truffles. I liked this and was trying to figure out how we could convince Freddie to do this. :)

All in all, the film is what it is. It tries to give an overview of dackels, but falls short on the reality of all that these little dogs can accomplish.

Until next time...

Starting the SKN

Today marked Simon and Baxter's first of 4 SKN (Sachkundenachweis- Obligitory dog owner course in Switzerland) practical courses. In 2010, Switzerland started enforcing new laws that that require dog owners to participate in theory and/or practical courses. New dog owners are supposed to take the theory course before they get their dog and the practical course is taken after the dog is 5 months old and/or within 1 year of obtaining your dog.

In essence, I think that these courses are a great step in curbing "cute" puppy buying on a whim and forcing people to really look at why they want a dog. Unfortunately, the new system, in my opinion, still contains quite a few flaws, but I'm hoping that changes will be made in the coming years. One of the biggest flaws I see now is the practical course. Every person owning a dog has to take the practical course for every new dog that they obtain. This means everyone, including breeders. Mind you that depending on the Canton that you live in, the maximum number of dogs is something like 2 per person or 2 per household. You can, of course, have more dogs, but I believe that needs a special permit.

Now, I understand the importance of having a hands on course for new dog owners and I think it is a very good idea, in theory. The problem is that the practical course is usually 4-6 lessons for no more than 1 hour at a time. The SKN instructors have a basic "outline" that they have to follow in terms of what they teach the people involved, but each instructor makes their own courses. When Simon did this course with Freddie 2 years ago he came home pissed off after one class because they spent the whole 45 minutes learning how to pet the dog, give it treats, and pick out the right grooming utensils. This would be fine if you had just obtained your dog or if this was tacked onto the theory course, but since you can't take your dog until it is at least 5 months old, we found it pointless. These are the types of things you learn right away if you have at least 1 competent dog person in your life. The dogs were not allowed to interact with each other either since they are all on leash and the trainer was very strict about dogs not even sniffing butts on her training ground. Needless to say, Simon was thrilled when he was finished with that course. 

Freddie was not impressed...

I was supposed to do the practical course with Baxter. I say "supposed to" because the Basel Veterinarians found that my previous dog ownership (our poodle and American Eskimo growing up and our 2 dackel now) were insufficient. Thus, I have to spend at least 5 hours of my time and quite a bit of money to sit through a theory course(of which I'm pretty sure I know everything they'll tell me). This would be ok, except that all of the trainers listed on the BVET website in Switzerland as English speaking, will not hold the class in English. Mind you, my German is ok, but my Swiss German is crap. They have all told me that I can sit in and ask questions after in English if I didn't understand or that Simon can come and sit in with me. Great. A waste of both of our time. Since Simon already took the theory course, he is now taking the little guy to the practical course.


Sorry about the rant. Back on topic. What I find annoying about this new Swiss system is that there is no course for experienced dog owners. Simon would have happily taken a SKN course set that was geared to returning dog owners. Better yet, I think that they should allow for people to skip the course all together if they can prove that they regularly train with their dogs. If you put in the time and money and effort to make your dog a good citizen, reward them for it!

As I said, the whole system is rather new and I'm sure that it will evolve with time, so we can only hope for the best. I'm sure that we will run into issues with this whole system again if we stay in Switzerland, but only time will tell. 

Baxter at 10 months

On Friday Baxter turned 10 months. Looking back, I'm amazed at his growth! He didn't stay a tiny puppy for long. He is turning into a handsome dog, though, if I do say so myself.

Hopefully I will have more to update in the coming weeks as all of our dog related activities start up again. Until then, have a great weekend!