A long holiday break is over! Books, puppies, and our plans for 2014.

It is very hard to get back to frequent blogging after a long break, and this is my first attempt! Let's start with pictures of showing John and me with our German puppy Kunox. The two pictures were taken just few days ago. We like Kunox a lot, and have high hopes for him.

We had a very nice holiday break that filled us with warmth and good feelings as in the last two weeks we went out or met with various friends just about every other day. It was great to catch up, eat good food, drink nice wine and altogether being able to relax. We wish all our readers and friends a Happy New Year - may it be healthy, peaceful and prosperous.

We love living in the country but winters here in the Helderbergs can be tough. It seems that the current winter started a long time ago even though officially it has been just two weeks.

The three pictures above were taken in the first half of December, and all this snow melted when we hit really high temperatures just before Christmas. In the end we ended up with a very green/brown Christmas Day. This, of course, was not going to last, and now a true winter has arrived. Yesterday we have a foot of snow, and temperature plunged to -7 F (around -22 C). Tonight is supposed to be even colder. This picture was taken this morning:

All dogs have been staying inside, and they have not been complaining. Thrill of  the first snow has been long gone.

This is going to be a very busy year for us. John has been working for a long time on the 3rd edition of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer, and he should be done soon. When he completes his part, my work is going to start: editing and preparation of the book for production. Also we are planning to do a new, short book on dachshunds. This is the breed that we are most familiar with, and we'd like to pass our experience to new owners, handlers and breeders. And we also are planning to have two litters of puppies. All in all it looks like my photography is going to take a back seat in 2014, and probably we will not make it to too many dog events.

We have eleven dachshunds now, and our oldest is FC Asko von der Drachenburg, who is doing well at 14.5. Knock on the wood, but at present all dogs are fine, except for some minor ailments that our older dogs have.

Having so many dogs puts a lot of restrictions on our life, and especially our ability to travel, but I don't know how else one can have a multi-generational breeding program. Only through multi-generational evaluation and selection a breeder can have a breeding program with specific purpose and direction. The continuity of our breeding can be illustrated by Asko's descendants:
Asko--> Gilda--> Keena--> Paika--> Sky and Tuesday
and
Asko--> Elli--> Billy--> Keena--> Paika--> Sky and Tuesday
Elli goes back through Agata, Kuba to FC Fausto de la Grande Futaie (imported from France in 1990). Gilda goes back through Sabina to FC Gerte vom Dornenfeld (imported from Germany in 1988).

Speaking about puppies, we are swamped with inquiries about puppies, and at this time we are not taking any more reservations. However, Justin Richins from Utah just had  a litter of pups sired by Remi (Remy von Moosbach-Zuzelek), out of our Mielikki's sister - Macaria Raptor. Justin can be reached at jrichins@thehuntingcompany.com. Also Gail Berger from Pennsylvania is expecting any day now puppies out of Bee (a daughter of our Billy), who was bred to our Tommy (FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst). Gail can be contacted at grammyberger@gmail.com.

These two pictures show Bee at the 2013 NATC Zuchtschau, where she received
the excellent rating for her conformation.