Italian trip 2013

This year we decided to make our trip to Italy slightly earlier this year to ensure that we would be able to get in some tracking trials. We signed Freddie up for tracking as well as fox trials and with Baxter we focused on tracking.
We went down a few days earlier this year in order to do a Saupr. practice as well as try our little dog on the fox. We couldn't have picked a prettier day to drive down. Please enjoy some of Switzerland's gorgeous views. :)

Driving through the Vierwaldstättersee in Central Switzerland 

Simon is from this area and I have to say, I'm jealous I didn't have this view growing up

A view of the Alps 

Our last sunny view before the Gotthard tunnel

  

Ticino was cloudy, but the hanging clouds are beautiful

Getting closer!

This region of Italy is often quite foggy

A little sun to end the day

We were extremely happy with the extra private practice at the Palladini's house. Antonio and Barbara are really some of the nicest people that I have met. Antonio was more than willing and happy to allow us to try Baxter in the artificial fox den and pit both dogs against the boars. Success in both practices and maybe we will try the small one on these trials in another year or so, but we didn't want to overwhelm him this time.

The boys were ready to go! Freddie spent much of the time in the front seat "driving" the car while we were waiting for our start times. Baxter occasionally jumped to the front, but preferred sitting on top on the wine that we picked up.

Waiting for our tracking trial

My team

Success! Great track guys!

Picking up our awards for tracking

All I can say is success! Freddie is really coming into his own as a hunter and I really need to get my hunting license ASAP so I can continue with this talented dog. Not only did he ace his 40 hr tracking trial with 100 pts and a CAC (a certificate towards an Italian working certificate), but he once again was a maniac on fox. In both trials offered (BHFK95 and FBJA) he received 100 pts, 1st prize and 1 RRCAC(2nd reserve) in FBJA. The Fbja competition came down to how quickly the dogs made it to the fox. Amazingly, there was a standard long that was amazingly fast at 15 sec from the entry to the fox. Just for reference, the fastest kanninchen dachshund in an earlier trial made the trek in 9 secs, so this longhair was quick! Fred took what seemed like the longest path possible (which included a dip/incline) and took 26 sec, putting him in 3rd place of the 4 top dogs. For the BHFK95 he did amazing and pushed the fox like a champ, but did the trial in 4 min 13 sec and he would have needed to complete it in 4 min for the CAC. Oh well, no worries! Still a great job!

Atta boy Fred!

Our haul

Additionally, Baxter did amazing on his tracking exam. Both Simon and the judge were amazed at how meticulous and focused the small dog was on the trail. He just needs a bit more practice on corners as he tends to overshoot, then back track and start again. We are planning to continue with tracking practice this autumn since it is great exercise for the dogs and for me! Hopefully we can continue to get better and better. Next year's goals include finishing Freddie's Italian working championship, tracking and hunting tests in Germany with the boys, and hopefully partaking in working trials in the Nordic countries. Of course at least one of these goals require me to follow up in my goal to complete my hunting license/exam! Let's see what next year brings!

I promised pictures from Italy

So as you know, we were in Italy for Dachshund trials two weeks ago (the 15th-16th of December). Frankly, I can't believe that it was only 2 weeks ago! It seems like much longer...

The trip was about 430km (267mi), which is quite a distance by European standards, but not by my American Standards. It is really a beautiful area with a lot of rolling hills, castles, and great food and wine. What more could you want? (Maps courtesy of Google Maps)

Anyhow,  the weather in Basel had been quite rainy, but relatively warm.  I had been watching the weather in Italy and it was hovering around 5-10 C (40-50F) with a bit of rain, but mostly cloudy. I thought that it would actually be quite good for tracking and trials in general since it would be above freezing and a little moist. Wrong. When we arrived it was dark and there was light rain. I couldn't see much out the car windows since there is very little light on the roads in Switzerland/Italy aside from the car's headlights. When we arrived at our bed and breakfast (a beautiful place in Gropparello -Torre del Borgo), we saw the snow. It was at least a few inches deep and had obviously fallen a few days ago.  Great. We settled down for the night, grabbed dinner at a nice pizzeria down the road, and headed to bed.

Woke up the next day to a cold, grey, brisk day. Checked my email to ensure I hadn't gotten anything from the trial organizers. Nothing. So we headed to the trial location at 10am to check in and pay for for our tracking trials at 11am. When we got to Cimafava, this was the weather situation:

Not the nicest conditions.

Freddie and Simon December 17th, 2011 after their SchwhK

/20.

We were told that tracking would not happen today as the past couple days had caused everything to ice over, making tracking too difficult. In addition there was quite a bit of wind that day, which isn't common for the area. We were disappointed that 2 of our 5 trials were cancelled, but so be it. The weather was not on our side. We were told that this type of weather was not common for Italy this time of year and that this year had been especially snowy. It reminded me of our nice weather the year before and wished that we had the same luck.

Since we had all afternoon free, we went shopping at a local shopping center to pick up lots of wine, meat, cheese, and Christmas goodies to take home. Went back to the agricultural center in Cimafava where the trials were held for a delicious Italian lunch and got updated on what was happening tomorrow and when we should meet back for the exams. We then made what was left of the day into a site-seeing adventure to the nearby town of Castell'arquato to walk around the old town and see the castle.

This is the same field pictured above 1 year later.

All of us enjoyed the old town and stretching our legs walking through the city and up the hill to the castle.

The snowy road up

The dogs weren't sure what I was doing, but they both seem concerned for my well being.

We ended the day kicking back at the bed and breakfast, having tea with the owners, who are some of the nicest people that I have met, and chatting for a while about life, work, dogs, travel, etc...

Everyone looks pretty comfy!

The next day we got up early and headed back to Cimafava for Sauprüfung (Wild Boar trial) and 2 Fox trials. Unfortunately, the weather was even crappier than the day before:

In addition to iced over snow, due to thawing and melting the day before and freezing over night, we had very, very thick fog. It was so thick that you couldn't see a car more than 10m/30ft in front of you. The result of which was us almost getting rear-ended trying to turn into the parking lot of the trial grounds. The picture above was taken around 10 in the morning when some of the fog was starting to lift a bit. Supposedly, fog is common in this area due to lack of wind. I don't know, but we certainly aren't used to conditions like that. It was Freddie's first time in with the Boars and although we hoped for the best, the reality was that he was too inexperienced to find them. He searched well enough, but without any visual cues (due to fog), he wasn't sure what he was searching for. He got about 5 minutes to search a wooded, enclosed area containing two boars. Supposedly even the conditions were bad for the seasoned dogs. We were told that only 10% of the dogs entered passed the exam and normally this number was closer to 50%. Mr. Palladini did invite us down to practice on the boars in the future if we would ever want to try the test again.

After Boar we had 2 fox exams. I won't go into too much detail here as I explained them (more or less) in a previous post. I am happy to say that Freddie walked away with 2- 1st place ratings and 1 second in trial. There were 40 total Bauprüfung (fox or hare) that day, so it was quite a lot of waiting. We started at about 9 am and finished around 2:30 pm. After that we were on our way home.

Freddie with his 2nd place medal, ready to head home.

 Even though the fog had started to clear throughout the morning, it was back in full-force by the drive home.

My view from the Italian highway

Funnily enough, the fog started to lift just as we hit the Swiss border, leading to a wonderful view of the Alps at sunset. What a great way to be welcomed home!

A little more about last weekend's trials

So I promised to write a bit more on each of the trials. 

We we're planning on doing 5 tests: SchwhK/40, SchwPoR, Saupr, BhFK95, Fbja

Due to the weather in Italy, the two tracking tests were cancelled. Bummer. It had snowed at some point earlier in the week. We were told that the weather had basically fluctuated from above zero and sunny to -5˚C or colder at night. This basically led to melt during the day and icing up at night. In addition, the night the we got there it was rain/snowing and on Sunday until at least noon, the fog was so thick that you couldn't see more than about 5-10 meters in front of you. Not ideal for a lot of tests, especially not tracking as any of the sprayed blood would be underneath an ice layer or washed away completely.

Since we didn't have any tracking tests, we ended up eating a really nice lunch at the area where the trials were held, doing some shopping, and doing some sight-seeing. Near Cimafava/Piacenza there are a lot of castles and we ended up going to Castell' Arquato and taking a nice walk around the town and up to the castle. We also loaded up on a lot of nice wine and Italian Salami, Parma, and other assorted meats.

On Sunday we were up bright and early to be at the trials in order to compete in Saupr. Freddie had never competed or tried to find a boar, but we thought it was worth a try. For Saupr, basically the dog is put into an enclosed area containing a couple of wild boar and he is supposed to track the boar and bark at the boar and work it until the hunter can get there. Freddie searched, but again, due to the snow, wind, and very heavy fog, he was not able to find the boars in the time allotted and was eliminated from the test(Not completed). Antonio was very helpful though and offered for us to come down early before the next tests that we competed in, in order to have a practice on the boars. I think we will take him up on it.

 Freddie then competed in 2 different fox trials.

  In one, he had to first find the fox and then work the fox and "push" it through a series of boxes. The "pushing" only begins after the dog has already bayed at the fox for 2 minutes and then they have a maximum of 5 minutes to move it. They can only receive 100 points if they move the fox. In the other he had to find the fox and work it continuously for at least 3 minutes.

Freddie did well in both, but did not receive full points in because he had a few breaks in his barking (maybe 10 sec, but this was enough to take off a bit) in one test and in the other he was spot on and really wanted the fox, but he didn't push it hard enough to move it. He had never had to move a fox before, so we didn't expect him to ace this test. This didn't matter to us, we were more excited that he performed so well in a completely unknown Bau and really wanted to work. He went in the hole for the second test without a second thought.

Even though Freddie is a fairly high and big dackel (though he is more long than he is wide and looks very proportional), he loves the fox hole and is very passionate when working the fox. I think we will be competing in more fox trials with him in the future.

Just a quick update

So tonight will be a short post as we just got home and everyone is tired.

Due to really crap weather, all of the tracking was cancelled. Bummer. This left us with the entire Saturday to eat, drink, and sight see around the beautiful countryside. We visited a local castle and gave the dogs a nice walk around in the town.

As Baxter is 2 weeks too young to compete, Freddie was our working dog. This worked out fine as Baxter would have only been tracking anyhow.  Anyway, Freddie has really found his forte in the fox hole. He did 2 fox trials:
Prova in tana artificiale su volpe (Fbja:Fuchsbodenjagdarbeit)
Prova in tana artificiale su volpe DTK/FCI (BhFK/95:Eignungsbewertung fur die Bodenjagd)

I'll explain more about them later.  Anyhow, to our delight, Freddie received 94 points (1st prize) in each trial and was the second best dog in Fbja which got him this pretty little trinket:

The fox hunter taking a well deserved nap

It's not a CACT, but we had a great time and look forward to going back next year.

Trials this weekend

Last year we went down to Italy to participate in our first Dackel trials. The advantage of driving the 4.5 hours to Italy versus sticking around up here and doing trials is:
1.) Timing
2.) Cost
3.) Variety
4.) Need for hunting license

Since neither Simon nor I are hunters and mainly participate in these trials for the fun of working with the dog and harnessing its natural talents, we do not yet have hunting licenses. To participate in certain hunting exams such as blood tracking in Germany or Switzerland, you need to have a hunting license. The German and Swiss hunting licenses are INTENSE. They are, more or less, equivalent to a Master's degree and a lot of work and money. Right now my German is not up to par to pass a test like that and we don't have the time or money at the moment. Several Swiss hunters actually pass the French hunting exam, which is not as intense and perfect for people like us who don't necessarily want to hunt at the moment, but may some day. Right now we just want to be active and train our dogs and will consider studying for the French exam after we are both finished with our degrees.

The variety of tests that you can participate during these weekends are mind boggling. They have fox, tracking, Vp, Sau, etc... Last year at the same trials they had 170 exams in one weekend. Crazy. This was a bit insane and we were only 1 of the 170 signed up for. This year we will participate in 5 exams: Fbja (Italian Fox test without contact), BhFK/95 (according to DTK rules), Sauprüfung (Wild boar test), SchwhP. o. R. (blood tracking without judge), and SchwhK/40 (40 hour old blood tracking). We're hoping for positive results in all trials, but we will see.

The timing for us is great. Italy is warmer and drier this time of year (on average) than Switzerland, so it's a nice winter holiday.

Lastly, the cost. Most things are cheap compared to Switzerland, but these trials are a great deal, especially for first timers like us who just want to try out a bunch of trials and see how our dog does and have fun with it. As members of the DTK/SDC, we would pay ~ 300 Euro ($390) to participate in these 5 trials, in Switzerland we would pay ~250 CHF ($270) for only 2 tests (Switzerland doesn't have the equipment/ability to host Fox tests or Wild Boar tests). With the Italian tests, we will pay around 150 Euro ($195). For PhD students with a limited income that still want to work with the dogs, this is great to try out, plus it's Italy. The food, the sights, and the people are great. It's a really nice weekend.

I can't wait to see how Freddie does and to hopefully see his natural talents shine!