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!

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!

Training with the badger

So I realize that the blog so far this year has been SUPER Baxter heavy. He is our youngster and since we did not do extensive training with him last year, we are trying to make up for it this year. Although Freddie has had to sit out on a lot of our activities, I think it is for the best as shows and tracking are no fun when you aren't participating. That being said, when we heard that Gryt (Den/Pot) training was starting in our local dachshund club, we jumped on the opportunity.

As I've talked about previously, despite being a bit bigger, Freddie is a monster in the artificial dens. He has completed both trials in Italy with 100 pts (and one RRCAC) and BhFK95 in Germany, where he was complimented by the judges for his working style. We figured that trying him on
the dens in Sweden would be worthwhile.

from pitchcare.com

So there are a few things that are different about dens in Sweden:
They are smaller overall and hexagonal in shape.
The entries are narrow so the dog must go through the smallest spot in the den first.
There is an arm through the middle with a decline and 60 cm "jump" up to the kessel.
There is a badger, which is enclosed in a den to protect it from the dog and the dog from it.

Here is a diagram of the Swedish den

So earlier this week we went out to practice with our dachshund club in the den. There was a very nice and very experienced coach there as most of the 7 dogs that would be practicing were first timers. He was really good at making the whole experience positive for the dogs and not keeping them too long with training, especially since it was quite warm, which isn't nice for the badger, dogs, or people. For an initial experience, the dog was allowed to sniff and react to the badger in the light. Like in German, the top of the den were covered in wooden board that could be opened in several spots. The dog was placed in and given a LOT of praise when it started being very interested and barking at the badger. You could tell in the dog when instinct kicked in as the god sunk down and the bark changed. Of the dogs there one dog other than Freddie had experience in den testing, but in Denmark. Denmark is more like Finland in how they run their tests (I reported on a Finnish fox test early last year) and have an open den where the dog and fox are able to make contact. It was interesting to see this dog work as she seemed to keep waiting for the badger to come at here and kept running in and out of the den.

Then it was Freddie's turn. Fred was already crazy before he got to the den as he could hear the barking of the previous dog from outside the barn. Obviously the dog was saying there there was something interesting and Fred starting barking high pitched excited barks. He then ran into the barn and looked like a complete idiot with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. The trainer initially wanted him to do as the other inexperienced dogs had done and go to the open arm, but Simon said no and instead wanted Freddie to enter as you would in a test (though without the narrow part). Fred wanted to sniff around a bit, but Simon quickly convinced him that going in the tunnel was a good idea. A few seconds of silence and then-BAM-music. Ok, music for me. Freddie working is a wonderful sound to my ears. He has a very strong and powerful bark and is extremely persistent. This is both good and bad as in the Swedish test, the fox doesn't move, but there is a portion of the test where the opening between the dog and badger is closed and the dog must be quiet. The trainer tried to do this with Fred while he was in the tunnel and Fred would stay quiet for 30 sec or so and then get frustrated and let out some pathetic "why can't I get at this?" barks. He promptly was told off for that, since this isn't what we want. We also tried Freddie through the narrow starting tunnel. This was new and he wasn't so sure, but with a little coaxing, he went in just fine (and the 2nd time was better). Overall it was an excellent practice and Freddie received a lot of praise from the trainer.

 The trainer also took it upon himself to personally ask us where the dog was from and what his pedigree was like. When we told him that he was 4 years old from French and Austrian/German lines, he asked if he was available for breeding. We said that he was, to which he loudly replied "Every breeder in Sweden should use this dog. This is one of the best working wires (in den) I have seen in a long time." He promptly tried to pimp Fred out to the Danish wire breeder that was also present. It made me both proud and slightly embarrassed that this man I had just met was so in love with our dog's working abilities that he wanted to line up ladies for him. After the practice we went to go say thank you and good bye to the trainer who spent the majority of the time convincing Simon to get Freddie his Swedish Championship in Gryt (den). This involves real work underground on badger or fox (as well as the artificial test) and we are thinking about it. With the right hunting crew -of which we know a few now- I think it would be possible.

Freddie really is an excellent hunting dog and I'm happy that we can start to do more with him. I foresee Drev (Hunting) and Spår (tracking) training in the future for our brown dog.

Good boy Fred!