Happy 3rd Birthday Freddie!

Today is dreary and rainy here in Basel and, frankly, I'm a bit apprehensive to spend 2 hours in the rain for dog training. Luckily we have a lot to celebrate since today is Freddie "Fallilou du Sangre Bleu"'s  birthday!

Freddie was one of 2 males in a litter of 5: Fallilou, Fauve, Furka, Fargo and Frieda were born April 20th, 2010 about an hour southwest of Paris. There were 2 dark wild boar puppies and 3 brown puppies. They were the first litter from Canaille de la Meute a Cheops and Kobeddus Effendi in the kennel "du Sangre Bleu".

Freddie is (of course) the puppy standing on the other puppies.

Playing with Mom

All the brown puppies liked to stick together

Chewing on sticks with sister Frieda

We drove from Basel to Paris in July of 2010 and picked Freddie up and the rest is history.

The first meeting

Tiny Freddie

In his 3 short years Freddie has accomplished a lot (considering his first-time novice dog owners). He was rated V at our club zuchtschau in Germany and V,V1 JBOB at the Split 4 Summer Shows in Croatia and yes, there were other dogs in Junior class. ;) He has successfully completed Schussfestigkeit, Spurlaut, BhFK95 in 2 countries, Schweissprüfung, Fbja (IT fox test) and BHP 1&2. We continue to go to hunting activities and practices with him and hope that in the future we will be able to add to his list of accomplishments. In addition to hunting work, we actively take him to obedience/ability trainings. He is extremely bonded to Simon and the two are a fantastic pair.

Many happy returns Freddie! I'm looking forward for what's still to come!!

Baxter is now a multi-Junior Champion!

Simon and I never thought that we would be going to dog shows when we picked up Freddie almost 3 years ago, but well, it ended up happening.  Well... not with Freddie. As I've mentioned, Freddie is over the weight limit for the DTK (a bit over 10 kg), which doesn't mean that he can't be shown. It just means that he can't be shown in German speaking countries, which happen to be the ones closest to us.

When we picked out Baxter, we knew that his parents were both heavily titled show dogs (they both also have hunting trials, etc... but both are multi-Champions, multi-winners) and his breeders/our friends, would like for him to be shown. We decided to go to a few shows within a 2 hour drive to see how the little guy would do. So far, so good! Baxter is a very promising young dog in a lot of ways. Now that he has some show titles, we're hoping to add in some hunting trials. :) This weekend will be his second Spurlaut practice up in Rheinland-Pfalz. I'm quite excited as it is supposed to be sunny and over 15C (over 60F) all weekend! YAY!

Anyhow, Baxter has now been shown at 5 shows in 3 countries under 5 different judges. He has been 5x V1, 2x Junior Winner and has earned 3 titles: Lux-JCh, SDC-JCh and WUT-JCh. We are so pleased with him! We are of course wishing for more good ratings in the future and a long show and hunting career for this little guy.

Happy Birthday Baxter!

On the first of February 2012, while I was sick in bed, Simon got a text from our friend Markku saying that Iiris had been mated in Italy and puppies should be expected around the beginning of April. We had asked to be on the list for puppies for kennel Barbwired's next litter. Both Iiris and her daughter Aura were mated around the same time and so the house may have been full of puppies when we visited for Easter. Unfortunately, only Iiris was pregnant, but she was expected to have 6 puppies. Roughly 4 days before we left to visit our friends in Finland, Iiris gave birth to 5 puppies, 4 males and 1 female. It was very neat to see such tiny puppies on our visit to Finland.

1 week old Baxter and siblings with mom Iiris

Teeny, tiny paws next to momma

 We knew that we wanted a male puppy. Freddie was really good with other males, not possessive or dominant and an uncastrated female in an apartment in the city with an uncastrated male seemed very impractical.We confirmed our request for a male puppy, booked a flight for Simon to return to Finland at the end of May to pick up our puppy (two tickets would have been around 1000CHF, so I opted to stay home) and waited.

Around 1 month old, Markku and Salla posted pictures of the B litter on their website (www.barbwired.fi) and 2 of the puppies caught our eyes: Blaze of Glory and Better than the Rest

Bax at 4 weeks old

We called Markku and told him our preferences of puppies. We also had other criteria such as dog and people friendly and a good coat (since Freddie is weak in that area), but those 2 puppies were our favorites. About 2 weeks later, Markku wrote me to say that based on what they saw, how the puppies acted, etc... he thought that Better than the Rest would be a great fit for us. They asked us what we wanted to call him and from then on they referred to him as Baxter.

As luck would have it, Simon was asked to give a talk at the University of Helsinki at the end of May when we had to pick up the puppy. This meant that he would have his plane ticket paid for and I could afford to fly as well! So Simon and I flew to Helsinki in order to pick up our new family member the last weekend in May.

Simon was in puppy heaven

playing in the yard

A tiny Baxter

One of the brothers with sister Iita (Barbwired Bella Bambina)

Big Sis knows what's going on!

gardening

Dinner time

Who can resist that face?

Simon arrived with Baxter in Switzerland 1 day earlier than I did, so he got some quality bonding time with Baxter and Freddie. Freddie wasn't too sure what this new little thing was in his house, but fortunately he and Baxter became fast friends. Over the coming months, Freddie was a playmate, friend and teacher for Baxter. We are so thankful to have such a great older dog to teach our little one. Over the coming months Baxter graduated from puppy class to regular dog school, began obedience training, blood tracking training, and general hunting training. In February, we started to show him and so far, so good. I have been training with him at home, but Simon is much easier on the eyes and a super novice handler. He and Baxter make a really great team! To date, Baxter's pedigree reads the following:

LuxJCh, SDC JCh (applied), WUT JCh (applied), Ortenaujugendsieger 2013 Barbwired Better than the Rest LZ: Sfk

This little guy has totally exceeded our expectations as an all around amazing dog. We are so happy to have him in our family!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Baxter and the rest of the Barbwired "B" litter!!

11.5 month old Baxter with Simon in Offenburg

Luxembourg and back again

So in the past week, we have stayed in 3 different countries: Finland, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. Luxembourg was both a work and pleasure trip as we were kindly invited to stay at our friend Charles' place for the whole weekend so we could attend the Luxembourg dog show on Saturday.

This is one of the biggest shows in Europe and definitely the biggest show that we have been to thus far. On Saturday there were over 2500 dogs present and an equal, if not greater, number were shown on Sunday. For dackels alone (FCI group 4) there were 178 entries. That is a LOT of dackels! In Baxter's class there were 5 males (Baxter included), so the competition was tough. All the males, except 1, were older than Baxter and the oldest male in the class was 17 months and quite developed. We walked around Luxembourg city and walked in the woods when we arrived from Basel on Friday afternoon, so Bax was quite tired on Saturday. You would never know this in the ring though as he walked like a champ. No happy feet, no prancing, but real walking, with head high and looking great. He was the first male to be judged and although we did not get a written evaluation, the judge spent a lot of time looking at Bax and seemed to really like his head and presentation. He awarded him V1 CACL and in Luxembourg, as a junior or veteran, you only need 1 V1 CACL for Junior Champion.
So Baxter gained his first official title: Champion des Jeunes de Luxembourg/ Luxembourg Junior Champion!!

WooHoo!!

This certificate is nicer than a lot of my diplomas.

In Luxembourg, the males and females don't walk against each other for Junior BOB (only the adults do) and so both Baxter and the female Junior Winner (Alexandra v. Tollbach who you all might remember from Offenburg) both walked in the big ring for Junior BIS.

Although we didn't win BIS, it is always cool to make it to the big ring!

Simon was in shock and awe and excitement when he and Baxter won, that we completely ignored everyone's hands and walked out of the ring with a HUGE smile on his face (he later went back to apologize to the 2nd place dog owner for being so clueless). It was really a great day.

On the way home we bought our traditional bottle of champagne, this time, though, it was a delicious Luxembourger Rosé. :)

Aside from the dog show, we go to spend the weekend exploring the Luxembourgish countryside, meeting old friends, enjoying a LOT of wonderful food and company, and spending time with the dogs. A real thanks goes out to Charles' parents for being wonderful hosts and treating us like family. They really went above and beyond and even watched Freddie while we were at the show on Saturday. I think that we have converted Charles' mom into a dackel lover as she offered to keep the boys and for us to let her know when either Baxter or his sisters have puppies.

I really give our dogs a lot of credit on flexibility. They met a lot of dogs this weekend. Aside from Jij and Brigitte's dog Febus (a Griffon Fauve de Bretagne) a very friendly and laid back dog, they met Mika (an Australian shepard), a maltese and a Lhasa Apso, Egon (a Greater Swiss Mountain dog), and Jachen (a black Lab). The only dogs that caused problems, were the Lhasa and maltese, who just did NOT want to get along with Freddie. All of the dogs were male except the maltese and most were uncastrated. There were no battles, no biting, and no dominant behavior from anyone, just a lot of running and playing together.

Today we went on a nice long walk to tire the boys out before the 3.5 hour drive home. Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

War Cry

Checking out the other side of the stream

Febus