Joeri turns two years old

Two days ago Joeri (vom Nonnenschlag) turned two years old so it is a good occasion to reminisce.

Joeri was born in Rödental, which is located in northern Bavaria. His breeder Rosi Bauersachs sent us some very nice pictures of Joeri's siblings (it was a litter of 9 puppies) and his teckel family. I have included three pictures below.

Joeri with his German family

Joeri joined our family on May 24, 2008, when John flew to Germany to pick him and Tommy up. The below picture was taken when the boys settled in Berne, NY two days later. At the time Joeri was 14 weeks old, and Tommy was just 8 weeks. The pups started on the right foot, and have been getting along well since then. Joeri has always been dominant over Tommy, and Tommy seems to have accepted the situation.

Joeri (top) and Tommy at 14 and 8 weeks, respectively.

Joeri proved to be the most precocious puppy that we have worked with. Right away he started to show interest in the scent of rabbits and started to follow them. He opened when he turned four months old. He was also fascinated with our pond and within few weeks started to swim and retrieve. Actually his love of retrieving from the water is matched by very few dogs here.

Joeri passed the gun shyness test on Sept 25, 2008, when he was just 7 months old, and the following day he also passed the NATC Small Game Hunter test. German Judge A. Fichtl rated Joeri's conformation as "very promising".

The following spring Joeri finished his AKC field championship.

We introduced him to woodchucks and were impressed with his game aggressiveness.

Physically Joeri matured very nicely and in spring 2009 his conformation was rated "excellent" by French Judge Agnes de France and he went "Best in Show". This is how he looked like in fall 2009.

Emotionally, Joeri went through a difficult adolescence. He remained a happy friendly young dog but for five months he lost all interest in tracking. But in fall 2009 he proved to be a talented natural blood tracker and found 8 deer. There are many reports of his tracking adventures on this blog. We like his calm, focused working style on tough lines. On a difficult check he stays near his point of loss and does not gamble. He moves forward only when he is sure of the line.



In October 2009 Joeri was reunited with Anne Bauersachs, who stayed with us for two weeks. Anne is Rosi's daughter, and we enjoyed her visit very much. She went with me to the DCA National Field Trial in PA, and had a chance to handle Joeri herself. We had a lot of fun!


So far Joeri has been used for breeding twice. We bred him last year to Emma, and raised a litter of four puppies. This was our "O" litter and there are many pictures of the pups on our puppy blog. The picture shows Joeri with his son Ollie.


Laurel Whistance-Smith bred her FC Diamant Lily von Lowenherz J SE (our Asko's daughter) to Joeri and the two pictures show his offspring "Yoda" and "Lykke" at five months.

Yoda (above) and Lykke (below)

We believe that with Joeri, in spite of his precociousness, the best is still to come. We both are looking forward to working with this talented dog. His desire to please and readiness to bond make the training so much easier. Thank you Rosi for the great teckel!