News from the North and Swimming!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Simon and I are deep into thesis writing and paper re-writing/submitting, which are putting long posts and dog-related activities on the back burner.

We went up to Saarbrücken for the 1 day National Dog Show in hopes to get Baxter his last CAC-J for his German junior Champion title. The judge gave him a wonderful evaluation, but only a SG (sehr gut) rating. It was a bit shitty since his main complaint about the dog was his movement. He said that he had good stride and ground coverage, but was wobbly and his joints were still too loose. We have heard this comment before, but most judges realize that he is just about 1 year old. I have to admit that I felt better knowing that only 1 junior dog (of 6 total male and female) received a V (Excellent) and I would guess that at least 1/2 of the dogs entered received SG ratings. Of course we were disappointed that the winning streak was broken, but 7 shows and 4 Junior Champion titles is not a bad career start! On a side note, I have to recommend Saarbrücken as a real hidden treasure of a German city. The city itself sits on the border to France, is incredibly green, hilly, full of beautiful old buildings, and has a great little old city center. Despite the result, we had a wonderful time and enjoyed the city more than I could have imagined. :)

In other news...
Baxter's mom Iiris "Taxette's Isla Margarita" came out of "retirement" last month and added new titles to her already impressive list: Latvian, Lithuanian, and Baltic Champion! It was great news to hear that a 7 year 11 month old dog could still make a huge impression in the ring. Iiris turned 8 a couple of weeks ago and now competes in Veteran class. At a recent show in Kuopio, Iiris and her daughter Bella Bambina "Iita" (Baxter's sister) were both rated Excellent and CQ. CQ, if I understand this correctly, we don't have this distinction in Switzerland, means "CAC Quality" and these dogs would then compete for CACs and/or CACIBs. Iiris received BOB-Veteran and Iita, Best Bitch 4. A HUGE congrats to Baxter's family!!

Looking good at 8 years old! Iiris (left) with 13 month old daughter Iita (Photo: M. Varjosalo)

    
Lastly, I don't want you all to think that we have given up on our hunting activities! Unfortunately, all of our "normal" dog activities are a time sink. I love them, but we had to prioritize right now in order to get everything accomplished for ourselves. Since Baxter was not able to get in enough tracks for us to be confident that he would pass his Spurlaut exam, we decided to wait on further training until fall. We were going to do a few tracks throughout the spring and summer, but it has been so cold and wet this year that laying out blood tracks would be a bit of a waste. Maybe the sun will finally make an appearance in June...

Freddie is not a water dog. He swims beautifully, retrieves like a champ, but is unreliable with the two things together. I kind of think he developed a dislike for the water when he was about 1 year old, swam a bit too far into the river and decided to climb onto a rock, refusing to come back to shore. I had to wade out to get him (luckily the river was only 2.5 feet deep or so) and bring him in. Since then, he will swim, but the toy has to be worth saving. Baxter on the other hand is looking to be a much braver water dog. As a puppy, he spent a bit of time watching the fish in a colleagues back yard pond and tried to catch them by walking on lily pads. Needless to say, lily pads do not hold 4.5 kg puppies and at 9 weeks old, Baxter showed us (Thankfully!) that he could swim. Lately he has been wading in a lot of the little streams around the dog park, but these were at most chest deep. Last night we decided to take a walk after a long day of work at our local dog park. The river that runs through the park is the Wiese and connects with the Rhine just slightly downstream of the dog park. With all the rain we have had this year it is quite fast and deep at the moment (still less than 5 feet deep, but that is several dackels high!) and we were reluctant to let the dogs swim. Baxter had other plans though and kept trying to go to the edge and take a dip. Finally we got to an area with a small inlet where the water was mostly still. I threw a nice big stick in about 6 feet from shore and the little one jumped in to get it. No problem! Simon threw it a bit farther on the next go and Baxter retrieved it and decided to swim a bit farther out before turning around and heading back to shore. He got a lot of praise and treats and I figure that if he'll go in with little problem to get a stick, then a real duck should be just fine!  We got a few recommendations regarding more still water in the area and I hope that we'll be able to do some practicing before too long.

Ok, that's it for now. I'll try and update a bit more in the coming weeks, but until then, I wish you all a great start to June!

Trials, Shows, and The DTK Dachshund Illustrated

I know that I have veered away from hunting tests lately and have only been talking about our show successes. This is mainly because this spring our main goal was to focus on Spurlaut with Baxter as he needs to pass a Sp test in order to continue on with other tests. As we are still not 100% positive that he is Sp, the rest of our tests are on hold until the fall. From the 1st of May until mid-August there is a hold on Sp tests in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and I believe France. This is when the Hares are mating and having their babies and so it would be disastrous to have a bunch of dachshund running the fields. So we will wait until August and enjoy the "show" season. We are hoping to get the dogs swimming this summer and perhaps we can do Wassertest this August. This will be a bit of a challenge with Freddie as he is a wonderful swimmer and retriever, but a bit unreliable when he has to do both at the same time. I'm hoping that with practice and a real duck instead of toys will motivate him enough to be a good water dog.
 
So about the shows. I realize that I talk about shows I never really state the obvious... they are beauty contests. Of course if you've seen Westminster, Cruft's, or even the fantastic Christopher Guest movie "Best in Show" (2000), you actually have a decent idea about dog shows or the crazy things that can go on there. There are good things about dog shows though. I think that one that I like the most is the comradery between the people. Of course it is a competition, but as you go to these shows, you recognize people and talk to people about their life and their dogs. You get to learn about them and even though some of these people can be a bit... intense... it is a great experience. The goal is to win, plain and simple. Winning brings you CACs and CACs bring you titles, which in turn make your dog more known in the dackel community and more likely to produce offspring. This is, of course, all theory. Hunting trials, to us, are just as important and more fun then going to these shows. In my opinion, a winning dog should still be a useful dog. I'm hoping that our little one will prove to be as  good a working dog as he is a show dog.

Speaking of shows, I never posted pictures from Baxter's big BOB win last weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the BOB ring because I honestly never thought that he would win. Shoulda, woulda, coulda...

Patiently waiting

Having teeth, tail, head, etc... checked on the table

Standing in the ring. This was a challenge since the judge kept the dogs in the standing position during his entire written evaluation. It seemed like forever.

Walking

The original picture was way too dark, this is a bit better

V1 CACJ Jugendsieger!

If you are interested in how dachshunds are judged in FCI countries, there is a wonderful set of illustrations from the DTK club of Baden Württemberg & Hohenzollern: http://www.dachshundklub.de/dwh/der-rassestandard/illustrationen-aktuell
It mainly shows what is a fault, but nonetheless, I think that it is a very informative set of photos.

Sorry that they are in German, but I think that you get the idea about what the judges are looking for.

This weekend we have a "normal" weekend with training with the dogs and some work for Simon and I. Luckily for us it is Ascension and that means that I have a 4 day weekend! Next week will be quite a week for us, aside from being off to Saarbrücken for a dog show, it is Pentecost, and I will be celebrating the last days of my 20s. Another year older and so much more to look forward to!

Baxter goes Best of Breed

We had one goal for today when we signed up to go to St Gallen for the dog show. Our goal was to get Bax the last CAC/J needed for his Swiss Jugend Championship (SKG-JCh). Well, I am happy to report that not only did Bax get the last CAC/J that he needed, but he went Junior BoB and Best of Breed in Wirehair Standards! He then went on the walk for Junior Best of Show and Best in Group IV. By the group IV time, he was about done with showing for the day and instead wanted to run and sit down. I can't blame the little guy, I mean he is only 13 months old. Regardless, Baxter had a fan club and got a lot of cheers when he won BOB against 3 champion dogs.

The little certificates are nice, but ribbons would be nicer. ;)

We are now home. The boys are sleeping and Simon and I are enjoying our celebratory prosecco. Have a great weekend everyone!

First time in the Saugatter

Even though the spring weather has turned from warm and sunny to gloomy and rainy, training never stops. Yesterday Baxter went to his first clicker class even though it was quite cold and rainy. I think that this may be the magic trick to getting him to walk normally on a leash. It is really amazing, he walks nicely on the show line now, but goes like a bat out of hell on the normal line. Time will tell.

In other news, we ventured to France today to try our luck in the Saugatter. It was a 27 hectare fenced in area (roughly 67 acres) contain 2 boars ranging from 30-60 kg (65-130 lbs). The area was roughly 1/2 covered in brush and forest area and 1/2 field, but the forest wasn't continuous so there were a lot of places for the boars to hide. Our group was made up of 6 dackels and 1 Bavarian Mountain Bloodhound and 2-3 dogs were out searching at one time. We followed the dogs, with large sticks in hand, through the whole area, up and down steep, slippery, muddy hills for about 1.5-2 hours, but alas, we did not find the boars. Maybe we were lucky. The first group of the day did find the smaller of the 2 boars and it didn't end too well. The boar decided to run at the dog and handler instead of turning and running. Luckily no one was too hurt. The dog had a minor injury on its foot, which needed to be looked at and bandaged and the handler had to get 3 stitches to close up a cut on her shin. Nonetheless, this really illustrates the real dangers of hunting for these animals. The boars we were working with were relatively small and tame. If it were bigger it could have done quite a bit of damage.

We decided to only go out into the enclosure with Freddie, since he is older, more experienced and has better obedience and recall in case we needed to quickly get him out of the situation. He did really well in searching the forest on his own without going too far. It was good practice for a potential future Stöber exam. Only one dog let out any indication that he had found something, but it was really short. A few barks and that is it. Ideally, the dog should work the boar, alerting it's owner as to where the animal is and keep it from going too far. I think this was a great place to practice, but too big for the inexperienced dogs in our group. Later this year, there will be the possibility for going to a 2 hectare (5 acre) saugatter and I think we will try our luck there. For now we are all quite tired and I'm sure we'll all have sore muscles tomorrow. Til next time...

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