Our breeding plans for 2019

We get a lot of questions about our breeding plans for 2019. Yes, we are going to have puppies. How many litters, we don't know yet. To help you plan we have created a sign-up form, where you can add your name and email so we can notify you once we make a decision. By adding your name to the list, you are guaranteed that you will receive email from us once we decide to have puppies. In no way it means that you are on our waiting list or that you will get a puppy. We screen all our buyers very carefully and it is a multi-step process that involves filling out a questionnaire and phone conversations. 

To add your name to the notification list, go to http://eepurl.com/c3v7Rf. It would not hurt to read more about how we raise and sell our puppies:
www.born-to-track.com/buying-puppy.htm
www.born-to-track.com/how-we-raise-our-dogs.htm
 
We sell puppies only to people who are serious about tracking and would like to track for other people, not just their family and friends. A tracking dog learns a lot on the job. He will never be developped to his full potential if he is used only 5 times a year.
 
We do not ship puppies so you will have to come to Berne, NY (40 minutes from Albany, NY, which has an International  Airport) to pick up your puppy when the pup is 10-12 weeks old.
All our puppies come with the AKC limited registration.  

Limited Registration conveys ownership to the buyer and allows the dog to participate in any AKC events (except for shows) but does not allow the buyer to breed the dog and register the dog’s offspring with the AKC. We will lift the Limited Registration and convert it to Full Registration only when we are sure that:

· The dog is of breeding quality.

· The buyer has become sufficiently knowledgeable about the dachshund breed.

· The buyer is dedicated to the responsible breeding of the dachshund as a hunting dog.

Tuesday had two puppies in 2017, and they were born on April 9. Andi is owned by Jerry Gregston from Oklahoma and Artie is going to track for Blair Smyth from Virginia.

FC Uta von Moosbach-Zuzelek, co-owned with Cheri Faust, whelped six puppies on March 26, 2017. They are Zeus, Zorro,, Zack, Zander, Zale and Zenyatta. This litter we co-bred with Cheri, who decided to keep two puppies - Zeus and Zenyatta.

Happy Easter! Tuesday's puppies are one week old.

This week has gone by so fast, and, again, I have found myself way behind with posts. Sorry about that as there is a lot to report.  Let's start with Tuesday's puppies, who are now one week old. They have already doubled their weight at birth:

Volt (lime) was 221 gr at birth, now 515 gr

Vincent (blue) was 232, now 470

Viola (pink) was 210, now 465

Vonnie (yellow)was 215, now 460

Vivica (red) was 232, now 470 gr

The first few days were a bit difficult as Tuesday was producing too much milk and puppies could not keep up with her "production".  She was uncomfortable, but this quickly passed and things have normalized.

Tuesday has a good appetite but she has not touched dry food yet. She has been living on raw venison, mixed with rice and egg, plus she drinks goat milk. Occasionally she gets several cubes of cheese. She turned out to be a superb mother, and so far she has been staying with the pups in the whelping box all the time. They are spotless clean. What I like about her that she not too possessive of her pups. She completely trusts us, and even if dogs bark outside my den, she does not get too upset about it

Happy Easter Everybody!

Tuesday and Tommy's puppies: a new litter of wirehaired dachshund trackers

We bred our FC Tuesday von Moosbach-Zuzelek, Sfk, V, to FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst, SchwhK (Prize I/100), Deer Search cert., V, twice, on February 6 and 8. Her pregnancy went smoothly; she had a good appetite and was active. She looked actually full of puppies as this below picture shows. We chose not to X-ray her as we knew she was pregnant, and a question "how many pups" would have its answer soon enough.

A whelping box for Tuesday was set up few days in advance and she stayed in it almost constantly. She really liked it. This was a relief as with first time mothers you never know how things are going to go.

I started to take her temperature twice a day, and on April 9 it went below 99 F and stayed there. Around midnight of April 10, Tuesday started to nest and scratch the bedding in the whelping box. We knew that the whelping was coming closer. But things were not progressing, and at 4 PM I called our vet for advice. We decided to give her more time since her water still did not break.

The water bag finally appeared at 8:15 PM (April 11), and first puppy arrived 45 minutes later.

This little (7.8 oz) boy was born without any difficulties and appeared very dark.

We named him Volt (he latched to a nipple right away), and we are still not sure whether he is a very dark wild boar or black and tan. We will just wait and see.

Puppies arrived in this order:
9:05 PM Volt (lime collar), 7.8 oz
11:50 PM Viola (pink) 7.4 oz
12:04 AM Vonnie (yellow) 7.6 oz
2:45 AM Vincent (blue) 8.2 oz
3:10 AM Vivica (red) 8.8 oz

We gave Tuesday a shot of oxytocin, and as it turned out she carried only 5 puppies. At this number they should not be difficult to raise.

Tuesday is taking a great care of the pups, but she suffers from excessive milk production, a painful condition called galactostasis. According to the Merck Manual: "The affected glands are warm, swollen, and painful to the touch, but the animal is alert and healthy. Warm compresses should be applied to the affected glands 4–6 times daily, and the young should be encouraged to nurse from these glands." So for the last 24 hours I have been doing warm compresses and expressing some of the milk excess. Tuesday had a slightly elevated temperature, and to avoid mastitis, I put her on Clavamox. She is doing very well, and has a good appetite. Puppies have already put some weight.

By the way, all the puppies are spoken for. 

We do not want to monopolize this blog with reports on Tuesday's litter, so from now on we will be posting them on our puppy journal at http://borntotrackpuppies.blogspot.com/

A new litter of tracking teckels in Quebec

Our not-so-distant family of wirehaired dachshunds expanded two days ago as Bernard Demer's Foxy whelped a litter of four puppies: three males and one female. The dam of the litter is Foxy du Petit Bois de la Chapelle imported from France (bred by Philippe Rainaud). She is Fiona's sister (Fiona was bred to our Sky 7 weeks ago). The sire is Gunner von Moosbach-Zuzelek (FC Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek x FC Gilda von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is our Keena's full-brother, and he is owned by Guy Marcoux-Filion. Foxy and Gunner are serious blood trackers in Quebec, and puppies are going to make excellent tracking prospects.

Two male puppies are available to serious tracking homes. Bernard can be reached at 418-657-0316. His wife speaks English, but if you have problems communicating with Bernard, contact John at john@born-to-track.com.

Foxy du Petit Bois de la Chapelle

Below pictures show some of many recoveries by Foxy

Gunner is five years old now, and he came from a very successful breeding of Billy to Gilda. The pictures posted below show Gunner.

This is how puppies should be raised: Remi is a super dad to his pups

This short video posted by Justin Richins from Utah shows his wirehaired dachshund puppies at the age of five weeks. They are out of Remi (Remy von Moosbach-Zuzelek) and Macaria Raptor. The video shows how good Remi is with his puppies. Not all males are like that! The pups are being raised in a right way, by both parents. And they are fully socialized with Justin's six kids. For more information about these puppies bred for blood tracking contact Justin at 435-655-5484 or justinrichins@gmail.com.

January 2014 dachshund puppies: a new generation of blood trackers

We are only 9 days into January but the New Year has already brought two litters of wirehaired dachshund puppies out of working lines.

1. We were happy to learn that on January 5 Gail Berger's "Bee" (a daughter of our Billy and Gail Berger's Pepper) whelped 6 puppies, 3 girls and 3 boys. Everything went smoothly (this is Bee's first litter), and Bee is a good mother. A sire of this litter is our Tommy (FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst). All the puppies are spoken for.

2. Congratulations to Tom and Jackie Munoz from Alabama on their 5 puppies that were born yesterday (3 boys and 2 girls). Dam of the litter, Meg, is a granddaughter of Agata v Moosbach-Zuzelek. She was sired by Nicki von Velbert (imported from Germany). The pups' sire is eight-year-old Fred (Frederick der Trakker Yergz) bred by Mike Yerger. Fred's background includes our Asko von der Drachenburg, Sabina von Moosbach-Zuzelek, Traelborg's Herbert "Skyder" and vom Dornenfeld line. Tom and Jackie Munoz's website is athttp://www.alabamadeertracking.com/. Good luck with the pups!

Meg with her newborns.

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.

Kunox - our new dachshund puppy from Germany

It was a week ago, on Wednesday, when John and I drove to Newark International Airport to pick up our new puppy from Germany - Kunox der von der Dohlmühle. Kunox  arrived in the United States, all happy and wiggly, not showing any sign of stress.

Interestingly, we did not plan to get a new puppy this fall, but sometimes an opportunity presents itself and cannot be denied. It was almost four weeks ago when Stefan Fuß of "von der Bismarck-Eiche" kennel in Germany posted some information on Facebook about a male "von der Dohlmühle" puppy looking for a hunting home due to some unexpected circumstances. When I (Jolanta) saw the pup's picture and outstanding pedigree, I knew that we must have him. More about his pedigree and family later.

So many, many thanks go to Stefan who made it all possible and to Annelie Grauer, Kunox's breeder, who trusted us with her puppy.

John has already started to work with Kunox and this is what he wrote: As Jolanta points out, we were lucky to get a puppy with such an outstanding pedigree for  blood tracking. Fortunately little Kunox doesn't know about the pedigree and how  good he is supposed to be. He is a nice, relaxed dog with good social skills around humans and canines. He departed from Lufthansa at Newark Airport totally relaxed and ready to sleep on my lap all the way home.

Of course the Old Man was especially interested in Kunox's desire and ability for tracking. The second day after his arrival in Berne we tried the first liver drag of 20 yards. No problem, but he learned what it was all about and had a fine chew on the deer liver at the end of the drag. The next day Kunox had a liver drag twice as long. Clearly it was too easy, but he liked the liver. On day three the liver drag was nearly 100 yards and an hour old. It was windy but Kunox got his nose down in the grass and  held to the scent line. Now he was ready for something more challenging.

Day four: This time I laid out a line with droplets of deer blood through  the labyrinth of paths in our running enclosure. There were many right angles to overshoot, and I let it age for  four hours. The line was only about 150 yards long, but there were many complicated turns. Kunox marched through it with ease, never overshooting a turn by more than five feet before checking and correcting himself. At the deer skin he approached with caution, but after my assurances he grabbed on. The prey drive was there! He actually preferred shaking the deer hide to eating the deer heart treats.

I kind of like this puppy!

This puppy loves his food, even home-grown kale. We need to take just a little bit of weight off him.

He is a low-key pup that can just relax and sleep while we go about our daily routine.

Kunox has met most of our dogs and proved to have good social skills. Mielikki is a good playmate as she is patient and gentle with him...up to the point. She set some boundaries by now for Kunox and one of them is that he is not allowed to hump her (he tried).

 

Kunox has been accepted by his new family; the picture shows Paika and Sky

Kunox licking Billy's face

Kunox has a very good switch: he is on in the field...

...and off in the house. Don't you love a puppy that you can take a nap with?

 

Kunox's dam is Gwendoline der von der Dohlmühle, who just three days ago won the International Vp test in Italy with maximum number of points of 280. Gwennie's mother Elsebeere von der Bismarck-Eiche got 268 points. Both got their CACIT (Certificat d’Aptitude au Championnat International de Travail) and became International Working Champions.

When we were in Germany in 1999 we visited Manfred Siekmann of von Rominten kennel. He is an extremely knowledgeable and accomplished breeder and handler, and we learned from him a lot. At the time his male Nurmi von Rominten was flying high as a blood tracker. I think he won Chorin Suche blood tracking championship twice. We loved the dog, and we saw him again on subsequent trips. He got to live to be 15. We always wanted a puppy sired by him but it has never worked out. The sire of Kunox is IACh GS BSS Doktor von Rominten, who is linebred tightly on Nurmi, and is an outstanding dog in his own right.