Rest in Peace Lolly. The final farewell.

FC Ulrika von Moosbach-Zuzelek, SE, ROMX  "Lolly"
May 16, 1996 - February 17, 2012

 
Where did the time go? It seems like it was not that long ago when Larry Gohlke came to our place in Clinton Corners, NY to pick up his new puppy from our "U" litter. Well, the truth is that it was almost 16 years ago, and now we are saying goodbye to the wonderful dog that touched many people's lives and has left a great legacy. With a very heavy heart we are reporting that Larry Gohlke's Lolly is gone. She lived a long, good and productive life, the life that made a difference. We wrote about her on the occasion of her 14th birthday and you can read that post here. I am not going to repeat what was said there.

This picture was taken in November 2011 in Ohio. I was there to attend field trials, and Larry had Lolly with him. We knew that she was not going to last much longer.

Lolly excelled at field trials and I asked Larry for more information about her accomplishments. This is what he wrote. 

"She earned 1058 Lifetime Field Trial Points and she won twenty 1st places over the years.

Her son, Czar has earned 649 Lifetime Points, and her grandchildren, Danika, Ana Maria and Nix have earned 1463, 1291, and 659 Lifetime Points, respectively. Lolly and her granddaughters make up 3 of the 12 dogs to have earned 1000 Lifetime Points or more. Her “family” also includes the three youngest field champions - Lolly’s son, Czar, finished his field championship at 5 ½ months of age, her daughter, Rika, finished at 4 ½ months of age, and granddaughter, Ana Maria finished at just under 4 months of age.

Lolly won the DCA National Field Trial in 1999 when there was a total entry of 125 (the 4th largest National FT entry to date). This was the only National Field Trial that she was entered in.

She won the 2006 Buckeye Invitational Field Trial when she was 10 years old. At ages 11 and 12 she had 132 and 142 points and qualified for the Invitational as the #11 and #13 dog.

He also said - I don’t have access to all of my records, but through 2003 (I was still using Missy until 2001), Lolly recovered 35 deer."

Lolly as an old dog - always gentle and friendly

Lolly was bred three times. 

On December 12, 1998 she whelped 5 puppies: Zosia, Zoya, Zoe, Zeke and Zeiger, and they all went to blood tracking homes. The sire of this litter was FC Turbo von Moosbach-Zuzelek, JE. I still get pictures of Zosia every year for Christmas.

On May 13, 2000 Lolly whelped 5 puppies, of which 4 survived and they were Carliegh, Chadmen, Czar and Claus. The sire was our FC Asko von der Drachenburg. This breeding was repeated and on June 11, 2001 Lolly had 6 pups: Falko, Fonzo, Festus, Filbert, Filou and Fredrika.

Czar, Claus, Falko and Fredrika became field champions, and Czar, Fredrika and Falko were used for breeding. 

When Sabina was bred to Falko, Lolly's son, she produced Jessie v Moosbach-Zuzelek aka "Sabrina", who is owned by Dale Clifford from Deer Search. "Sabrina" won Deer Search's blood tracking competition three times. She has never been to a field trial, but she was bred twice and she is a dam of two FCs Mae and Mariel von Munterkeit, both owned by Gentian and Beth Shero. We own Bella vom Tierspur bred by the Sheros, a very promising daughter of Mae, and a great-great granddaughter of Lolly. 

Lolly was not a pretty dog, and a German judge would not even give her a "sehr gut/very good" rating for her conformation. It means that in the German system she was not eligible for breeding. But breeding is a process, which is supposed to lead to improvement. And even though you might not start with a perfect specimen, if you make right breeding decisions, and you are lucky, your progress might be amazing. This is how "gut/good" Lolly produced "vorzuglich/excellent"  granddaughter Danika, and this how Lolly's sister Sabina (also only "gut/good") produced "vorzuglich/excellent" Paika. I am so glad that both Lolly and Sabina had a chance to have offspring and leave their stamp on the working wires in the United States.

Rest in Peace Lolly! You will be greatly missed. Our heartfelt condolences to the Gohlke Family.

A talented dog and an outspoken hunter/handler - the two necessary ingredients for jump-starting the use of blood tracking dogs

I love this picture of Radar (Quentin von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is owned by Craig Dougherty of NorthCountry Whitetails. Many thanks to NorthCountry Whitetails for sharing the picture with us.

I thought that this would be a good moment to reflect a little and go back to a video of ten-week-old Radar tracking a fresh liver drag.

 

Radar came from a litter of 9 puppies, and his parents were FC Joeri vom Nonnenschlag and FC Keena von Moosbach-Zuzelek. He showed a remarkable talent at an early age, and we were very fortunate to find a great tracking home not that far from us. At one point in the future we might decide to breed to him, so we are lucky that he does not live in Texas for example. And of course since he is owned by Craig an extra national exposure is not hurting us either! Thank you Craig for everything you have been doing for promoting ethical hunting and the use of tracking dogs to find wounded big game. 

Craig has been instrumental in making The National Bowhunter Education Foundation aware of John's publications and activities. Recently I came across this article The Changing World of Wounding by Dr. Dave Samuel. It says:

"Another part of those discussions was about the use of trailing dogs to recover deer. More states now allow the use of trailing dogs and other states are now considering using them. In 2010, twelve states opened up the use of dogs to trail wounded deer. The driving force behind the use of dogs is John Jeanneney who wrote the book “Tracking Dogs For Finding Wounded Deer.” Apparently he has been on hundreds of trackings and this has given him some perspective on what happens to deer hit in certain areas of the body as well as thoughts on how far they go, how often they bed, etc. Indeed, compared to most of us, Mr. Jeanneney has seen what it would many lifetimes for us to see, relative to trailing lost deer. I had to leave the discussions before they ended, but it appeared that the bowhunter education folks were going to invite Mr. Jeanneney to meet with their board and use his expertise to consider any revisions on how to improve what the NBEF teaches on blood trailing in their bow classes."

There is no doubt that things are moving in a right direction, and the use of blood tracking dogs is spreading.  More and more states are legalizing the activity, which should be part of responsible hunting everywhere. Sometimes the change is slow and happens in small increments. But sometimes an extra leap can be made when a talented dog is placed with an outspoken hunter/handler who is willing to put extra work into it and publicize the cause. We all in the hunting and tracking community owe these people a big thank you!



Pictures of young Red Lacy

We would like to share several pictures of Jackson, a five-month-old Red Lacy. The pictures were submitted by Gabe Navar. From my limited reading I understand that Lacy Dogs come in a variety of colors, including red. All of them, however, are homozygous for the dilution gene dd. Read more about genetics of colors in Lacy Dogs here. Lacy Dogs are a true working breed, and I salute all the breeders, clubs and associations that are determined to keep them this way. A big thank you to Gabe for the pictures.

Reunion of Achilles and Bella

We introduced Achilles of Trace-ja last September when his owners Genti and Beth Shero visted us here in Berne, NY. On Sunday Genti, Beth and their daughter Dea came back for a very nice visit, and we had a chance to get to know Achilles better. We liked him a lot - he is well proportioned, typey FCI dachshund with a great temperament and right moves in the field. He uses his nose well. We had a chance to put him in our fenced-in field. He was joined there by our Bella, who was bred by Genti and Beth, and it was pleasure to hear both dachshunds "singing".

The pictures below were taken yesterday and show Achilles now at the age of seven months.

Snowless winter in the Helderbergs, NY

Like almost everywhere else this is such an unusual winter without snow in the Helderbergs, NY. Yesterday I took a walk in the woods, and I could hardly see any color. It was overcast and gloomy, and the only vibrant colors I could see were the colors of dog collars...and of sumac.

Even without vivid colors it is still very beautiful here.

A six-month-old Sky running through the field.

A wrestling match between Sky and Summer

A lively discussion between the siblings

Retaliation

Summer's pretty face

I love the splash of color provided by sumac

A new book on Blue Lacys - The Texas Dog Manual by Sean Cockrell

The Texas Dog Manual, a new book by Sean Cockrell on Blue Lacy Dogs looks like a fascinating read. For more information about the content and how to order it, click here. Blue Lacys are popular blood trailing dogs, especially in Texas, yet there is very little written about them and available in print. We are looking forward to reading it.

Tracking with leashed dogs in Iowa - bill SF 2017

I found this request from Brian Hibbs on archerytalk blog. I asked him for permission to include it here. Brian has worked on this for a very long time, and hopefully it is going to be legal to track wounded deer with leashed dogs in Iowa really soon. If you are a resident of Iowa, please help.

My name is Brian Hibbs. I live near Oxford in Johnson Co, Iowa. I have had legislation introduced to allow the use of a leashed dog to track wounded deer in Iowa. I have been working on this for several years. The proposed bill has made progress and did make it through the Iowa Senate the other day with a 13 yea and 0 nea vote. It now has to get through the Iowa House. I am told that there is opposition in the House by some Southern Iowa Representatives. They are concerned this bill will cause dogs to over run their properties and create trespassing problems. This makes no sense because the bill contains specific language that states the dog will be on a lead under the control of the handler and permission must be obtained prior to tracking on private property. The DNR has told me they do not oppose this practice and I believe Diane Ford of the DNR actually helped answer questions to move this bill through the Senate. The bill is labeled SF 2017.

Please note I am not doing this to try and profit off of tracking or anything like that. I do breed tracking dogs and have about 1 litter a year. I have no problems finding homes for my pups because they are in high demand. They go throughout the country. I am doing this because it is another tool that can be used to recover a shot animal when the animal leaves a sparse blood trail or no blood trail at all and conventional tracking methods don’t work. In these situations a trained dog can improve the success rate of recovery quite a bit.

If you live in Iowa, I am asking for your support. If you could take the time to contact your House Representative and show your support I would really appreciate it. This could be done through a phone call or email. If you don’t know your Representative, you can find them through the Iowa legislation website. This would especially be helpful in the Southern Counties. I have included below an email I sent to the Representatives that I believe are opposing this bill. I also have included a letter written by John Jeanneney to our legislators. John has been tracking in New York State for many years and is a pioneer in introducing tracking in the states. He has written a couple excellent books pertaining to bowhunting, the use of leashed tracking dogs, and tracking wounded animals. He has had much experience in this field and does a good job explaining the misconceptions that opponents come up with to try and find unrealistic negatives about the practice. He and his wife run a website called “born to track”. I thank you once again for your support and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

 
Brian Hibbs
Oxford, IA
www.trackingteckels.com
319-430-8065
 ----------
 
February 1, 2012

Dear Representatives,

My name is Brian Hibbs and I live in Johnson County near the town of Oxford. I have been working to get the use of tracking a wounded deer with a leashed dog legalized for several years. In July of 2010 I presented a petition to the Iowa DNR’s NRC showing how this practice is used in many states and that it is another tool to locate a deer that has been shot and cannot be found through traditional tracking methods. I presented information that tracking a deer with a dog on a leash under the complete control of a handler has proven in many other states to be a positive tool and created no extra problems for enforcement agencies in those states. Realize this is just a hunter tracking a deer like he would now with the only difference being a tracking dog ahead of him on a leash helping him to find sign he may normally miss. This petition was unanimously approved and the rulemaking process was set to go into affect. The DNR asked me if I would mind waiting until early 2011 to start the process because there wouldn’t be enough time to get the rule into the books for the fall of the 2010 hunting season and it would make it easier to just start it the following year. I agreed it would be ok to do this as long as we did what had been approved by the NRC petition. The next year rolled around and I discovered that Gov. Branstad had taken office and that he was changing the way things had been done in the past. I was told he was not opposed to this practice, just that he wanted everything to now go before his desk. This nullified all the work I had done and halted the rulemaking that should have been a done deal.

This year I had Rep. Willems propose this bill once again. I am told the bill passed out of the full Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee yesterday (1-31-12). It is assigned as SF 2017. After speaking with Rep. Rayhons and Rep. Smith they have informed me that many of the Representatives from Southern Iowa oppose this bill because they are worried about people overrunning their land with dogs. This proposed bill has specific language addressing these concerns. It states the dog will be on a leash under full control of the handler. The bill also states the tracker will need to obtain permission from any landowner involving private property before tracking on that property. I don’t think the bill can be any more cut and dry than that. If unethical people want to break the rules they will whether it is legal or not. If you are concerned about dogs over running your properties maybe you should address coyote hunting dogs that run wherever they want uncontrolled by a leash and people chasing them in vehicles. I understand that this is a popular practice in Southern Iowa.

I ask for your support with this proposed bill. The language is cut and dry about free-running dogs and trespassing. Please do not punish the rest of us Iowan’s in the other counties if you do not trust your citizen’s in the southern counties to follow the rules. As I stated before this practice has proven to be no problem for the enforcement agencies in other states. Diane Ford of the DNR has told me that they are not opposed to this rule as they were educated on it through my previous petition. Please ask her and she will confirm this. I am including a letter from John Jeanneney of New York as of to his experience with tracking in his state. Tracking with a leashed dog has probably been going on in New York State longer than any other state.

Sincerely,

Brian Hibbs
Oxford, IA319-430-8065

 ------

Date: January 6, 2012

Dear Representative Rayhons,

Since I am a resident of New York State, I venture to comment on the proposed Iowa leashed tracking dog bill only because I have had 36 years of experience with leashed tracking dogs. Perhaps I can offer some useful insights. In 1976 New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued me a research permit to investigate the feasibility of using leashed tracking dogs to find wounded big game. This method was being used in Germany and other European countries, but in the US it appeared to many hunters and non-hunters that deer hunting and dogs did not mix in any way.  The decline of deer populations that came with the use of dogs to drive deer to the gun, was well remembered.

What I proposed in New York State was something very different from deer hunting with dogs. My research demonstrated that in New York leashed tracking dogs could find mortally wounded deer when hunters could not track them by eye. The value of a good dog is that he can follow the individual scent of a wounded deer, even when there is no visible blood.

In 1986, after a long period of experimentation, the New York State Legislature passed an enabling bill to establish the use of leashed tracking dogs on a licensed basis. Since then thousands of deer have been found by licensed trackers like me.  Variations of the New York law have now been approved in a total of 21 states where the use of tracking dogs had previously been illegal.

In a state like Iowa, where professionally guided hunts are an important source of state revenue, the tracking dog would maximize an outfitter’s capability to use a wildlife resource in an ethical, conservation-conscious way while satisfying the expectations of his client.

As other states have considered and ultimately approved leashed tracking dogs, certain questions and doubts have been raised. Below are responses that have been accepted as valid:

1. Experience with the use of leashed tracking dogs has shown that this has not been used as a cover when  poaching deer. The deer jacker knows that there are better ways of doing this.
 
2. The availability of a tracking dog does not encourage irresponsible shooting any more than availability of a retriever encourages irresponsible long range shots at pheasants and waterfowl.

3. Some have wondered whether a tracking dog on a leash would be illegally used to drive deer out of heavy cover to posted hunters. Anyone who has handled a leashed dog in the woods knows how impractical this would be. There have been no reports that this is being done.

To sum up, the use of leashed tracking dogs to find wounded big game has now been time-tested around the United State for many years. It is not a crazy new idea. Writing as a man who has taken over a thousand volunteer deer calls, and who has dedicated much of his life to this cause, I urge you to give the Iowa tracking dog bill your serious consideration.
 
Sincerely yours,

John Jeanneney, Vice President, United Blood Trackers
1584 Helderberg Trail
Berne, NY 12023
518-872-1779

What it took to breed Moose and Paika

The distance from Berne, New York, to Hillman, Michigan, where Chuck Collier lives, is 700 miles, which is 1127 km (one way). John left with Paika on Thursday and he will be coming back tomorrow. Paika and Moose "connected" two times, and hopefully we will have puppies in 9 weeks. This is a repeat breeding that produced our S-litter last year.

You might wonder why on earth we are making it so difficult for ourselves while we have our own stud dogs that live with us. We firmly believe that our obligation is to produce the best pups we can, and for Paika Moose (FC Nurmi von Moosbach-Zuzelek) is a better choice than any of our own boys.The picture below shows Chuck with Moose (on the left) and John with Paika last summer.

2011: Chuck with Moose and John with Paika

We actually were very lucky that the weather cooperated as the beginning of February can be really nasty. But this year our winter has been very mild, and John reported that the drive to Hillman was smooth and easy (just very long).

While in Michigan, John and Chuck went to visit Scott Leindecker, who lives in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, Canada. Scott has been working very hard on making the use of leashed tracking dogs for tracking wounded big game legal in Ontario. He also owns a wirehaired dachshund Arwen, who was sired by our Tommy. The men had a good visit with lots of talk about tracking and work on legalization in Ontario. Thank you Scott for all your hard work!

From the left: Chuck Collier with Moose, John Jeanneney, and Scott Leindecker with Arwen.

Please support the use of tracking dogs in Kansas

Mike Martien, a UBT member, let us know that Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is asking for comments on the use of tracking dogs for the recovery of game animals. Please click here and enter your KDWP number. Mark that you “Strongly Support” the use of tracking dogs to recover game animals when you get to that part of the survey.

Ten puppies for Anna and Fred, wirehaired dachshunds out of European lines

Today, on February 3, 2012, "Anna" (Diestel von Moosbach-Zuzelek) whelped a litter of 10 puppies: 4 females and 6 males. This is absolutely amazing as it is her first litter, and she was born on October 15, 2005 so she is over 6 years old. Also the mating was done through AI. It proves again that fertility runs through a female bloodline as Anna is a daughter of Elli, who has always had large litters. Elli's dam Agata also had eight pups per litter. 

 

Anna and her ten newborn puppies

The pups are sired by Fred (Fidget von der Bismarck-Eiche) who was imported from Germany and lives in Neosho, MO. He was bred Stefan, Vanessa Fuß and Nadja Frazier, and his pedigree is  here.  I saw Fred in 2007 when I went to visit his owner Cameron Kruse, and I really liked the dog. 

 

Fred (Fidget von der Bismarck-Eiche) is a nice dog - alert and driven in the field, low key and relaxed at home.

 

We also liked Anna a lot when we had a chance to see her at Trackfest in Quincy, IL in 2006. Her pedigree is identical to Billy's, and you can see it here.

 

Anna at the age of 8 months at Trackfest 2006 in Quincy, IL.

Rick McCollum with Anna.

More info about puppies is available from Rick McCollum who lives in Greenbrier, Arkansas. His e-mail is rickmccollum55@yahoo.com. Good luck Rick with the pups!

Windfall of good fortune: Jette vom Hungerbrunnen aka Tootsie

About a week ago we got a big surprise. We were contacted by a couple from Connecticut, Gabrielle and John Bertell, who four and a half years ago imported a wirehaired dachshund puppy from Germany - Jette vom Hungerbrunnen. 
Gaby and John came across our website and were pleased to discover other German wirehaired dachshunds in this country. They live only two hours from us. To make a long story short, we asked for Tootsie's pedigree and were very pleasantly surprised - an excellent working/show pedigree with a lot of blood tracking titles there. She was bred by Peter Geiger. Her sire is DtJCh 2006 GS 2007 Antonio vom Linteler-Forst FCI, BHP-G BhFK 95 BhN SchwhN Sfk Sp/J StiJ VpoSp GTB.69/2007 V, her dam is Milli von Leoprechting BhFK 95 SchwhN Sp Sp/J V.  

Tootsie came in heat a week ago, and we asked John and Gaby to bring her here so we could evaluate her. We really liked her. She has a very nice conformation according to the FCI standard, and her weight is around 18 lbs. Excellent ground clearance, nice coat, good angulation, super personality. We tested her on an overnight blood line and she was excellent (she has never seen a blood line before). Her nose was glued to the ground, and she followed the blood line at the medium speed, close to the line.

From John's description of her behavior towards deer, bear and other game that crosses their property, she must be spurlaut. We encouraged Gaby and John to breed her as she will be 5 years old in April. This is quite late for the first litter. She would make a really nice addition to the small gene pool of European working wires living in the USA.

Tootsie is going to have a DNA test for the PRA NPHP4 mutation done as we test all our dogs that we use in our breeding program. On Monday-Wednesday we bred Tootsie to our FC Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek, Schwhk, BHP1, BHP 2, BHP 3, Wa-T, Sfk. The litter is going to be registered with the AKC.

John and Gaby are experienced "dog people", and I am sure will do a super job raising pups. For us it is a chance to get a Billy/Tootsie daughter. Keena is the the only daughter of Billy that we have, and she will be soon seven years old. This is a chance for us to rejuvenate Billy's line as he is eight years old and not getting any younger.

We think that the pups will have a very good potential for blood tracking and field trialing. For more info contact Gaby or John at jbertell@charter.net. below are Tootsie's picture taken today.

The picture says it all - mini longhaired hunting puppies

I absolutely love this picture, which we received from Teddy Moritz, a falconer and breeder of mini longhaired dachshunds for hunting.  She wrote: My bitch Garmin whelped these four pups a week ago.  Their sire is a dynamic little hunter named Rhett who is out of my Bane and Lorraine Simmons' Darter. All the pups, two males, two females, are going to falconers. They ought to be pretty good hunters. Thought you'd enjoy the picture.

 

Congratulations Teddy on such a fine litter and thank you for the outstanding picture. Good luck with the pups!

 

Two mini dachshund trackers for Samantha Allen from Salisbury, North Carolina

We wrote about Samantha Allen from Salisbury, North Carolina before. As it turned out Cabela, Ollie's sister, became avialable, and she joined Sam's four-legged family. Sam wrote:

I am so happy with Ollie and her progress this year I figured if I could get a puppy close to her I would be happy. She has found 10 deer so far this season and she is almost 1 year old. I drove 4 hours to pick her sister up for our trial run to see if we liked her. It is now one month later and she is a keeper! I have named her Cabela and we are currently up to about 300 yard lines aged at 4 hours with 3 ounces of blood and track shoes. She is a little different from Ollie as she tracks slower and with great concentration, she does not overshoot her lines very far at all!  Two young dogs keep me pretty busy with laying practice lines and also taking "adventures" to different places for hiking, playing etc. to get them comfortable with all types of settings and people.

Oh, and for Christmas I received tracking shoes, a blender for churning my tracking blood, new cabinets in my garage for all my tracking items and some camo clothing!! Not too many wives would have been happy about that but I was ecstatic!!

Samantha Allen with Ollie

Cabela

 

 

Thanks Samantha for sharing the gorgeous pictures of Ollie and Cabela!

Experience makes a difference: tracking dachshunds at 5

This was just a pure coincidence. In the last week I have had a short e-mail exchange with two handlers of blood tracking dachshunds, and they both marveled over the superb performance of their dachshunds who are five years old now.

Gary Kata wrote about Buster: "Buster is doing great, he will be 5 years old in May. This tracking season I really noticed his maturity level and concentration improve. He did really well on some tough tracks, my confidence in him and myself really grew. I have always thought he has done well but this year it was different, the change in him was very obvious."

And Christian Elwell said: "I had an incredible tracking season this past year. Josy is unreal in what she can do. It's so fun to see the difference now that she is around 5. She just puts her head down and works- and she is a blood thirsty killer. I'm trying to work on some articles about a few of the tracks from this last year, I'll share them with you once they are finished."

By the way, we are not breeders of these dogs: Gary got Buster (who was sired by our Billy) from Carl Eisenhard, and Josy was bred by Laurel Whistance-Smith. But here you have it - the dachshunds got into their prime at the age of 5. Be patient; don't expect your puppy or an adolescent young dog to perform at this level!

Our breeding plans for 2012 - we will be having spring puppies

I am sorry for having taken a break from blogging but the work on our house has made our life pretty difficult. If this was not enough to handle, both Keena and Paika came in heat. This is earlier than we were anticipating.

Anyway, our Keena (FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek) is going to be bred tomorrow to FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst. Keena is almost seven years old, and this is going to be her last litter. She was examined by a vet few days ago, had her full blood panel done, and everything looks good. She was declared to be very healthy and got a green light from our vets for breeding.

FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek is a daughter of FC Billy v Moosbach-Zuzelek and FC Gilda v Moosbach-Zuzelek

Our FC Paika v Moosbach-Zuzelek, Keena's daughter, came in heat today and she will be bred to FC Nurmi v Moosbach-Zuzelek "Moose" again. This is going to be a repeated breeding of our S-litter. In 10 days John will be driving to Michigan, and I hope that the weather will cooperate as in winter the drive there is not going to be much fun.

FC Paika v Moosbach-Zuzelek is Keena's daughter.

Recently I spent some time on updating info on our main website, especially on Keena, Paika and Tommy. Click on the above links and you should get to the current information.

We stopped taking reservations for puppies some time ago as we have not had enough time to process the inquiries and questionnaires we received in the last three months. We might take more reservations when puppies are born.

Wish us luck!

Young dachshund puppy's first blood tracking season

From a breeder's perspective - it does not get better than this. Matt and Jenny Willis from Missouri are owners of Moose and Paika's puppy called Dubya (Strut von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who was born on August 4, 2011. This is Matt's report describing the pup's first tracking season.

Jolanta,
I still can't believe it's been three and half months since our trip to meet Dubya for the first time. All of my hunting days have been spent running training lines with Dubya, I can't say John didn't warn me. I enjoy watching Dubya run the lines so I didn't mind much. Dubya did find his first deer and ran an amazing natural line, more on that later.

October 9, 2012: Jenny and Matt Willis in Berne, NY with their new puppy Strut aka Dubya

Dubya is maturing into a very handsome dachshund. His coat is exactly what I hoped it would be! He is incredibly popular every where we go. I really enjoy introducing him to people who own americanized dachshunds, their questions/reactions always make me smile. This past weekend we were out with Dubya and ran into a woman holding her dachshund with its long body, short small legs, and little tiny head, who looked at Dubya and said, "Uh is that a dachshund?" I replied, "yes it is." She looked at Dubya, looked back at me with a skeptical look, and said, "I have three other dachshunds." Lord knows what she was thinking but I am pretty sure she was trying to tell me I was wrong and Dubya couldn't possibly be a dachshund because he didn't have the same frail build as her dog. Jenny and I are really proud of him!

The big deer outing in my family is opening weekend of rifle season in Missouri. I couldn't imagine not bringing Dubya even though he was still a young puppy. I was trying to keep my expectations reasonable even though he had shown tremendous ability on our training lines. Going into the weekend I was hoping for a couple short natural lines we could use to give Dubya the experience of being on a real line.

 

The weather was horribly hot which made the hunting slow. After an opening morning with very little action and weather only getting warmer I was a little concerned getting Dubya on a line was not a certainty. Trying to tell myself it's still early in the hunt, I headed out for my afternoon hunt. As the minutes turned to hours unfortunately none of the shadows turned to real deer. I was really beginning to feel the pressure when I heard a shot; it had come from a ground blind where one of the other hunters in camp was sitting. I immediately began to hope the deer ran at least a few yards to offer Dubya some work.

 

I got back to camp soon after to get the scoop. The blind sits on the edge of a cut corn field with a creek a few yards behind. The deer had come in to 50 yards and was feeding in the cut corn. At this point I was thinking this may not be much of a track. The hunter said the deer had run past the blind and splashed into the creek, where he believe it had expired. I was pretty excited we would at least get a 60 yard natural line out of the deal, we got a little more than we bargained for!

 

Thinking this was going to be a very short track I was grossly unprepared. We got to the hit site with Dubya about 2 hours after the shot. There was some bright blood and Dubya was excited. He had a little trouble getting started but then locked in and off we went. It took Dubya little time to cover the roughly 60 yards to the creek bank, I shined my light in the creek and saw no deer. At this point I wasn't sure what we were in for. Dubya continued down the very steep creek bank to the edge of the water, I couldn't find any blood and wasn't sure he was still on the line until he stopped and smelled a leaf on the edge of the water with a blood drop on it.

 

 

The water was calf deep so we carried Dubya across to the other side where he promptly picked up the track again.

 

First crossing

 

We went about 50 more yards on the edge of the creek when Dubya started to head back down the bank to the waters edge. We carried him across the water again where he found blood on some rocks.

 

Second crossing

He took us up the other side of the creek and back out to the cut corn, we worked from the cut corn to some CRP and then to a hard wood ridge. At this point we had gone a couple hundred yards. Dubya worked up the steep ridge, overcoming being distracted by a dead mole, to take us to the top of the ridge. We were confirming his line with drops of blood and the occasional larger blood spot. After a detour to check out some osage oranges I asked Dubya, "where did he go?" Dubya responded by finding some more sign and leading us further along the ridge.

 

We realized the track was on a trail leading past a stand where my brother was sitting. He stayed on stand 40 minutes after the shot and never saw the deer come by. The blood has all been bright arterial blood but this new information in conjunction with the distance we had travelled at this point, we began to believe the deer may not be down. We continued along the track, which led us past my brothers stand through an opening in the barbed wire fence and into another CRP field.

 

We couldn't believe Dubya had stayed with it this long but were still finding blood spots and decided to continue. This is some very tall dense CRP, I wasn't sure how well Dubya could move let alone track through it, but off we went. Dubya was still very determined and continued to follow the track over, under, and around the grasses. Luckily most of the track was on a deer trail working through the CRP.

 

Dubya's view

I was in awe of this little dachshund at this point but this is where he really blew my mind. There were a lot of deer trails in the CRP field, any of which could've been used by the wounded deer. Every time I was pretty sure he had followed the wrong trail I would find a little blood spot confirming he was still on the right track. I can't even imagine how much different scent he had to sort through to follow this specific deer but somehow at 13 weeks of age he was doing it.

 

After 800 yards and a flashlight battery change and still on the trail we decided the deer wasn't down. Reluctantly I decided to abandon the search for the night. I really wanted to find this deer, Dubya deserved it! After the next morning's hunt I decided to give Dubya a shot at closing the deal. The track now 17 hours old we headed back to the CRP and picked up the track. Dubya continued to the track another 400 yards to the property line, where we couldn't get permission to continue so we were forced to stop. Right on the fence line we found a spot of blood about the size of a nickel to confirm he had indeed taken us on the right track all the way. It was bitter sweet, I certainly couldn't over look the fantastic work Dubya did but at the same time I was very disappointed the track didn't end with a deer. We are pretty convinced the wound wasn't immediately fatal.

 

In total Dubya took the track 1200 yards! I never could've imagined that was possible for this 13 week old puppy! I believe this speaks to the quality not only of this litter but the quality of the breeding program you and John have established. I don't believe enough credit can be given. I can't thank you enough for all you've done! I have included pictures of different parts of this track. The "bloodsign" photo is an example of the average blood spot found during the track. The "dubyaview" photo is an example of the CRP Dubya tracked through. I hope the rest will be self explanatory.

 

End of track

The next night Dubya found his first real deer at the end of a 50 yard track. This track was 2 hours old and went across a creek with lots of blood. He had no trouble. He approached the deer cautiously, had a smell and was ready to move on. I have included a picture of this find.

Dubya's first deer

The final picture is of Dubya from yesterday. We hope all is well with the two of you and look forward to keeping up with the next couple litters!

Dubya at five months

Best,

Matt Willis

 

Thank you Matt and Jenny for such a great report and all the work you have been done with the pup!