This was a post I meant to post more than a month ago... but, well, life got in the way.
After a year in Sweden, making connections, and trying hard to find land to practice on, we were kindly invited up to the Northern part of Skåne to try Freddie on Drev.
The only way I can describe Drev is that it is real hunting. The dog is released into the forest to search for animals. The dog then, hopefully, takes up the fresh scent of a deer, fox, or hare and chase it through the land. This was Freddie's first go out, and even though he did great on Spurlaut, it was hard to say how he would do with the "real life" situation.
In our area of Sweden there isn't the vast area lacking major roads that are ideal for Drev. Furthermore, as I am not yet out hunting, it is a really big deal to get an invitation. Well, a contact from our local dachshund club was so kind and she and her husband offered to let us go to them and try Freddie in their forest!
For Drev, there are always risks, wild boars, wolves, cars, etc... but as Freddie is a smart dog and wolves (the biggest threat in my opinion) are not as common this far south and not in that area, we thought we would try. We were lent a GPS collar so we could see where Freddie was, how fast he was going, and how far away from us he was.
The first thing we did was go out and basically tell him that he could go search. Freddie was very good at going out and circling back to check where we were. While on one of his first searches, he opened a little, but it didn't lead to anything and we didn't see any animals (though their bedding and tracks/poop). After being out about 1.5-2 hrs, we headed back to let Freddie rest a bit and have lunch. We then took out Anna and Joachim's 11 year old shorthair Pixie, who was fantastic. She did indeed find something out in the forest, but by the barking and GPS track, Joachim thought it was a boar and called her back. When we went closer to pick her up/call her back, we definitely smelled boars and I am happy that Joachim had his rifle with "just in case."
We then took Pixie back and decide that as the weather hand turned beautiful for the end of October (15c and sun... see photo above) we would try a different area and see if Freddie found something. We did a little initial searching, then we came upon a glen and in the very back corner, Joachim noticed a couple of Roe deer. Freddie followed him into the glen (above) and Joachim and Simon told him to search. Then a few minutes later there was music! Freddie had taken up the deer scent and was off. I wish I would have thought to get a video! It would have only been barking, but who cares! Freddie worked really well for his first time out- roughly 30 min and about 300 m away from us. Anna said that we couldn't have asked for better work on his first time out. We only called Freddie back because he must have lost the scent and started circling in an area about 100m from us. Simon and Joachim went, called him back (with name and whistle) and you could watch him march slowly back on the GPS. Getting the dog back to you is a huge and important aspect of Drev, so Fred coming back was just as important as him taking up and chasing the deer.
On the way back to the car, Joachim asked if we wanted to swap a labrador for Fred. lol. I think he liked him. We are invited back out, but this autumn was a bit hectic for me as I was in the US for almost 3 weeks and writing papers at work. I recently bought a used GPS collar from another Swedish dackel friend and I am hoping we can get him out again this year for practice if the weather stays mild, otherwise, we are shooting for a few more practices and hopefully testing in 2016. Either way, Freddie definitely didn't disappoint!
I really hope to also take Baxter out in the future to see what he's got, but we are taking one thing at a time at the moment. :)
A BIG Thank you goes to Anna and Joachim for allowing us to further work with Fred and offering their land!
