The boys and the badger

All I can say is success! Freddie did an excellent job and worked a Kvalitet 1 (1st prize)!!! His one faux pas was that he had problems turning himself around  Baxter did an okay job, but was overall a little bit slow to start and could have been a bit more persistent, but barked himself a Kvalitet 2 (2nd prize). His practices were by far better than the test, but this was his first result underground, so I was happy! I think both of the boys could have done a bit better if there would have been a practice closer to the test, but I can´t be too sad.

The boys with their loot

Out of the 7 dogs that participated, 5 passed: 4 with Kval 1 and 1 with Kval 2. The judge commented on how happy he was to see dachshund participating in underground trials again. Supposedly there has been a steep decline in the amount of dachshund participating in, and being used for underground hunting, in Sweden. To have a test with only dachshund participants made him very happy.

This is Freddie´s first result from Sweden and he killed it! Now we have to decide what to do next. With this score, if Freddie is able to pass a real life hunting test (equivalent to the German BhFN/BhDN) and spring a fox or hold off a badger, then he would gain a Hunting championship. Alternatively, we could start training him in Denmark or Norway or Finland and try to get results from those countries. Currently, we are hoping to try Fred on Drevprov here in Sweden while we try to decide what we want to do with the underground test. Freddie is readily Spurlaut and has a lot of hunting drive, so you never know. Maybe he will end up a hunting champion... One can dream. :)

Freddie showing us all how it's done!

Finland and more

Well, we are back and feeling rested after a nice holiday. We spent 10 days in Finland, visiting friends, enjoying the very hot summer (over 27C EVERY day), and attending the World Dog Show. We did a bit of swimming and sunbathing, but not a lot of outside activities with Bax due to the horrid heat since it was well over 25C every day by 10 in the morning. Hot, hot, hot! We were very lucky that we brought a fan with us since our hotel, though nice in a lot of other ways, had no air conditioning. This meant that Bax did some swimming and otherwise had a lot of activity in the early morning or after dinnertime when the temperatures dipped to a more comfortable temperature.

My favorite sign from the archipelago

 Freddie stayed with a friend back in Sweden since he wasn´t going to the show and sitting in a box or hotel room for several days in a row is no fun. He enjoyed the lap of luxury in a nice house in the suburbs and was treated like a prince. What a lucky dog! He was very happy to be home though, let me tell you!

Nothing exciting happened at the dog shows. We knew that at a big show like this, it was unlikely that we would get anything, but why not try? For the 2nd time in my life, I handled Baxter as his breeders, Simon, and I decided that he looked and behaved better with me, than he did with Simon. We only got Very Goods, but pretty good evaluations and it was a good learning experience for me since I will be handling Baxter this autumn at shows. He looked especially good at the World dog show (as told to me by his breeders), which made me very happy. Excellents would have been amazing, but at the same time, good evaluations and not falling on my face are just as important.

In addition to the show, we combined our holiday with the pick-up of our new puppy. Yes, that´s right, we picked up a puppy!  Meet our new girl Liina.

This is our new co-owned girl Barbwired Champagne (MultiCh. Gordon Forte-Forte de Buch de la Perouse x MultiCh. Barbwired Austria) aka Liina and she is just under 16 weeks old. As you might recognize, she is from the same kennel as our Baxter and Baxter's mother is Liina´s grandmother. Both of her parents are successful show dogs, both have working results including Tracking championships in Sweden, a Working championship in Italy and trials in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, & Austria, and both are very loving and people oriented dogs. In fact, Aura, Liina's mother, is the reason that we have dackels. She is the dog that turned Simon into a dachshund lover. :) Liina is a very loving and feisty little girl and one day I hope that we will be able to start our own breeding program with this little one. We will see what the future holds for this girl as she will start shows and working trials next year.

The boys are both tolerating the new addition very well. Baxter is more tolerant and willing to play with the little one where Freddie is a bit more cautious and seems convinced that if he ignores her, she may go away. Liina has gotten Freddie to play with her a bit in the past day, so we will see how their relationship develops.

The weather today is less than ideal and it appears that summer is over. The rain has been pouring all day and it makes the end of holidays/starting work again not seem so bad. Back to normal life!

Baxter is an Uncle!

On the 21st of July, Baxter's sister Iita gave birth to 7 puppies (3 boys and 4 girls) in Finland. Mom and puppies are doing well. The father of the litter is MultiWinner and Ch Lollipop della Val Vezzeno.

Iita's character is exactly like Baxter- a wonderful, lovey dog that is very people oriented. Iita has not yet been in trials, but her mother is a Swedish tracking champion and an Italian working champion and her brother-our Baxter-has proven himself to be quite versatile in blood tracking, spurlaut, water retrieving, and is coming along nicely with training underground. Additionally, Lollipop has earned an Italian working championship (fbja, bhfk95, Sp).

Father of the Litter: Ch Lollipop della Val Vezzeno

Due to the large litter size, some puppies are still available. The pedigree of these puppies is filled with beauty and working champions, and these puppies are looking for active homes (show, hunting, or trials). If you are interested you can contact Kennel Barbwired (in English, Detusch, Suomi or Svenska). I can also put you in touch with them.

Sweden has granted us a warm welcome

We have now lived in Sweden for 6 months. Can you believe it? There has been a lot of changes and a lot of frustrations, such as a never-ending waiting period for my residence permit, which I am still waiting for by the way, but I digress. One thing that I didn't expect, but which has been a completely wonderful surprise has been the kindness of the people.

Of course most of our early contacts were dachshund (tax) people, so naturally they must be wonderful, right? ;)

The group after a gryt training (photo H. Arlock)

 
It has been so much easier to start to integrate into the new culture and surroundings with the dogs. We had activities and busy lives once again. We weren't just sitting home alone in the middle of the countryside, we were going to practices, shows, and social outings. Social media has been crucial to getting to know people and Facebook has connected us with a lot of Dachshund people. It is really a wonderful thing to meet and hangout with your Facebook friends on a regular basis. We even met one of our blog followers (Lindsjö Taxar) that was kind enough to chat us up, give us training tools, and invite us for future hunting practices with the dogs. 

Majsan & Simon at the show in Tvååker. Neither of us got the results that we needed, but it was fun to get together none-the-less

Simon has even started playing his trumpet once again due to our friend Elisabeth. Luckily, we now have a house with no neighbors, so he can play all he wants... now I'm just waiting for the drum set to appear.

Simon and Elisabeth playing horn at the club show in Kjugekull (photo E. Ahlin)

We haven't necessarily been as successful in showing as we would like to be since moving here, but it will come. We have a young dog and  The dogs have made up for it with their natural abilities. We had to "re-learn" how to track since the Swedish method is different than me previously learned (which reminds me that I should have Simon do a write-up regarding it). The dogs are doing just fine, but it is the handlers that need more practice!

All in all, things are going well here in Sweden and summer holidays are just around the corner. What more could a girl and her dachshunds ask for?

Baxter's first open class tracking trial a success!

This week started out really shitty with my computer being stolen from our car while out with friends in Helsingborg. Ugh. It was my work/home/everything computer. Thankfully everything was backed up somewhere and the car did not have any major damages. Still annoying none the less.

Anyhow, Markku and Salla were visiting for a holiday/shows/tracking trials with their dog and while here, chatted with a few tracking judges. Markku found out that at least one judge would be available this week and so we signed Baxter up for a tracking trial. Our trainers this spring suggested that Baxter needed more focus in order to do well, but after speaking with more people, they thought he sounded ready and suggested we just try a "real" test track. So today Simon and Baxter headed off to Sjöbö to do their first open class tracking test.

I am overjoyed to say that the boys did very, very well and were rewarded with a 1st prize in open class! Not only is this a great result, but Baxter needs the result if he ever wants to be a Beauty Champion in Sweden. We are all really happy and hope for at least 2 more 1st prizes in our future! :)

Congratulations my boy and very good work!

Photo by Eva Ahlin

How versatile is your dog?

This is a topic that I have started writing about time and time again, but after a comment today, I felt the need to write about it. We were told today that our dog has "too many problems" with tracking and there is no way we should even be thinking/practicing for den tests. Now these "problems" with tracking is focus. Baxter is still a relatively young dog and in true dachshund fashion, is stubborn. He is amazing on all of the "hard" parts- bloodless areas, turns and the bloodless down and back (there isn't a good translation for the Swedish word). He is a high energy dog with a lot of drive, but he doesn't always want to track because we ask him. This will come with time and more experience for sure. The length, time, etc... doesn't matter, but deer tracks right across the path is WAY more interesting than our stupid artificial tracks. Anyhow, more practices and he will be fine. We would love for him to be ready now, but we are more than willing to spend time and energy on our little doggie.

It isn't the comment of "too many problems" that bothered me, the thing that bothered me was that someone other than Simon was trying to tell me what I should do with my dog. I know that it is a dog, but I feel like the semi-equivalent is when new parents are told how they should raise their child. Just a bit pissed off. I mean, if this was an especially close friend that knew our dog really well or his breeders, maybe I would have had a conversation about it. Luckily, Simon was approached with this question, because he is much more cool in these situations than I am. He basically replied "I think my dog is capable of telling the difference between an artificial den and a blood track" and that was the end of the conversation. This is not the first time that we have had someone try to tell us how to raise-people had their opinions of Freddie too-and train our dogs, in essence, tell us that we just do far too much with them. I'm not sure if some of these people feel the need to treat us a bit like children, since we are on average 20 years younger than many members, but it gets old. I am completely open to having an open discussion about these things, but I do NOT respond well to just being told I can or cannot do something for no great reason.

My question, though, is how much is really too much? If we were blood tracking every day or hunting or doing agility or whatnot, then yes, I would agree that we are doing FAR too much. For a while we were a bit overloaded: 2x per week dog class/obedience in 2 different clubs, training for BHP, training blood tracking. I mean, a dog is definitely a time consuming hobby, but between all that and work, we had no free time. We have cut back significantly in our activities since moving to Sweden. We are still busy, don't get me wrong, we have been showing Baxter about 1x per month, we practice obedience on our own in the garden, and we have taken a tracking course in order to get a feel for how to do blood tracking here. Now we have started gryt/den training now that tracking is over, but this was a total of 3x and maximum 1 time per week. I wouldn't call that intense training.

I also find that it is a little close minded to think that a dog is not capable of performing multiple tasks. I think my dog is smart enough to know the difference between an artificial den and a blood track or chasing rabbits or retrieving. We have different collars and different commands for each activity. Also, we aren't doing blood tracking in the morning and den in the evening or anything, these activities are days or weeks apart. Anyhow, isn't one of the great things about dachshunds is that they are supposed to be versatile dogs? They are the only breed that officially hunt under and above ground and many participate every year in Vp (versatility test) that involves: Spurlaut, SchwhK, Stöber, and obedience all on 1 day, these dogs have to have hunting drive AND know how to do multiple activities. These are not easy tests. They are taxing on the dog and the handler and we are hoping to some day participate in one. In fact, now in Switzerland to be a working dog 3 different test now have to be passed to get your working certificate: Sp, SchwhK, BhFK95 (rabbit trailing, blood tracking, den tests) and for the CIB, the dog has to also pass Stöber test or Vp, in addition to 2x CACIB in 2 countries.

An example VP form

Can all dogs be equally versatile? I doubt it. We see huge differences between Freddie and Baxter in how they work. Baxter is more reserved and more meticulous then Fred. He thinks about things more while he is doing them and is more strong willed. Freddie is much more willing to please and is much more eager and excitable type of dog. He lets his instincts take over, especially during the hunting activities. On blood tracking and BHP (the companion dog test), Baxter far exceled even at his young age, but he needs a little more work to be truly excellent- he has a LOT of natural talent. Freddie took much, much more work to get him to pass the 2 tests that Baxter did amazingly well on. It's not that he isn't talented, but his excitability kept him from calmly, quietly waiting, or running (honestly, 500m tracks in 10-15 min when we were starting out), rather than carefully following a blood track and checking his work as Baxter does. On den test which is a lot of instinct, Freddie is far superior, though it took him 3 tries to master this different den set up(as compared to the German style), whereas today, on Baxter's 2nd ever practice in a den, he showed no problems in the tight entry space and moving around/exploring the different areas. Different dogs, different lineage, different ways of working.

Dogs are like people, they are different, but I think that the important thing is to try different activities and see where the dog does well. Maybe hunting isn't your dog's forte, but agility is, so go and work with them on that! Don't put the dog into a single category. If you have the opportunity and desire to try out different tests and activities, my advice is to do it! It can never hurt and it gives you the chance to further bond with your dog. Now, if your dog doesn't like the activity, that is another thing, but you'll never know until you try! 

 

Will we do various tests with the boys in Sweden- yes. You have to pick your battles, but we are going to carry on with what we are doing since, overall, it seems to work. Maybe the dogs will prove the nay-sayers wrong, either way, they are champions to me!

Picking the perfect puppy

First of all, I know that I stated at the beginning of the year that I wanted to take more time to write opinion pieces and just post more in general. Well, one would have thought that being unemployed would lead to a lot of time to write. Wrong. Between searching for openings, re-writing my CV and cover letters to fit the company, and moving-yes, moving AGAIN- time slipped away. It wasn’t the highlight of my life and after spending all day on the computer, the last thing I really wanted to do was sit down and write additional articles. Funnily enough, now that I have started my new job, my motivation to blog has really started up again. Who knows the reason, but I’m going to try and stick to my original plan and post more often.

 

Out on a stroll at the new house

One great thing to come out of the rather busy 6 months that I spent unemployed was that it gave me a lot of time to read up and research different dogs and bloodlines. I’ve looked at dogs throughout Europe and even some from the US looking for what is “my type” of dachshund. Why you may ask? Well, we were searching for a puppy. Yes, Simon and I decided that we would like to eventually breed and so for the past year or so my ear was to the ground and all eyes were on the internet looking for the perfect puppy. We weren’t sure how long it would take or where the little one would come from, but why not start looking and asking around.  

Now there is no such thing as the “perfect” puppy. Once in a blue moon does a dog come around that really, truly has it all, and that “all” is different for every person. I had to ask myself what I thought was important in dachshunds, what traits I liked, and what bloodlines I liked or disliked and why. I asked around to my mentors for suggestions and several breeders to ask about upcoming litters. Since this bitch would be my brood bitch, I wanted to ensure that I could get the best puppy I could. This is where Simon and my crazy dog lifestyle really came in handy.

 

The World and European Dog Shows are great venues for peaking at upcoming "Superstars" in the show world.

I talked to both large and small kennels and all the kennels I asked told me that they would love to give us a puppy. They had seen us at shows, seen us at trials, followed our adventures with our dogs via Facebook or the blog and knew that we would be an active family for their dog. Not only would the pup get a lot of experiences and be in an active home, but of course show and trial wins are great advertisements for the kennel itself.

So did we want a puppy from a show breeder or a working breeder? Well, ideally we were searching for both. Our mentors were pivotal in shaping our idea of the breed and even though their dogs were from mostly show lines, there were working dogs and dogs with multiple working trials in their pedigrees. In fact, in the Nordic countries, dachshunds cannot become a beauty champion WITHOUT a working trial. That’s right, the pretty dogs have to do some work too. In Sweden they must get a 1^st prize in open class blood tracking (20hr), 1^st prize in artificial underground test, or 2^nd prize in hunting test. The requirements are similar in Norway, Finland, and Denmark. I personally think this is a great thing since what is the point in having a beautiful dachshund if it can’t do the work it was meant to do? So we wanted to be sure that our future puppy had a promising background with both working and show results.

Freddie's Dad Effendi (above) and Baxter's mom Iiris (below) are good examples of dogs that have multiple show and working titles.

We were also looking for parents that were structurally sound, with good proportions, and good size. I bring up size because I have noticed much bigger dogs since we have moved up North. In Germany or Switzerland, Baxter was not enormous, but was on the larger size being ~9.5-10kg. Baxter is still able to squeeze into tight spots and run around in artificial dens and this, to me, is important as dachshund should be able to chase their original quarry. Ideally, I would like a female that is on the smaller side. I think that size in dachshund can be just as difficult to keep in check as good hair quality. I know I rag on the Nordic dachshunds being big, but it isn’t just in the north that you find big dogs… they are everywhere! In fact, for several years there has been a debate about allowing a 4^th size of dachshund into the ring-one that is over 10 kg. In Germany before 2013, any dog weighing over 9.9kg was not allowed to be given an “Excellent” rating and, thus, could gain no certificates towards a championship. As of July 2013, this rule was abolished and scales are no longer in use. Actually, I think Switzerland and Germany were the last countries to abolish scales for dachshunds as they aren’t weighed almost anywhere else. There are good and bad points to this decision, but at least as of November last year, I wouldn’t say that there was a huge influx of show people bringing in big dogs. In fact, I only once noticed “giant” dachshunds in the ring that made a 9.2kg male look like a mini. Ideally, I would like a standard bitch, from small/average sized parents in the hopes of maintaining small, feisty hunting dogs.  Of course this may all backfire and the puppies may end up as 12 kg monsters, you never know.

One thing that I find both exciting and frustrating is looking through pedigrees. My Bachelor's degree is in Genetics and it was really the topic that not only started my love of science, but also directed me to the career that I am in today. Dogs genetics are, therefore, quite an interesting subject for me. There is a lot of information out there (titles, trials, temperment, disease testing, etc...) and pedigree dogs are very well documented. Of course, perusing through pedigrees can be frustrating when looking for a puppy, an example, Revestreken's Frikk. Now, I have nothing against Frikk himself. He is a very nice dog with a lot of working and beauty titles and is still going strong as a veteran. The problem came when I found a dog I liked, ohh and ahh'd over it, found the pedigree and... Frikk. Due him having so many nice qualities, Frikk is in the pedigree of many dogs throughout Europe (and the US). My own dogs are included in that statistic as Frikk is Baxter's Great-Grandfather. Did I want to line breed on Frikk? Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to look for a puppy that had no Frikk bloodlines or quite far back in the pedigree. This would give me the opportunity later on to use one of the many wonderful dogs I had seen and researched or their offspring without having a high inbreeding coefficient. 

Revestreken's Frikk

That brings us back again to breeding. Did I want a female that I could pair with my males? The answer: maybe. I have nothing against my boys, they both have their strengths and weaknesses, as do all dogs. I think Freddie is an excellent dog. He is a hunter, but also a goofy companion and sofa dog. His anatomy is very nice, but he would definitely need a partner with excellent hair. Baxter is a very pretty dog with great hair, great head, great body, but his front is a bit wide. His hunting skills are excellent, but he is not as intense as Freddie, though he is high energy with a lot of drive, he is very reserved at home. With qualities like these and rather unique pedigrees (French/German & Italian/Finnish), I hope that they are appreciated by the breeders here in the north for their own merits. If I had a female with a pedigree that was compatible with Freddie or Baxter AND compliment and improve upon their faults, then yes, I would consider it. Would I be sad if neither Baxter or Freddie had puppies? A little. In the end, I would personally rather find outside daddies for my future puppies.

So, have I found my perfect puppy? Well, maybe not perfect, but there were several wonderful and very promising candidates... but much more on that later. :)