The boys and the badger

All I can say is success! Freddie did an excellent job and worked a Kvalitet 1 (1st prize)!!! His one faux pas was that he had problems turning himself around  Baxter did an okay job, but was overall a little bit slow to start and could have been a bit more persistent, but barked himself a Kvalitet 2 (2nd prize). His practices were by far better than the test, but this was his first result underground, so I was happy! I think both of the boys could have done a bit better if there would have been a practice closer to the test, but I can´t be too sad.

The boys with their loot

Out of the 7 dogs that participated, 5 passed: 4 with Kval 1 and 1 with Kval 2. The judge commented on how happy he was to see dachshund participating in underground trials again. Supposedly there has been a steep decline in the amount of dachshund participating in, and being used for underground hunting, in Sweden. To have a test with only dachshund participants made him very happy.

This is Freddie´s first result from Sweden and he killed it! Now we have to decide what to do next. With this score, if Freddie is able to pass a real life hunting test (equivalent to the German BhFN/BhDN) and spring a fox or hold off a badger, then he would gain a Hunting championship. Alternatively, we could start training him in Denmark or Norway or Finland and try to get results from those countries. Currently, we are hoping to try Fred on Drevprov here in Sweden while we try to decide what we want to do with the underground test. Freddie is readily Spurlaut and has a lot of hunting drive, so you never know. Maybe he will end up a hunting champion... One can dream. :)

Freddie showing us all how it's done!

Finland and more

Well, we are back and feeling rested after a nice holiday. We spent 10 days in Finland, visiting friends, enjoying the very hot summer (over 27C EVERY day), and attending the World Dog Show. We did a bit of swimming and sunbathing, but not a lot of outside activities with Bax due to the horrid heat since it was well over 25C every day by 10 in the morning. Hot, hot, hot! We were very lucky that we brought a fan with us since our hotel, though nice in a lot of other ways, had no air conditioning. This meant that Bax did some swimming and otherwise had a lot of activity in the early morning or after dinnertime when the temperatures dipped to a more comfortable temperature.

My favorite sign from the archipelago

 Freddie stayed with a friend back in Sweden since he wasn´t going to the show and sitting in a box or hotel room for several days in a row is no fun. He enjoyed the lap of luxury in a nice house in the suburbs and was treated like a prince. What a lucky dog! He was very happy to be home though, let me tell you!

Nothing exciting happened at the dog shows. We knew that at a big show like this, it was unlikely that we would get anything, but why not try? For the 2nd time in my life, I handled Baxter as his breeders, Simon, and I decided that he looked and behaved better with me, than he did with Simon. We only got Very Goods, but pretty good evaluations and it was a good learning experience for me since I will be handling Baxter this autumn at shows. He looked especially good at the World dog show (as told to me by his breeders), which made me very happy. Excellents would have been amazing, but at the same time, good evaluations and not falling on my face are just as important.

In addition to the show, we combined our holiday with the pick-up of our new puppy. Yes, that´s right, we picked up a puppy!  Meet our new girl Liina.

This is our new co-owned girl Barbwired Champagne (MultiCh. Gordon Forte-Forte de Buch de la Perouse x MultiCh. Barbwired Austria) aka Liina and she is just under 16 weeks old. As you might recognize, she is from the same kennel as our Baxter and Baxter's mother is Liina´s grandmother. Both of her parents are successful show dogs, both have working results including Tracking championships in Sweden, a Working championship in Italy and trials in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, & Austria, and both are very loving and people oriented dogs. In fact, Aura, Liina's mother, is the reason that we have dackels. She is the dog that turned Simon into a dachshund lover. :) Liina is a very loving and feisty little girl and one day I hope that we will be able to start our own breeding program with this little one. We will see what the future holds for this girl as she will start shows and working trials next year.

The boys are both tolerating the new addition very well. Baxter is more tolerant and willing to play with the little one where Freddie is a bit more cautious and seems convinced that if he ignores her, she may go away. Liina has gotten Freddie to play with her a bit in the past day, so we will see how their relationship develops.

The weather today is less than ideal and it appears that summer is over. The rain has been pouring all day and it makes the end of holidays/starting work again not seem so bad. Back to normal life!