WireHaired Dackels: Play

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!)

As I mentioned previously, the winter weather in Basel has been anything but normal. It's been roughly 5-7C (over 40F) and dry. Today it started to rain a bit and now the weather forecast is calling for it to be around 40F and snowy this weekend. Maybe my little snow dog will get some of the fluffy stuff to play around in!

Even though work is more stressful than ever, all of our dog activities have been on their winter break. No obedience classes, agility, hunting activities, not much of anything, which is both good and bad. The boys were a bit restless trying to get back into their "week" routine while Simon and I are at work. We tried to compensate a bit this week by taking them nice long walks this weekend in the woods nearby. At one point the boys found a stick and decided to play keep away. Enjoy!