How versatile is your dog?

This is a topic that I have started writing about time and time again, but after a comment today, I felt the need to write about it. We were told today that our dog has "too many problems" with tracking and there is no way we should even be thinking/practicing for den tests. Now these "problems" with tracking is focus. Baxter is still a relatively young dog and in true dachshund fashion, is stubborn. He is amazing on all of the "hard" parts- bloodless areas, turns and the bloodless down and back (there isn't a good translation for the Swedish word). He is a high energy dog with a lot of drive, but he doesn't always want to track because we ask him. This will come with time and more experience for sure. The length, time, etc... doesn't matter, but deer tracks right across the path is WAY more interesting than our stupid artificial tracks. Anyhow, more practices and he will be fine. We would love for him to be ready now, but we are more than willing to spend time and energy on our little doggie.

It isn't the comment of "too many problems" that bothered me, the thing that bothered me was that someone other than Simon was trying to tell me what I should do with my dog. I know that it is a dog, but I feel like the semi-equivalent is when new parents are told how they should raise their child. Just a bit pissed off. I mean, if this was an especially close friend that knew our dog really well or his breeders, maybe I would have had a conversation about it. Luckily, Simon was approached with this question, because he is much more cool in these situations than I am. He basically replied "I think my dog is capable of telling the difference between an artificial den and a blood track" and that was the end of the conversation. This is not the first time that we have had someone try to tell us how to raise-people had their opinions of Freddie too-and train our dogs, in essence, tell us that we just do far too much with them. I'm not sure if some of these people feel the need to treat us a bit like children, since we are on average 20 years younger than many members, but it gets old. I am completely open to having an open discussion about these things, but I do NOT respond well to just being told I can or cannot do something for no great reason.

My question, though, is how much is really too much? If we were blood tracking every day or hunting or doing agility or whatnot, then yes, I would agree that we are doing FAR too much. For a while we were a bit overloaded: 2x per week dog class/obedience in 2 different clubs, training for BHP, training blood tracking. I mean, a dog is definitely a time consuming hobby, but between all that and work, we had no free time. We have cut back significantly in our activities since moving to Sweden. We are still busy, don't get me wrong, we have been showing Baxter about 1x per month, we practice obedience on our own in the garden, and we have taken a tracking course in order to get a feel for how to do blood tracking here. Now we have started gryt/den training now that tracking is over, but this was a total of 3x and maximum 1 time per week. I wouldn't call that intense training.

I also find that it is a little close minded to think that a dog is not capable of performing multiple tasks. I think my dog is smart enough to know the difference between an artificial den and a blood track or chasing rabbits or retrieving. We have different collars and different commands for each activity. Also, we aren't doing blood tracking in the morning and den in the evening or anything, these activities are days or weeks apart. Anyhow, isn't one of the great things about dachshunds is that they are supposed to be versatile dogs? They are the only breed that officially hunt under and above ground and many participate every year in Vp (versatility test) that involves: Spurlaut, SchwhK, Stöber, and obedience all on 1 day, these dogs have to have hunting drive AND know how to do multiple activities. These are not easy tests. They are taxing on the dog and the handler and we are hoping to some day participate in one. In fact, now in Switzerland to be a working dog 3 different test now have to be passed to get your working certificate: Sp, SchwhK, BhFK95 (rabbit trailing, blood tracking, den tests) and for the CIB, the dog has to also pass Stöber test or Vp, in addition to 2x CACIB in 2 countries.

An example VP form

Can all dogs be equally versatile? I doubt it. We see huge differences between Freddie and Baxter in how they work. Baxter is more reserved and more meticulous then Fred. He thinks about things more while he is doing them and is more strong willed. Freddie is much more willing to please and is much more eager and excitable type of dog. He lets his instincts take over, especially during the hunting activities. On blood tracking and BHP (the companion dog test), Baxter far exceled even at his young age, but he needs a little more work to be truly excellent- he has a LOT of natural talent. Freddie took much, much more work to get him to pass the 2 tests that Baxter did amazingly well on. It's not that he isn't talented, but his excitability kept him from calmly, quietly waiting, or running (honestly, 500m tracks in 10-15 min when we were starting out), rather than carefully following a blood track and checking his work as Baxter does. On den test which is a lot of instinct, Freddie is far superior, though it took him 3 tries to master this different den set up(as compared to the German style), whereas today, on Baxter's 2nd ever practice in a den, he showed no problems in the tight entry space and moving around/exploring the different areas. Different dogs, different lineage, different ways of working.

Dogs are like people, they are different, but I think that the important thing is to try different activities and see where the dog does well. Maybe hunting isn't your dog's forte, but agility is, so go and work with them on that! Don't put the dog into a single category. If you have the opportunity and desire to try out different tests and activities, my advice is to do it! It can never hurt and it gives you the chance to further bond with your dog. Now, if your dog doesn't like the activity, that is another thing, but you'll never know until you try! 

 

Will we do various tests with the boys in Sweden- yes. You have to pick your battles, but we are going to carry on with what we are doing since, overall, it seems to work. Maybe the dogs will prove the nay-sayers wrong, either way, they are champions to me!

Spiel ohne Grenze

 Literally, this translates to "Game without Borders" and it is a yearly event at our dog school in Basel. This year roughly 20 dogs of various breeds ranging from Chihuahuas to Yellow Labs and mutts of all sizes participated with their people. It was a lot of fun and I'm only sad that I didn't get more pictures! Many people were there with their cameras though, so I'm hoping I can link you all to the photo gallery in the upcoming days,

So what is Spiel ohne Grenze? It is an obstacle/challenge course with different stations. At each station one is graded on how well he and his dog perform the task. This year we had 10 stations set up in the training space.

Station 1: Blow dart practice
Our trainer Karin is a wonderful woman, if not a bit crazy. She is a Poodle and Border Collie breeder and a hell of a trainer. She believes in positive reinforcement, but also realizes that some hard-headed breeds (like bulldogs and (cough) Dackels (cough, cough)) do not always respond well to soft training. She does not enforce things like choke collars or shock collars or anything that intense, but basically she lets the dogs know that she is boss and when she says play time is over, it's over! Anyhow, she has a farm in Germany and aside from her dogs, she keeps chickens, geese, goats, etc... Well, one day a goat got out and the neighbor was threatening to shoot it since it was trespassing on his property. Karin tried to catch the goat, but couldn't. For some reason she owns a blow gun and had tranquilizers on hand. I think you can guess the outcome. The goat is still alive and doing well.

She decided that we should all practice our blow dart skills. There was a small stuffed doll worth 10 points and a stuffed bear worth 5. Hardly anyone was able to hit the targets. I managed right under the bear's foot. Boo! Simon and I went back after everyone was finished to try again and I have to say, we got much better at aiming and hit the targets multiple times! Practice makes perfect I suppose.


Station 2: Sausage, sausage everywhere!
In this exercise, there were about 10 bowls of sausage set up along a 15-20 ft track. You had to leave the dog at the starting line, run to the finish and call him. The dog lost points he he stopped along the way for a snack. Baxter did this amazingly well. Simon called, he ran, he stopped to peer into a dish, was promptly told to "leave it!" and continued on his way. Freddie on the other hand was a little shit head and decided that eating sausage from one of the bowls was nicer than listening to me. He came to me very guiltily afterwards...

Station 3: What do you know about dogs?
This station was all on the people. We were asked questions about dogs such as:
What was the dog breed featured in the movie "Babe"?
How many groups are dogs divided into in the FCI?
Do dogs sweat?
Do dogs display "handedness"?
How many teeth to adult dogs have? etc....
 Both Simon and I passed with full points. :D

Station 4: Bend over and throw it!
This was again all on me. We had 5 balls and had to toss them through our legs and into a bucket a distance away. I managed to make one or two! Ya!

Station 5:The great search.
At this station there were 3 hula hoops hidden in the bushes. In each of the hoops a few pieces of Frolic, which is labeled as "dog food" but the nutrition in that stuff is horrible. It would be like feeding kids nothing but candy. Needless to say, most dogs go crazy for it. Well, all except our garbage can Baxter. He turned up his nose at it and instead decided to use that bushes as a toilet. Anyhow, the goal was for the dog to find the treats in all 3 hoops within 1 minute. Freddie was much better than Baxter, even though he thinks that the hula hoops are really evil entities.

Station 6: Show off!
This was where our trick dog had time to shine. Each dog had to perform 5 tricks that were not "sit" or "platz/lie down." Freddie is very willing to learn new tricks and so Simon had taught him quite a few. We did roll over, give paw, speak, manly (sitting on his haunches), and dance. The trainers were all very entertained. :)

Station 7: Find the dog
This was a challenge, but really funny to watch. We were blindfolded and then had a tarp put over us before being spun around several times to disorient us. The dog was tied in the pen and we had to find them within 1 minute. Simon was lucky enough to get an excited Baxter than ran to him when he did excited talking. Freddie was very apprehensive about why I was dressed in a sheet and somewhat avoided me. I found him though, but I think I stepped on his foot. Oops! All was forgiven and I received a lot of kisses once the tarp came off.

Station 8: Dackels rule!
This was the station that I first was quite freaked out by because the hurdles were set REALLY high. They were taller than both the dogs and I was worried about them trying to jump them. Instead, they were there for the dogs to crawl! Ha! Having dogs that are only 1/2 as tall as normal dogs had an advantage! :) Both boys looked at us like, what? This? It's like the coffee table at home. Do do do do.

Station 9: More ball throwing?
For this task that dog and our trainer stood in a kiddie pool and we had to throw balls into it. These are the balls like they have at McDonald's playlands, so they aren't hard, but nonetheless, I thought that Freddie might get freaked out by this. Nope. He stood there and looked at the couple balls that managed to plop into the kiddie pool. Baxter tried to play with them once they made it there.

Station 10: Follow the carrot.
Remember in the old cartoons how if someone wanted to get a lazy horse walking they would tie a carrot on a string to the end of a stick? Yes, well, that was essentially what we had, except it was a 2 foot stack of dog treats. We were given a serving tray with 2 water-filled glasses, the stick with treats on to hold and had to walk with the dogs in slalom. This was not the easiest, but it was certainly funny to watch and perform. It was funny to watch the different dogs reacting to the treats, some were very determined to get them, no matter the height!

In the end, this year's obstacle course was a bit more people based than in past years. Last year was supposedly very agility based and had moving platforms, the high platforms, hoops to jump through and a see-saw as well as questions. I love that the group really tries for a wide variety of activities and changes it up every year. Of course all of the hard work is rewarded with beer, grill food, lots of yummy salads and desserts and at least a gift for the participating dogs.

All in all, Freddie and Baxter were 4th and 3rd respectively. :) Both received treat bags with lots of goodies and Freddie got an extra bag for 3rd place filled with treats and toys. Additionally, we went for a run around the park and some river swimming and ended up with a couple very tired dogs. It was really a wonderful way to spend the first official day of summer.

(Note: I will update with pictures in the upcoming weeks so you can all see the silly things that we had to do!)