It looks like a White Christmas this year in the Helderbergs

This picture was taken on the night of December 9. Then it snowed pretty much for two days.

This is a view from our field onto a barn and dog yard. While it is a beautiful picture, it also brings back a memory of all the inconveniences of winter in the country: being snowed in and feeling isolated, a need to get a long driveway plowed, a dog yard filled with snow etc etc.

These two pictures were taken after a sunset, without a flash or tripod. The ISO setting was 20000.

Young dogs love to play in the snow. This picture shows Luna and Volt having a lot of fun for as long as it is not too cold!

Born-to-track Wirehaired Dachshunds Calendar for 2015

The calendar with pictures of our dogs is ready and can be purchased for $19.99 from this link 
http://www.cafepress.com/calendarsbyjolanta.1447679902
MAKE SURE that you choose January 15 as a starting month. Cafepress has daily discounts so you can probably order at a much lower price if you wait. Today I think it is 20% off. This is a "print on demand" technology so a calendar is printed when it is ordered. I have not seen how the calendar looks printed (only on my printer) so if there is something wrong, please let me know. Cafepress has 100% guarantee so you will be able to return it if you don't like it. The calendar includes only my pictures and they are of only our dogs. Why did I choose these particular pictures? Because they were speaking to me so I hope that they will resonate with you as well. John liked them too. 

THANK YOU for being a fan of our dogs!!!

We did not need a tracking dog to find John's doe

We finally have some venison to feed this human and canine family! Yesterday afternoon John shot a nice mature doe on our property, and it was a perfect shot. She ran 50 yards from the hit site and expired right away. We brought Kunox and did the short track with him. He really liked the doe but showed no sign of possessiveness towards us. Good boy Kunox! 

Then we brought two pups, Volt and Luna, and let them find the doe too. Volt was much more aggressive towards the deer than Luna was, and even though he was fine with us he really did not like Luna to be too close to "his" deer. 

Mielikki got to inspect the doe too.

Spring brings ducks to our pond and hopefully... puppies to our whelping box

While I am waiting for Tuesday's puppies to be born (this is my second night of hovering over Tuesday's whelping box), finally I have a little bit of time to catch up with the blog.

Spring has finally arrived in the Helderbergs! We thought that it would never happen this year. Yesterday, on Thursday, was very warm, in the mid-60s, and even though a lot of ponds and small lakes in this area are still frozen, our pond is clear now. This year we have a chance to watch some migratory diving ducks, which have paid us a visit. Most likely they will be soon on their way north, but in the meantime we have been enjoying them.

The two pictures were taken three days ago, when we still had some ice on the pond. These are Ring-necked Ducks, and the small flock on our pond has three females and five males.

A week ago we had a nice visit from Walt Dixon, who brought Billy's son with him to run him in our fenced-in field.  Walt just got back from Cincinnati, OH, where he gave a presentation "Why in the World would I need a Blood Tracking Dog?" at the recent Biennial Gathering of the Professional Bowhunters Society.

Walt Dixon and John Jeanneney

Dachs is maturing nicely.

It seems that some rabbits survived our tough winter, and finally our dogs can get some runs on the snow-free ground. The two pictures below show Kunox von der Dohlmühle, who tomorrow is going to be nine months old. He is not a little puppy any more!

Kunox's best buddy is Mielikki, and my camera just loves her. Taking pictures of dogs is not easy, but Mielikki's engaging personality and her athleticism came through well in these two photographs.

Dachshunds clowning around in the snow

The picture was taken yesterday when a little bit of new snow was coming down. It is cold, in the morning it was 5F (-15C) and the snow crust is so thick and hard that dogs can run on the top.

Bernie, Mielikki and Kunox are very playful dogs and like to clown around.

Happy 10th Birthday Billy!

Tomorrow our Billy (FC Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek, SchwhK, Wa-T, BHP-1, BHP-2, BHP-3, SFK, Deer Search certified) is going to be 10 years old.

Where did the time go Billy? It seems just like yesterday I was holding you in a palm of my hand. Your eyes can see deep into my soul. I hate watching you getting older and hope that our journey together last many more years!

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.

Tommy gets injured on Saturday while following a one-lung shot deer

Saturday was not a good day. John and Tommy went on a call to help a local hunter recover a lung-shot deer.  At one point John had to drop the tracking leash in heavy brush. He thought that he could recall Tommy, as he had done many times, but this time Tommy was hot on the deer. He was located two hours later tangled in goldenrod 400 meters farther on.

Tommy had already tracked two miles, but he was ready to go, and now three of us tracked another 1/2 mile through a big swamp. We finally quit when the deer swam across a big pond and water became to deep to follow. Actually Jolanta got stuck in the swamp up to her butt. We had smears of blood to verify the line right  until the end. But that's just the beginning.


This is the last leg of Saturday's track with Tommy. Tommy was found hung up in the brush around 4 pm where the yellow marker is, and we restarted him by the red marker. We found the first blood smear on the branch around 1/3 rd into this track leg. Now the swamp is not as big as it is pictured on this google map. Once we entered the swamp we started to see fresh blood smears on swamp grass. We terminated the track where the purple marker is. When we got back to the car people in the house by Rte 157A said that they had seen a deer running by from the swamp direction. This graphic was created by My Tracks, an app for Android phones.

On Monday we noticed a bulge on Tommy's right flank. It looked like a big hematoma, but we took him to our vets since he also had bad eye irritations. We wanted to be sure he did not have a scratched cornea. The eyes were not damaged, but the inner abdominal muscles had been torn and intestines were bulging out as in an umbilical hernia. Thee was no internal damage beyond this and no damage on the surface of his hide. We don't know exactly what happened, but probably he had an altercation with the buck during the time  that he was out of John's control. He was tough enough to keep tracking,  and we were unaware of his injury.

Another problem. We have a bitch that was brought in from southern Pennsylvania to be bred to Tommy. She is not quite ready yet, and we don't want to ask Tommy to breed her right after his surgery. So we must wait until Thursday, after the breedings, to have the damage to his abdominal wall repaired. Tommy does not seem to be in any pain, and he is eating well. But we are watching that hernia! He won't be able to track for 2-3 weeks following his surgery.

Tuesday von Moosbach-Zuzelek is a Field Champion now

I am running way behind in reporting all the blood tracking activities that you readers have sent me news about, and I hope to catch up this week. On Friday I drove to field trials given by the Western Pennsylvania Dachshund Club at the Hilltop Beagle Club in Cowansville, PA. It was a last minute decision. I got back from the field trial last evening.

It is a long drive there, around 8 hours, but it was worth it. I have never been to the grounds before and did not know what to expect. As it turned out the grounds were really good, with nice cover and a right number of rabbits, not too few and not too many. The beagle club has both types of beaglers, brace and SPO, and it seems thriving. A lot of beaglers showed up to cook three meals a day, beat brush and some were judging too. I loved the whole experience!

On Saturday I ran our Tuesday in the Open Stake and she placed first. Then she won her runs for the Best of Open and Absolute winner. I was really pleased with her performance. She has always had enormous hunting drive but had no concept of recall as a pup. A year ago she flunked the NATC Small Game Hunter test as I was not bale to pick her up in the field and a good recall is part of that test.

Well, I am happy to report that her recall and field obedience got much better due to some serious work in the field. She ran several times on Saturday and came back to me every time. Good girl Tuesday!

Joeri and Gilda hanging out together and relaxing on a lazy Sunday afternoon

Two pals, Joeri and Gilda, hanging out together on a hot and hazy Sunday afternoon.

Summer days and sunsets, puppies, dogs, flowers, birds, moths and macrophotography

It has been a hot and humid summer so there is not much blood tracking training going on here right now. We have been working diligently with Mielikki's puppies, which turned 9 weeks old on Friday. Now 50 yard deer liver drags are too easy for them, and we will have to start working them on longer and more difficult scent lines. They are truly a great bunch and raising them have been a pure joy.

This picture of John mobbed by puppies was taken two weeks ago when our friend Dan came to play with the pups. I snapped the shot when John talked to Dan. It might be now my favorite picture of John ...ever.

When the days are so hot and humid we appreciate even more having a small pond not too far from the house. This picture was shot a week ago when we had a bunch of friends over and went to the pond around sunset.

Tuesday is now 15 months old. Last summer she did not show much interest in the pond. This year I took her there together with Bernie, who is a water-crazy dog. I thought that his enthusiasm might pull her in. I was right, she went in and now she learned that she can swim, and it is not a big deal. I don't think she will ever love the water the way Mielikki, Bernie and Joeri do, but now there is hope that she might actually get used to it. Every dog is different. Sky, Tuesday's brother, likes the pond and he has fun swimming and blowing bubbles through his nose.

I took this picture two days ago around sunset. Unfortunately this Mourning Dove had a reason to mourn as it lost its mate. The pair hang around the dog kennels for several weeks, and I thought that sooner or later we might have an accident. Well, it happened. I heard huge commotion, a lot of barking, and found one dove being munched on by Bernie. Bernie left just a few feathers. The remaining dove was sitting on the fence pole. I have not seen it since the incident, and I hope that it can find a new mate.

Summer sunsets in the Helderbergs can be stunning, like this one.

Yesterday I took a macro photography workshop organized by Capital Region Photography Meetup Group. I really enjoyed the outing and taking pictures at the grounds of Five Rivers Environmental Education Center.

I have never heard of Hummingbird Moth until yesterday. These are fascinating insects, they look like tiny humming birds, and their wings move so fast that they (the wings) appear, most of the time, invisible. This was a real challenge for my camera. I had to push ISO really high and then had to remove the "noise" in the picture. The flowers, called monarda/bee balm, were covered with bees and pollinating moths.

I hope you enjoy your summer as much as we do!