Two Trackers

by Teddy Moritz

I witnessed an interesting animal interaction event today while running my pup, July, in one of my rabbit spots. July is ten months old and I like to run her alone in order to make her less dependent on the hawk and older dogs. She worked rabbits all winter and is very keen to track them, but she also knew to watch for the hawk in order to find the fresh scent, or she would hark into the older dogs. Now I wanted her to do her own work. The field I ran her in today is huge, an old farm field bordered by a parking lot on one side, a vast open weed field ending eventually in a railroad line. The place I park has two long sections of very tall, thick blackberry canes. This is where the rabbits harbor, then when pushed by the dogs they run out into the field, which has weeds just tall enough to hide the rabbit from the hawk's eyes. It's a great place for long runs on rabbits as they will leave the briars and make huge laps around the weed field.

I let July out and she promptly hit the briars, looking for rabbits. She's been in this spot before so she knows where to search. She busted a rabbit out and took off after it as it ran into the big field. I stood still and listened to her run. She is fairly vocal and I could hear her a good distance away. She circled this rabbit and brought it back to the briars. She ran it out again and off they went. This time the rabbit must have gone a slightly different route because July's voice drifted toward a tree line. In the meantime three other rabbits came sneaking out of the weeds and into the briars. The place holds a good number of cottontails. Suddenly July started barking, a varmint bark, not a rabbit bark. She was in one spot, barking at something. I listened for a bit, then called her. I know red fox live in the far end of the field, but so do deer, woodchucks and sometimes a feral cat. The barking stopped and pretty soon I could see July heading my way. She saw me and took a ninety degree turn into a strip of weeds leading to a berm of dirt and sand. She just wanted to see me and then keep hunting. She seemed to hit a rabbit line and took it up along the berm and out onto a big dry sandy area. She worked a long time trying to figure out the line, drifting back and forth, re-starting, working and working, though silently.

As I stood and watched her I saw some movement in the weeds, along the first part of the berm. As I thought, it was the red fox. It was watching July track. When the dog disappeared up the berm and into the weeds, the fox started tracking her. It would sniff where she ran, look, listen and watch for her. I don't believe this was a predatory kind of tracking, I think the fox was curious about the dog and where it was going. I'm fairly certain the fox has a den in some piles of cement slabs nearby as I had found a lot of fox sign there this past winter. The fox could have easily overtaken the little dog if it wanted to catch her. I was glad it wasn't a coyote. I would have interfered right away.

July kept working on the rabbit track, going back and forth, going backwards and re-working the scent line. The fox stayed on slightly lower ground, nose to the ground, tracking July. The dog had gone silent so the fox wasn't sure where she was. It continued to track and listen and look. It was interesting to watch. The fox tracked without wagging its tail like a dog does. It simply put its nose down and followed July's scent. It didn't quarter or drift the track, it seemed very accurate.

Being a wild animal, the fox was very aware of its surroundings and since I was standing in the open, it eventually saw me, did sort of a double take, then turned around and took off. July never did know the fox was behind her. Just as well. I wouldn't want her chasing it out to a road. There's always something interesting to watch when running a hound.

The fleeting beauty of spring flowers

I have been taking a lot of pictures of Mielikki's puppies (I'll be posting them on a puppy journal in a day or two), but yesterday I managed to take some nature shots as well. It was a good idea as today we have a change in the weather - it is a cool, gloomy day with drizzle; actually it feels like November. The flowers will be gone soon.

Mielikki's puppies are thriving while Keena's puppies are no-shows

A couple of days ago we took Keena to a vet to verify whether she carried any pups. Unfortunately, she did not. We have had our doubts for quite a while now. She looked pregnant at 5-6 weeks but then stopped expanding. I thought that she might carry two puppies, but it was not the case. It was disappointing, that's for sure, especially for people on our waiting list.

On the other hand, good news about Mielikki and her puppies. The pups are doing  really well, and Mielikki is a Super Mom, who keeps pups' bottoms absolutely clean. Puppies are a week old now and they doubled their weight. We gave them names, which will be their registered names:
Boys:
Urho - blue
Uncas - red
Girls:
Ursula - green
Utah - yellow
Uma - white
Uschi - pink
Uta - no ribbon

The whelping box is in my den so I have a chance to watch, hear and hold puppies as much as I want to. Mielikki does not mind sharing them with us. Over the years I have seen various types of canine mothers. Some are very protective of their pups and watch you like a hawk when you touch them. They bark at any dog on the other side of the door. Mielikki is not like that at all. She certainly pays a great deal of attention to what happens to puppies, but she does not mind at all when we play with them or she hears other dogs running through the house. She is a real "people's dog" and craves our attention. When she sees us in the morning, she is incredibly happy! Often I just get into the whelping box - she really enjoys being in my lap while the pups nurse.

Mielikki is not a voracious eater, and for the first few days it was a challenge to find nutritious food that was to her liking. Right now her favorite is Omas Pride's raw mix of chicken and veggies, and today she inhaled several bowls of it. Of course, her appetite has been increasing while pups have been growing and drinking more milk.

Mielikki and Sky's puppies are finally here

Finally Mielikki has delivered her puppies but it did not go as smoothly as we wished. Let's go back to Thursday night... We did not know how many pups to expect as we did not want to subject her to unnecessary stress caused by a trip to a vet. We knew that she was huge and anticipated at least 7 pups.

She started to have contractions on Thursday evening. This was the 63rd day from the first breeding. First puppy was whelped at 9:20 PM. Then there was a very long break. Mielikki was having contractions, though not very hard, but no puppy emerged. Around midnight I called our vet at Cobleskill Veterinary Clinic, and Dr. Kevin Baldwin agreed to meet us there around 1 AM. So we packed Mielikki and her first puppy and made a 35-minute trip. Twenty minutes into the trip Mielikki delivered another puppy. It was a relief as we really wanted to avoid a C-section. She got hydrated at the clinic, and we drove back home.

The rest of the night was pretty stressful. She would whelp a puppy every two hours or so, but things were proceeding quite slowly. Two pups did not survive delivery as they spent too much time in the birth canal. By 9 AM we had 7 puppies (5 alive and 2 dead), and not much was happening any more. We knew that she still had some pups inside her. After I checked her temperature, which rose to 103, we started to be concerned and placed another call to the vets. We were advised to bring her in.

Mielikki was x-rayed, and as it turned out she was carrying two additional puppies. According to Dr. Montario if there were only one puppy, maybe we could have brought it out by giving her oxytocin and calcium. But with two pups still there, and one of them placed very far from the birth canal, he advised C-section. We agreed to do it. It was a good decision as the two pups were still OK. One of them was stuck very far in the uterine horn, and apparently Mielikki would not have been able to push it out.

So the final outcome is 7 puppies, 5 females and 2 males, ranging at birth from 7.6 oz (215 gr) to 10 oz (283 gr). They all are in a good shape. Mielikki bounced back really quickly, and on Friday afternoon was drinking, eating and cleaning the pups' bottoms. Friday night was completely uneventful, and today (Saturday) things continue to go well. All the puppies put on some weight. We will continue to report about the pups at our puppy journal. This is our U-litter, which means that registered names of the pups will be starting with the letter U. All the pups are spoken for.

A big thank you to everybody at Cobleskill Veterinary Clinic, who helped with Mielikki's litter!

A Bavarian puppy for sale

Ron Jurnak from Granville, NY has a 4.5-month-old Bavarian puppy for sale due to a change in his work situation. The pup was bred by Martin Gnip, NY, and Ron has raised it in the house. The price is $1000. The phone # for Ron is 518-642-8019.

Keeping your tracking dog in shape!

by John Jeanneney

Now that tracking season is over, there’s a real risk that your dog will get soft and fat. You can’t keep him in shape by working  training line a week, and his excess energy may make him a difficult companion in the house. Exercise is needed for both dogs and people, and this is especially important as we get into middle age.  At 78 I like to think that older dogs and handlers are the most experienced and skillful, but we do have to pay attention to muscle tone and tummy tuck-up.

We all have worked hard to teach our tracking dogs that hot deer lines are a No! No! We are not ready to turn are dogs loose in the off season and run the risk that they will bump deer and forget what they have been taught. Depending on your own age and condition you can jog a few miles with them or “road” them from your ATV. Better yet train your dog to roam about off lead as you search together for sheds or trim out your deer stands for the upcoming season.

Taking a walk in the woods with your tracking dogs is not as simple as it should be. Labs and curdogs will usually stay fairly close. Hounds, including dachshunds, have a greater tendency to range out too far. Your dog must handle, stay in contact and explore the area within a 100 yards or so. If there is a problem with recall, the best solution is a remote (electronic) collar used gently and intelligently. If the dog drifts out and doesn’t respond to your voice, give him a buzz with the vibrator on the collar and follow up with a low level electric “nick”. The dog must have a clear idea of what “Come!” means before you begin this collar training. You have to work upward from the lowest electric nick levels until you find what is just powerful enough to get the attention of your dog. The sensitivity of individual dogs to electrical “stimulation” varies. Once your dog learns to associate the buzz of the vibrator and the mild electric shock, you will be able to communicate by vibrator alone. This means that you can let the dog work out around you without calling him and spooking any wildlife you might be interested in.

Long walks with your tracking dog in interesting terrain are something that will keep you both in shape for fall. Think how steep those hills are going to be if you let that belly fat build up. A word of caution for small dog folks:  Avoid dusk, after dark and early dawn outings. These are the hours when coyotes are on the move. I know of three cases where coyotes killed small dogs at night. One was my own Jack Russell, who was a great underground dog if not much of a tracker.

Some handlers are reluctant to let their dogs do anything but track wounded big game. What if the dog bumps a deer and forgets everything he has been taught? Actually mature dogs are more discriminating than we sometimes realize. For a smart, versatile pointing dog like a Drahthaar there is no contradiction between hunting birds  and tracking wounded deer. Dogs are very aware of cues. When the tracking collar and leash go on at the hit site, this is their signal to focus on the scent line of wounded big game.

Dachshunds and beagles can be used for both tracking and rabbit hunting. We consistently do this with our dachshunds. In both activities they use their running muscles and their noses. On rabbits they learn to work checks and backtracks; this enhances their blood tracking skills. For dachshunds competitive AKC field trials on cottontails are another activity to keep a tracking dog sharp and in shape.

Susanne Hamilton's Buster (FC Clown vom Talsdeich) 

is an outstanding blood tracker and winner of two 

Dachshund Club of America National field trials.

When you are dealing with versatile dogs, from dachshunds to Drahthaars, you do have to determine your priorities. If tracking wounded big game is going to be the most important activity, it is best to introduce the puppy to this sort of scent work first. As the young dog understands that tracking wounded big game is the most important thing in the world, he will learn to ignore rabbits or birds when tracking on the long leash. A Drahthaar may end up not being as high headed and wide ranging as a pheasant specialist, but he will perform both jobs well.

The more you work with your dog in different  hunting activities, the more the dog/handler cooperation will carry over from one activity to another. This brings to mind the career of Clary, my second wirehaired dachshund, and my most versatile dog of all time.

With Clary, I could not begin with training for tracking wounded deer. In 1971  this has not been legalized yet in any of the northern states. We started by hunting rabbits, squirrels and raccoons.  Clary was a puppy sensation until her first birthday. Then she crashed into six months of adolescence incompetence until her brain began to function well once more. At 18 months she rediscovered her old self confirming all my early hopes. Clary would run rabbits in daylight and ignore them at night when coons were our game. During the day she quickly sensed whether I was hunting pheasants or rabbits, and she would quarter closely or range farther out as the situation required. This early introduction to small game work is not what I would recommend today for every dog, but in Clary’s particular case it was not a problem.

When a DNR official with law enforcement credentials legally requested that I track a wounded deer, Clary took a bloodless  four hour line a quarter of a mile to the deer. Clary was then four years old and had never chased a healthy deer or tracked a wounded one. Yet Clary immediately sensed what I wanted her to do and acted as if she had been “blood tracking” all her life. Her earlier experiences of cooperation in hunting with me carried over to this new task.

In the case of most breeds a tracking dog does not have to be a specialist for just one thing. If you work with your dog year round, he will understand you and cooperate better during the tracking season. And he will stay in shape.

Clary von Moosbach with her dam Carla vom Rode. By the way, Carla was the first dachshund imported by John from Germany; she was born in February 1965.

Damian and Dachs von Tierspur - two very promising young blood trackers

I have a lot of catching up to with all the material that you, our patient readers, have been sending to us. This coming weekend, again, I will be at field trials in Maryland, but after I get back I hope to find more time for the blog.

This blog post talks about two brothers Damian and Dachs, who were bred by Genti and Beth Shero. The parents of these two very promising males are our Billy and the Sheros' Mae. A big thank you to Shaun and Walt for writing about the two brothers!

The first part of the post  is written by Shaun Brandenburg, a United Blood Trackers member from Winchester, OH. Shaun is an owner of Damian von Tierspur, whom he calls Buddy. The pictures were taken when Buddy was 6 months old. I have to say that in these pictures Buddy looks just like Billy, his sire.

This is what Shaun wrote:
 Just wanted to give you an update on Damian (aka Buddy) son of your Billy and The Sheros' Mae. He is now almost 9 months old and is just amazing in the field and the family. He is my first tracking dog, and I couldn't be happier with where we are at this point in the adventure. We have worked very hard and continue to do so as we enjoy what we are training for. We have had great support from our breeder and other trackers as well and give a great big thanks to all who have contributed to what we feel is success in training up to this point. Many who don't even know that they have been a great help and also drive for us to grow as a team. I am always checking your blog for new info in the story's in which you report, and you guys do a wonderful job and contribute a lot to the tracking community.

Shaun Brandenburg from Ohio with Buddy

A little info on the way we have trained up to this point, and then I will tell you how we have done it. In the beginning we did some liver drags and then we went to blood. He did very well with both most of the time. We had a few bumps, and I bet we will have a few more. From that point I went to hooves at about 4 1/2 months old and also diluted my blood 50/50 with water. Naturally was using less and less blood and things just seem to slowly get better and better as we worked each line week in and week out. 

Buddy at the age of 6 months

Now when I first started using the hooves all I had was tobacco sticks to attach the hooves to and that was no fun at all but it worked. I then designed and made my own shoes and I must say that was a game changer for me. It let myself open up and make some serious training lines for us to work. We have done 1,000 yard lines and we have done 300 yard lines. I try to mix it up and not just keep running those longer lines. It seems to work good for the pup and I feel it keeps it more real and not like we are just training for competitions. He has no problem going 1,000 yards and farther. I know a 1,000 yards isn't all that far but I feel very good about his ability to track to the next town if needed. 

Our last line was 24 hrs old and was laid with hooves with approximately 2 oz of blood watered down 50/50. This line was 600 + yards and started in the woods by a creek. At the hit site I always have some blood and hair, I forgot to mention that I use deer hair. I take the pup out to our starting point and tie him up about 20 ft or so from the hit site. I then walk to the site and stand there like I am investigating the area. I won't track until he calms down and is sitting there focused on the task at hand. This took awhile but it really seems to be paying off. 

I now go and get the pup and carry him over to the hit site and set him directly on the area. He sniffs around and we are off. Now he will usually go off track within the first 20 yards and smell up the area for a minute, then he picks it right back up and it's over after that. He works the turns like he is on a rail most of the time. When he does miss it puts a smile on my face to watch him figure out that the deer went another direction. He will make a circle until he picks up the line and that is all him. We cleared the first woods that had one creek to cross that is very steep and 5 or 6 turns in it. At this point we come to an open hay field that is 250 yards across. No problem for the pup even with a slight breeze. We leave the hay field and cross a old fence row (no fence there) into a soybean field from last year, another 200 yards across it with no problem and to the next small creek and back into the woods. I was very pleased, more liked thrilled the way he was working. We had a hill to cross and two more turns to recover our deer. The time on the track was just a few seconds over 13 min. I just wanted to share our progress and the way we have been training on our lines. A big thanks once again to all who have helped along the way.

Sincerely,

Shaun Brandenburg Winchester,OH

-----

Damian's brother Dachs lives in Tully, NY with Walt Dixon, who is a veteran Deer Search tracker and UBT member. Dachs has done very well in his training, and on April 16 was certified by Deer Search of Finger Lakes on a 20-hour-old line. He was not even 9 months old at the time. Walt continues to work with Dachs and recently had him on another blood trail, which was 22 hours old. He did well. Although Dachs is Deer Search Certified will continue his training and development.

Dachs is a handsome young dog

A new litter of wirehaired dachshunds is born in Iowa

If you are looking for a male puppy, Brian Hibbs from Oxford, IA, might still have one available. His "Scout" FC Chipsy Scout Vom Hessenjaeger SW was bred to FC Vimy Ridge Von Lowenherz and on April 27 whelped 8 puppies, 4 females and 4 males. Brian Hibbs's website is at www.trackingteckels.com,  e-mail brian@trackingteckels.com  and  phone # 319-430-8065.

Brian, it looks to me like some of your pups might be chocolate, the ones with very light coats and pink noses. We had a litter like this many years ago (it was our H litter).

UPDATE: all puppies are spoken for.

Update on Mielikki and Keena as their whelping dates get closer

In the last 24 hours we have  had several e-mails asking about status of Mielikki and Keena. Mielikki was bred to Sky on March 8, 10 and 12, and she is very much pregnant. She gets regular exercise by chasing her favorite blue ball. As I said on Facebook - she lost her waistline and correct topline but she has not lost her love of ball game. We don't know how many pups she carries, probably at least seven. We will check her out when it comes closer to her due date, which should be between May 10 and 14.
 

Mielikki and her favorite blue ball.

Keena is doing well too, but she does not carry as many pups as Mielikki does. She should be whelping between May 18 and 20 so we will know more when it comes closer to the due date. She was bred to Tommy.

Spring is finally here

Last evening ducks came back to the pond. Wild turkeys parade close to the house. Rabbits munch on the grass by the driveway. Deer feed in the nearby fields. Two litters of puppies will happen in the next three weeks. I think spring is finally here!

Spring is a perfect time to resume blood tracking training

Andy Bensing reports:

Spring is in the air and now is the prime time here in the Northeast to get out and train your blood tracking dog. Karen Zeman and her a year and a half old Bavarian Mountain Hound, Cyrus, came down from NY today for a half day instruction in blood tracking training. I met Karen's dog Cyrus for the first time three weeks ago at the Deer Search Competition and saw a ton of potential in the team. We had a very enjoyable morning today and I know Karen and Cyrus learned a lot. Karen and Cyrus work very nicely together. I am sure they will be successful in their real life tracking this fall.


Good luck to Karen a nd Cyrus in their training and tracking!

Do you need help with training your blood tracking dog?

June 1-3, Arena, Wisconsin

for details go to www.unitedbloodtrackers.org

2013 Dachshund Club of America National Field Trial

The Dachshund Club of America National Field Trial took place at the Maryland Beagle Club grounds on April 13-14. The roll call was taken on Saturday, April 13, at 6:45 AM. All the stakes were run consecutively in this order: Open All-Age Dogs (judged by Julie Couch and Connie Fisher), Field Champion Dogs (Alan James and Julie Couch),  Open All-Age Bitches (Janet M. Schwalbe and Alan James) and Field Champion Bitches (Janet Schwalbe and Connie Fisher). The picture below, which shows the judges was taken at the end of the trial. Julie Couch came to judge all the way from Oregon!

From left: Connie Fisher  (VA), Julie Couch (OR), Alan James (NC) and Janet Schwalbe (GA).

The weather conditions were just right as this picture of the sunny and crisp morning shows. The rabbit situation was as described in my previous post: there were too many rabbits and the cover was very sparse. The entries were rather high with 20 OAADs, 31 OAABs, 31 FCDs and 38 FCBs.

At field trials you get to see all kinds of dachshunds as they come in two sizes and three coat varieties. I don't know the stats for the dachshunds participating in the national field trial, but my impression was that we had a lot of mini longs, standard longs and standard wires. I saw very few mini smooths. Many of standard longs were huge, close to 30 lbs. In the United States the AKC conformation standard does not impose the maximum limit on the dachshund size, and many standard dachshunds of the American show type are big dogs, above 25 lbs.The picture below shows an example of the large standard.

John Merriman points the start of the rabbit trail to Pete Mercier and Lorraine Simmons, the handlers of two mini longs Trooper and Itsy.

Sylvan von Lowenherz is an example of the wirehaired dachshund bred to the FCI standard. Sylvan is small and agile, with a good ground clearance. She was bred by Laurel Whistance-Smith, and she placed 4th in the OAAB stake.

This is one of Diane Sennett's mini longs. This color is called dapple.

One of the attractions of field trials is camaraderie. As you can see we know how to have fun. What is a better way to spend a weekend than to be outdoors with your friends and dogs. Somebody said that dachshunds are like potato chips, you can't have just one. And when you have more than one, who can better understand you than other "dachshund people"? Field trials provide an opportunity to come together, compete with your dogs and learn more about other dogs that one day you might want to breed to.

After a fierce competition the Absolute Winner of the field trial was a young standard wire Edelweiss owned and handled by Gail  Binder from Webster, NY. What a great achievement for this team! Edelweiss von Lowenherz was bred by Laurel Whistance-Smith, and she is Sylvan's littermate. It was a great weekend for Laurel. On Friday her young Strolch won the trial, and on Sunday it was Edelweiss' turn (Edelweiss is Strolch's daughter). Congratulations!

These are the final results; in addition to usual placements Awards of Merit were handed out to the dogs whose performance deserved acknowledgement.

Some dogs such as Michael Pitisci's Brooke, Susanne Hamilton's Buster and Alice Moyer's Lance placed in both trials, and this was an accomplishment in itself. It was not our weekend though. I took with me Billy, Paika and Tuesday, and we came back with only one placement. There is a lot of luck involved in field trialling, and so many things can have a negative impact on a dog's performance: a poor release, wrong bracemate, the lack of scent when a brace is put on a rabbit doe, start in the area saturated in rabbit scent, windy conditions etc, etc.

Gail Binder's Edelweiss received a special trophy from Lorraine and David Simmons in memory of "Littlest", who passed this year.

The final picture of the day shows Gail Binder's Edelweiss with all the judges of the Absolute run.

You can see more pics taken at the Nationals by clicking here. Prints and downloads are available for purchase.

Dachshund Field Trials, Shawsville, Maryland: April 11-12, 2013

A week ago I spent four days in Shawsville, MD, at the grounds of the Maryland Beagle Club. There is a lot to write about so I'll cover the field trials in two posts.

On Thursday, April 11, Dachshund Fanciers Association of Berks County ran two stakes, 32 Field Champion Dogs and 36 Field Champion Bitches. FC Dogs were judged by Susan Fuller and Michael Pitisci, while FC Bitches were judged by Pat Warble and Susan Fuller. Susan flew all the way from California. On Friday Metropolitan Washington dachshund Club ran two open stakes, and the entry was 20 dogs (judged by Teddy Moritz and John Merriman) and 36 bitches (judged by Alice Moyer and Lorraine Simmons).

Maybe because this year we are having a late spring the grounds looked bare. The grass had just started to grow, but altogether the cover was sparse. In addition to insufficient cover there were way too many rabbits. While it is nice to have rabbits for the sake of expediency in the trial, too many rabbits are not a good thing. A brace is supposed to be put on one rabbit and to follow the scent trail of this one specific rabbit. This is hard to do it when a half dozen rabbits are flushed out of the same brush pile. In one section of the grounds there were so many rabbits that first beaters performed "rabbit cleansing" by flushing as many rabbits as they could and then tried to beat out single rabbits to be trailed by dogs. While grounds like this might be suitable for brace beagles they are not suitable for dachshunds, which run more like SPO beagles. They run much faster than brace beagles and range wider. They were bumping rabbits all over the place.

This picture illustrates well how the grounds looked like.

 

While the weather seemed ideal on Thursday, cool, partly sunny, with good moisture, Friday morning was tough. We had a heavy rain while Open Dogs were running, and perhaps this would explain their poor performance. Judges gave dogs many opportunities to work, but in the end they had to withhold two placements for the lack of merit.

 

Below are some pictures shot on Thursday and Friday. I took a camera to the field when it was not my turn to run our dogs and when the weather allowed it. I ran Billy, Paika and Tuesday. It was Tuesday's first trial, and my conclusion was that she is a mean rabbit hunting machine, and needs some serious obedience work. She placed 2nd in the stake of 36 bitches, and had some really good runs.

 

Jill Blake with her mini long Rhett, who placed 2nd in the FC Dog stake.Unfortunately I don't get to see Jill too often -- her dogs are very impressive. Jill is very serious about working them; she also owns a beagle and is a beagle judge. 

 

This must be Michael Nothstein's standard longhaired dachshund Reggie. What a great face!

 

Goodman and Rhett were braced together in the first series.

Susanne Hamilton's Buster and Barbie and Ed Wills' Bernie ran together in the first series in brace #6. Buster was called back and he placed 4th. It is great to see blood tracking dogs doing well at field trials.

In spite of being 11 years old Buster is in  very good condition, and he placed well in both trials, on Thursday and Saturday.

Alice Moyer's black and tan longhaired mini Lance placed 3rd on Thursday, and he also won the FC Dog Stake at the National on Saturday.

 

Robert Schwalbe from Georgia with his mini wire Dizzy. What a handsome team!

Linda Snyder is trying to control Zuni before his run. Even though Zuni is the cutest dachshund I have ever seen, he is also a fierce competitor. He was NBQ on Thursday.

 

Brian Bradley, a master falconer from New Paltz, NY, ran several mini longs in Maryland. I think this is Belle, who placed first in the open bitch stake and beat our Tuesday, who placed second.

Michael Pitisci had a couple of open bitches, but it was his 11-year-old Brooke, who distinguished herself by winning the FC Bitch stake at both trials, April 11 and April 13.

The Absolute Winner of the trial was a young male bred and owned by Laurel Whistance-Smith, Strolch von Lowenherz. He happens to be our Tommy's son. This was a great weekend for Laurel, and more about it later.

 

FC Strolch von Lowenherz has a great heart and nose for running rabbits.

 

 

 

Laurel Whistance-Smith from Pontypool, Ontario, with her FC Strolch von Lowenherz, who won the FC Dog stake. Michael Pitisci and Susan Fuller were judging.

 

Michael Pitisci's Brooke (DC TownFarm Water Wings) was first in a highly competitive stake of FC bitches. Pat Warble and Susan Fuller were judging.

 

Susanne Hamilton with Meggie (FC Marguerite Vom Jagerhugel) who placed second in the FC Bitches.



Huge congratulations to Laurel Whistance-Smith and her Strolch, who was the Absolute Winner of the trial.

To be continued........