We went up to Saarbrücken for the 1 day National Dog Show in hopes to get Baxter his last CAC-J for his German junior Champion title. The judge gave him a wonderful evaluation, but only a SG (sehr gut) rating. It was a bit shitty since his main complaint about the dog was his movement. He said that he had good stride and ground coverage, but was wobbly and his joints were still too loose. We have heard this comment before, but most judges realize that he is just about 1 year old. I have to admit that I felt better knowing that only 1 junior dog (of 6 total male and female) received a V (Excellent) and I would guess that at least 1/2 of the dogs entered received SG ratings. Of course we were disappointed that the winning streak was broken, but 7 shows and 4 Junior Champion titles is not a bad career start! On a side note, I have to recommend Saarbrücken as a real hidden treasure of a German city. The city itself sits on the border to France, is incredibly green, hilly, full of beautiful old buildings, and has a great little old city center. Despite the result, we had a wonderful time and enjoyed the city more than I could have imagined. :)
In other news...
Baxter's mom Iiris "Taxette's Isla Margarita" came out of "retirement" last month and added new titles to her already impressive list: Latvian, Lithuanian, and Baltic Champion! It was great news to hear that a 7 year 11 month old dog could still make a huge impression in the ring. Iiris turned 8 a couple of weeks ago and now competes in Veteran class. At a recent show in Kuopio, Iiris and her daughter Bella Bambina "Iita" (Baxter's sister) were both rated Excellent and CQ. CQ, if I understand this correctly, we don't have this distinction in Switzerland, means "CAC Quality" and these dogs would then compete for CACs and/or CACIBs. Iiris received BOB-Veteran and Iita, Best Bitch 4. A HUGE congrats to Baxter's family!!
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| Looking good at 8 years old! Iiris (left) with 13 month old daughter Iita (Photo: M. Varjosalo) |
Lastly, I don't want you all to think that we have given up on our hunting activities! Unfortunately, all of our "normal" dog activities are a time sink. I love them, but we had to prioritize right now in order to get everything accomplished for ourselves. Since Baxter was not able to get in enough tracks for us to be confident that he would pass his Spurlaut exam, we decided to wait on further training until fall. We were going to do a few tracks throughout the spring and summer, but it has been so cold and wet this year that laying out blood tracks would be a bit of a waste. Maybe the sun will finally make an appearance in June...
Freddie is not a water dog. He swims beautifully, retrieves like a champ, but is unreliable with the two things together. I kind of think he developed a dislike for the water when he was about 1 year old, swam a bit too far into the river and decided to climb onto a rock, refusing to come back to shore. I had to wade out to get him (luckily the river was only 2.5 feet deep or so) and bring him in. Since then, he will swim, but the toy has to be worth saving. Baxter on the other hand is looking to be a much braver water dog. As a puppy, he spent a bit of time watching the fish in a colleagues back yard pond and tried to catch them by walking on lily pads. Needless to say, lily pads do not hold 4.5 kg puppies and at 9 weeks old, Baxter showed us (Thankfully!) that he could swim. Lately he has been wading in a lot of the little streams around the dog park, but these were at most chest deep. Last night we decided to take a walk after a long day of work at our local dog park. The river that runs through the park is the Wiese and connects with the Rhine just slightly downstream of the dog park. With all the rain we have had this year it is quite fast and deep at the moment (still less than 5 feet deep, but that is several dackels high!) and we were reluctant to let the dogs swim. Baxter had other plans though and kept trying to go to the edge and take a dip. Finally we got to an area with a small inlet where the water was mostly still. I threw a nice big stick in about 6 feet from shore and the little one jumped in to get it. No problem! Simon threw it a bit farther on the next go and Baxter retrieved it and decided to swim a bit farther out before turning around and heading back to shore. He got a lot of praise and treats and I figure that if he'll go in with little problem to get a stick, then a real duck should be just fine! We got a few recommendations regarding more still water in the area and I hope that we'll be able to do some practicing before too long.
Ok, that's it for now. I'll try and update a bit more in the coming weeks, but until then, I wish you all a great start to June!
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