Finnish Fox Trials

So we returned from a busy weekend in the North, only to find that the 10˚C (50˚F) weather that we left in Basel has long since disappeared. It seems that the snow followed us home. <Sigh> So much for spring! So aside from meeting and fussing over my new god-daughter, I was lucky enough to join my friend at a fox trial in Finland. I figured that this would be a good learning experience and an opportunity to compare trials from Germany, Italy, and Finland.

Although the weather in Finland was cold (-20˚C/-4˚F at night and -5˚C/23˚F during the day) and snowy, the skies were nearly always sunny and clear blue. The surroundings in Finland remind me a lot of Northern Wisconsin; pine and birch trees everywhere, small lakes, stony outcroppings, rolling hills, and sparsely populated. I really enjoy the feeling of a home away from home.

Anyhow, back to the Fox trial. The first difference between the German and Italian trials was the location. We arrived at this beautiful little barn and country house, but as you can see, there was a LOT of snow. So how do you have a artificial den test when you can't see the ground you ask? Easy. You put it in the barn! The second story of the barn was more or less dedicated to the trial set up. The boxes, compared to the German test was much smaller in scale and even a bit smaller than the Italian set up.

 

Unlike the previous tests that I have observed, this test wasn't limited to dachshunds. There were a variety of dogs there that day-12 dogs in all- including a smooth dachdhund, a wirehaired dachshund, a few parson and jack russel terriers, border terriers and a couple German Jagdterriers. Each dog is allotted 20 minutes for the test, but based on it's skill, the test time could last as little as 10 minutes. 

How the test runs:

Here is how the set up looks from above. I can't remember the exact dimensions, but the idea is similar to what I have encountered in other countries.

The luolakoirien taipumuskokeessa(LUT), aka underground trial, as I experienced it/was explained it has different levels: LUT D-B and LUT A.  LUT A, being the most advanced. I will talk about this a bit more later.

First, all dogs are put through the empty den to check for Baulaut (voicing in an empty den with no quarry). After the dog has successfully completed the Baulaut portion, the test can begin. The fox is released into the cave and separated by bars (the blue entry way). By the way, these foxes weren't the red foxes I was used to. They were beautiful, fuzzy grey foxes, which are still a form of red fox (Vulpes vulpes), but the coloration is different. The fox is then allowed to run to the first holding box. The dog is then released (left tunnel with the green run). Unlike in the German test, this green block represents the "small" part of the tunnel and the dog must do it right away. Also, unlike the German test, the tunnel does not narrow in width (height staying the same), but the width stays the same and the height becomes much lower.

Very basic schematic of the dog's side of the tunnel. The green is the shallowest part at ~6 inches (15cm). It may be slightly more, but I remembered my friend saying it was similar in size to the German test.

In order for the dog to go through this part, it literally needs to crawl through on it's side... at least the dachshunds need to because of their large chests.

After the dog is inside and past the narrow part, the dog must pursue the fox as that fox is moved from box to box, much like in the German exam.  It must bark and put pressure on the fox for a few minutes. I believe it is at this point that determines the B, C or D grade of the exam. On the overview above, you will see that the right hand tunnel of the figure 8 has yellow stars. The dog is graded on how close it gets to the fox, while giving pressure. I believe the markings are put something like 10, 25 and 50 cm away. The closer the dog gets and barks and pressures the fox, the higher the rating.

To end the trial, the fox and dog are put in contact with each other. All of the boards separating them are removed and the dog is allowed to pursue the fox as it would underground. The foxes of course can fight back, so this really determines the courage of the dog. The judge and veterinarian have to keep a close eye on the going on so that they have the opportunity to separate the animals by bars before anything can happen. In one case, there was a dog that was snapped at by the fox and did not want to pursue it any further. The test was stopped and the dog failed, not physically injured, but mentally unable to continue.

The LUT A exam is more difficult than the LUT D-B because of a further obstacle: sand. In the LUT A, there is a pile of sand that the dog must dig through in order to continue with the test. I was surprised at the amount of sand added. The blue trapezoid below is a fairly accurate representation of the added sand amount. Once the dog has dug himself through, the exam continues similar to before.

Sand has been added after the first box as an additional barrier

In Finland you can gain working championships through most hunting trials. To become a working champion on fox in Finland, a dog must pass LUT B 2x and LUT A 1x.  I hope that I got most of the test details correct. I spent a lot of the day babysitting and not as much watching the dogs, not that there is so much to watch besides some small flags flapping to show the location of the animals. It was a wonderful, amazing sound to be underneath the trial set up though! The dogs and foxes running through the wooden boxes above your head and the barking...Wow. I'd love to try our dogs on a test like this, but I think that this is a wish for the future.

Busy, busy, busy!

As we all know life gets really busy at times. The last few weeks have turned out to be busier than I could have imagined. Personally, I am making figures and doing writing for my paper (which will be submitted after Easter) and Simon is in the same boat. Even though the weeks are busy and stressful, we try to dedicate our weekends to the dogs.

This past weekend was spurlaut practice and the beginnings of normal training sessions with our DTK group. As I have mentioned in the past, Switzerland is not rich in rabbits and hares. This makes spurlaut training nearly impossible. Once per year they test the dogs in Kerzers (just west of Bern) and thankfully there are usually less than 6 dogs being tested because their just aren't that many hares.  Two years ago the group walked the fields for 5 hours to try and get enough hares to test the dogs on. Yuck! Last year on the otherhand Freddie did his Sp test near Mannheim- about 3 hours north of Basel- and walking 1 field, all of the dogs were tested on 2 hares. All the dogs had 2 or 3 hares in total and it took roughly 2 hours.

For our practice we went 1 hour north of Basel near the town of Rust. We had been to this location the autumn before and had good success with the number of hares. This time was even better. In addition to being a nice spring day with sunshine and temperatures in the 50s (10C), we saw 14 hares.  This was Baxter's first time going after the hares and we weren't sure what he would do. It took Freddie about 5 hares before he really got it, so we didn't expect Baxter to do too much. The little guy  did really well though. He followed the track well and was interested in where the bunny was sitting and on the trail. He went with Freddie running one track and I hope that he learned a bit by example. The last hare of the day seemed to be the trigger. It was not his turn, but the hare ran right in front of him and the other dog was not far behind. I think that Baxter finally had his "Aha" moment where he realized that the hare was what he was smelling. In two weeks we will again spend the weekend near Mannheim and hopefully Bax will get to run a few more hares.

Getting ready to walk the fields. What a great spring day! (Photo courtesy of H. Walker)

This weekend the boys are going to Luzern on "holiday" while Simon and I go to visit our friends-and Baxter's breeders- in Finland. I'm very excited to see them and meet their new baby girl! In addition, I will be attending a Finnish fox trial organized by Salla. I am really curious how it differs from what I have seen in Germany and Italy, so look for more on that for my next post. Have a great weekend!

Dirty noses are the sign of a good day!

Offenburg IHA and Specialausttellung for Dackels

He really is a carbon copy of his Mom- 11 months old

 So we spent this weekend in Offenburg, Germany for Baxter's 3rd and 4th shows. He is now 11 months old and developing quite nicely. We really need to work on ring training, as he is too happy and likes to prance around. I guess that it is better than dragging the dog in the ring, but we still have to work on it. Even with the prancing, the judge on Saturday awarded him the highest rating and asked us how we kept his teeth so white.

V1 CAC/J-DTK, CAC/J-VDH Ortenaujugendsieger

Today was a Special Ausstellung put on by the Badischer Dackel Club. This is our "home" club and of course we would go and support our friends and try for a few more awards. Today Bax behaved much nicer in the ring, but didn't want to stand on the table for the judge in order for her to inspect his tail and rear end.

Simon and Baxter in the JBOB ring competing against Dieter Engel and his junior Female Alexandra von Tollbach (which won JBOB both days)

Regardless, she gave him a very nice evaluation and awarded him: V1 CAC/J-DTK, CAC/J-VDH Jugendsieger!

What a great weekend! With these awards Baxter has earned his SDC (Swiss Dachshund Club) Jugend (Junior) Championship! He should also be eligible for his WUT (World Union Teckel) Junior Championship since he now has 4x V1-CAC/J ratings in 2 different countries.

This made us and Baxter's breeder extremely happy, but now puts us in the position that we should go to 1 more National or International dog show in Germany before he is 18 months old in order to try for the last CAC/J-VDH &/or CAC/J-DTK for him to get VDH J-Ch and DTK-JCh (with a SchwhK or BhFK result).

So a lot to think about.

During the shows we had several visitors come up to us to ask if we were A.) breeders or B.) knew when Baxter would have puppies so they could reserve one. This, I think, is a wonderful achievement and compliment to Markku and his small, but nice breeding program. What can I say? Baxter is a bit of a looker. :)

In addition, several members of our German Dackel club came to the show to watch and acted as a cheering crowd/fan club for Bax. In addition, we spoke with the judge today (Nicole Kübli) after the show was over. We were saying good-bye to friends who were organizing the event and she was waiting around so we said goodbye to her as well. She told us that we had a beautiful dog and really commended us on bringing new blood into the Swiss breeding program. She also encouraged us to keep showing Baxter because he will most certainly do well as he gets older. It was really great to hear such nice words from a judge and I think it made even the dog show skeptics (like Simon) extremely proud and happy.

Now it is getting late. The weather has turned a bit crappy and the two dackels sleeping on my legs have to go outside before we all turn in for the night. Until next time.

The Spay and Neuter Debate

So tonight was my very first SKN course and it was just as I expected... a waste of my time. I really feel that this course is for the absolutely clueless absolutely, 100% first time owners.

There was one point that I have to say I was happy to hear about: Spay and Neuter. She laid out the facts: Neutering a dog is a fairly minor surgery for males and a major, more complicated surgery in females. Not only that, but emphasis was put on the fact that there are alternatives to surgery, such as chemical castration for dogs, but that most of the habits that some people may think of when they hear that a male is uncastrated like marking, aggression, etc... can be avoided through socialization and obedience training. In any case, the overall message was to consult with your veterinarian if you are considering castration of you dog.

Sounds pretty good right?

This has been a recent topic amongst many dog people lately. In the USA it is fairly taboo NOT to castrate your dog. Not only that, but they want it done ASAP, usually well before the animal is 6 months old. This is just how it is and is the mantra in the US. Now living in Switzerland, I rarely run into dogs that are castrated- at least this is very obvious in male dogs. Never at the dog park or during training periods have our dogs ever had issues with other males. Usually they go off and play and everything is fine. During one training period there was even a female in heat and 2 unaltered male dogs. They were not as focused as usual, but were able to work and even run around on the training place, with supervision of course, with no incidence.

Not only do I not believe in castration altering behaviors, but many studies show the same. An aggressive male dog is not going to automatically become a lamb because you cut his manly parts off. Forget it! If your male is aggressive, take it to a trainer and put in the time and effort to try and alter the behavior.

In addition, there was also a recent article -I believe it was Labradors- that tracked dogs that were castrated before 1 year of age and dogs that were castrated after 1 year. Unfortunately, I can't find the article at this time, but one thing that stood out to me was that dogs castrated before 1 year of age had more "structural" problems, e.g. Luxating patella, because the hormones that signal to stop growing are no longer produced. This can cause the dogs to grow taller, resulting in higher, lankier dogs with overgrown bones. This hit close to home as my parent's last dog, an American Eskimo, had this in both her knees. It is listed as a potential ailment in the breed, but not common. My parents shelled out $2000+ in surgeries because she slipped her knee once around the age of 1 or 2 and the other at the age of 5. I now wonder if perhaps her spay at the age of 6 months contributed to her knee problems. In addition, the dog battled with being overweight for a good portion of its life (not morbidly, but a maximum 10% at her fattest), which is another common "symptom" of castration.

Christmas at my parent's house in WI in 2009. Here "Lexi," our 12 year old American Eskimo, joined in on the fun.

Jolanta Jeanneney (of the Born to Track blog) wrote a very nice article a couple months ago about castrating working dogs:
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.ch/2013/01/should-tracking-and-hunting-dogs-be.html
I think she really highlights a reason against the normal fix it ASAP view, especially with working dogs of a specific breed in such a big country. You don't want to bottleneck your breeding stock and furthermore, if you have a talented, structurally and mentally sound dog, why not pass on its genes?

I personally am not opposed to spaying or neutering of dogs. I totally understand that non-breeders, for example, don't want to deal with a female coming into heat twice per year, especially if you have males in your house or nearby. I've experienced a love-sick Freddie, yearning to escape our room and make a B-line for Baxter's half-sister. It wasn't pretty for anyone involved.

I just think that we should let dogs grow up and mature. Unlike people, dogs mature in about a year. Is that so long to wait, especially if it means a healthier and mentally more mature doggie companion? I feel like the European mentality is starting to slowly make it's way stateside and I have my fingers crossed that dog lovers take notice.

Thoughts on dog breeding

Although I should be writing my paper and studying for my doctoral defense, I need a break every now and then. I'm not ashamed to admit that on some nights, I find myself jumping from breeder site to breeder site and checking photos on Facebook to get to know some of the "now" dachshunds in Europe and abroad. I was actually a bit bummed today to have missed the dachshunds at Cruft's, as I really would have liked to compare them to the American dogs from Westminster and the European dogs that I have come to know.

So why spend all this time on dogs? Well, being a geneticist by training, dog breeding has always interested me. I really think dogs are the animal to look at when it comes to diversity. Sure, there are other animals and plants with an equally impressive array of sizes, colors, shapes, etc..., but none are as familiar as the modern dog. With that, I think that it is really important to not only preserve the breeds that we have, but to improve on them. I find it a shame that many breeders around the world often take the closest male for their female instead of the best male for their female. I feel you shouldn't breed dogs unless you want to try and improve with each litter that you have, whether that improvement be character, tracking, retrieving, herding, filtering out disease (for one example of this, check out the story of Fiona the dalmatian: http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.ch/2010/11/uks-first-gm-dalmatian-and-shes-winner.html), etc...  Of course form and function should also be preserved.

I love Freddie and Baxter. They are fantastic little dogs. Very willing to please, very personable, strong noses, good hunting drive, good obedience, what's not to like? Well, each of them also has their faults. As an owner and maybe someday a breeder, I think that this is the #1 thing that you have to ask yourself about your dogs: What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? I will use Freddie as an example since he is almost 3 (wow time flies!!) and developed.

Freddie's #1 perk/attribute for me is his willingness to do whatever he is asked. He will participate in obedience training as readily as dive head first into a fox hole (real or artificial...) or walk fields several hours looking for hares or participate in agility. He is an everything dog. As a first dog, he was an amazing find and has turned into a wonderful partner in work and play. We have learned a lot with him in all aspects of dog ownership and for that we are grateful. In terms of form, Freddie has a really good back angles, a strong, straight back, a very strong neck, he is well muscled, and his form, though on the high end for a dachshund, is fairly correct.

On the downside... Most of Freddie's negatives come in the shape of his form. Freddie is brown, that's no surprise, but with the brown color often (but not always!) comes a suboptimal coat. This is of course not always the case as coat in wirehairs is a bit of a battle. Freddie has a double coat, but it is short. On the plus side this requires virtually no grooming! He has a very scarce beard and eyebrows and his feet are lightly furnished, but compared to Baxter he's bald. With the right female (one with a very thick, wiry, Baxter-like coat) and I think he would make beautiful puppies. I have also mentioned before the Freddie is a monster dachshunds. He now weighs in at 11 kg (~24lbs), but despite the weight, since he his the taller with a more athletic build and not a huge inflated chest, he still retains his function as an earth dog.

If I were to choose a mate for Freddie, she would be a bit on the smaller side (8ish kg) and ideally come from lines with smaller dogs to try and bring the overall weight of the puppies into a more normal range. She would be a shorter dog and I would try to find a female that has reliably birthed all wirehair or have her tested to check for 2 copies of the furnishing gene to ensure that the puppies are not smooth.

This is all of course over simplified, but it is something that I think about. Simon and I often go back and forth over whether or not we would like to reserve a kennel name and take the Züchter (breeder) courses here in Switzerland. It is always a gamble. Just because you have puppies, it doesn't mean that people want them. Your breedings will not always be successful and not every puppy will make it. Your litters may not be the shining stars that you hoped for, but with each trial, you learn more about your dogs and your breed. For now we still toss around the idea and I assume it will remain that way for a few years more. In the meantime, I'm going to continue studying the lines in Europe and waiting for my dream female to appear.

Here comes the sun

I've had a bit of an uneventful week. I missed out on Basel Fasnacht (the Swiss protestant version of Carnival) due to sickness, nasty, nasty, flu-type sickness that totally laid me out for 2.5 days and I still have tons of head congestion.

The upside to being sick was that I got to watch a couple movies and spend a couple days snuggling a couple of friendly, lovely dackels.

The weather here is slowly getting better and warmer by the day. The sun made an appearance today and by Sunday it is supposed to be 12C (~54C)! Hooray! I'm SO ready for spring.

We will be visiting Simon's parents this weekend in Luzern in central Switzerland. The boys love it there because they get a big house to run around in and a young boxer dog to play with. In addition, there are big fields and green spaces to run around in just a short 5 min walk up the road. It's a great spot for two dackels to run like crazy.

I have a bit of "clean-up" trimming to do on Baxter this weekend so that he is ready for his shows in Germany next weekend.

I'm sure I will have more to update you all on next week, so until then, I hope that everyone is surviving the winter. Luckily spring is just around the corner!

Did you know that sunshine spawns dackels?

Swiss Working Dachshund Statistics

So I have been very impatiently waiting for the newest SDC member magazine to show up and yesterday it finally came. I raced through it, just glancing over the pages until I found this:

What is this table you may ask? This is the working statistics for Switzerland. Basically every test that is passed (that isn't something totally specialized like the Italian Fbja) is counted for points. The dogs are then ranked based on their point totals. Now, not every dog owner turns in their point totals, but several do and I like to see where we fall on the list.

This year I am happy to announce that Freddie is #4 on the list! We came right after the 3 dogs that all participated in Vp. For two relatively novice dackel owners who are just getting the hang of these trials, I think I can call it a success! So hopefully this year brings a hunting license into our lives and continuation with more hunting tests with our boys.