So as my American readers probably know, this past Monday and Tuesday were the Westminster kennel club annual dog show. (http://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/) As a kid, I was amazed by this show. I remember seeing it on TV and all the beautiful dogs running around the ring and thinking how cool it would be to see a show like that live. I am not a dog show aficionado, nor do I pretend to be. We have attended Zuchtschaus (Breed shows) through our local German club with both of our dogs, Freddie has been shown in Croatia at the popular and very fun 4 Summer Nights show, and Baxter will make his show debut in Fribourg, Switzerland, this weekend. We are not show people, but we do like to show off our dogs from time to time. I like to prepare for dog shows by watching Best in Show. If you haven't seen it, do it! Such a great movie and any person who has been to a dog show or is a fan of a show like Westminster will appreciate it.
For the movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeifMjqpsg0
For a list of all the winning dogs(Best of Breed) at Westminster this year, there is a nice photo spread from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/12/sports/westminster-dog-show-best-of-breed.html
And Congrats goes to Banana Joe the Affenpinscher for BIS.
I was lucky enough to catch the judging of the Wirehaired Dachshunds at Westminster. It was very apparent that this was not the breed that I am used to seeing. All of the dogs just looked huge! It was crazy. Now Freddie and Baxter are not little dogs (at roughly 11kg and 9kg, respectively), but I think they would have looked tiny next to some of the Goliaths in that ring. It also made me really realize that the European dackels (even the big ones) are built to be agile and work. Looking at a dog like Biff (winner of the Wirehairs), he really wouldn't be able to work a hole or make it over any of the logs, etc... that our dogs have to while working. I know that this mantra has been said again and again, but sometimes it is hard to compare the different continental breed styles when you are only exposed to one type 90% of the time.
Now, to switch gears a bit, on Sunday there was the TV debut in Europe of Dackel! Kleiner Hund, ganz Gross (Literally, Little dog, very big). Now this was very talked about in the Der Dachshund Magazine and online in Dackel forums, so of course we watched it as well. (If you are interested in the film you can watch it here:
http://videos.arte.tv/de/videos/dackel-kleiner-hund-ganz-gross--7302468.html?fb_action_ids=536006536432165&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366) I'm not sure if the link will work outside of Europe, sorry! The film can be watched in German and French, sorry for all the English speakers.
I had a bad feeling about this film from the beginning when they decided to have a longhair dachshund "narrate" the film and felt the need to animate his mouth. Oy! Way to cheese up the film. They start off at the home of Antonio Palladini, a prominent wirehaired dackel breeder in northern Italy. Some of you may recognize the house and ground from our Italy trip (see back to December) or notice that the Palladini's kennel is a link on our site (Baxter's father is Antonio and Barbara's dog Apollo: http://www.val-vezzeno.it/pages/our-dogs/apollo.php). The artificial fox den that is featured is where Freddie did his tests and won his prize (see Trials) and the boar is the one that Freddie failed to find in the crappy conditions this past December. This was all quite cool to see.
The rest of the film was, well, unimpressive. Some of the, well, "bad" points of the film:
The filmmakers saw how dackels live in Japan and this I think was negative for the breed. From 800 Euro (~1000CHF/USD), custom made clothes, to strollers, and hand made treats-read dog birthday cakes- the Japanese spoil their dogs. There are something like 20,000 dackels in Japan and tons of them end up homeless and living shortly in animal shelters or are killed. Moreover, there are Japanese DTK members and one even admitted to paying something like 10,000 Euro ($13,500/12,500CHF) for his German bred dog instead of buying a local Japanese dachshund.
There really wasn't much on how dachshunds are used in hunting, which is sad as this was their original purpose and something that is very important to a large part of the European community.
The two dackel breeders that they focus on were big breeders. Antonio and Barbara own something like 30 dogs as do the shorthair breeders from Germany. The majority of European kennels (I would say) are small hobby breeders. I realize that it is probably easier to contact and get in touch with the big breeders, but I think that it gives a false sense that everyone that breeds dachshunds has a large number of dogs. Most of our friends and colleagues have 2-4 dachshunds at home, but they are like potato chips...you can't have just one!
There was also nothing on dachshunds participating in obedience (like BHP) or agility training, which is a normal part of a lot of active dackel people's lives.
There was a small bit from a man in France who was training his dackel to use his excellent nose to find truffles. I liked this and was trying to figure out how we could convince Freddie to do this. :)
All in all, the film is what it is. It tries to give an overview of dackels, but falls short on the reality of all that these little dogs can accomplish.
Until next time...
