Uta is now residing in Wisconsin

We were planning to keep one of female puppies from Sky and Mielikki's litter for ourselves. Four weeks ago when Cheri Faust was visiting us, we saw a deep connection and quick attraction between her and Uta, the smallest puppy in the litter. So I offered Cheri a co-ownership of Uta with me keeping breeding rights, and she liked the idea. Last weekend Cheri was back breeding Danika to Sky, and we had a chance to see Uta again. She was still the smallest and probably the feistiest puppy, with a lot of potential. Good luck Cheri with the puppy!

 

Uma has left for a new home

Good luck to Matt, his fiance Emile and their new puppy Uma, now "Heidi"! Matt and Emile live in Ithaca, NY, just 3 hours from us. Matt is a licensed tracker and a member of Deer Search of Finger Lakes. Emile is going to take a NYS DEC exam in August. Both are hunters. Matt is involved in two deer management programs in suburban areas. Could we have dreamed of a better home for our puppy? Being able to place our puppies with people who are dedicated to the cause of wounded deer recovery makes all the work worthwhile.

 If a new owner has a car like this one, you know that your puppy is going to be in right hands.

Uma's conformation reminds me of Mielikki when she was a young puppy.

The remaining four puppies will stay with us for the next two weeks. It should be a lot of fun! Last evening they tracked a two-hour-old blood line on a light tracking leash. Two puppies scored 10 on a scale of 0-10 (10 is the highest) and the other two got 9. We couldn't be happier with the pups. Today we started to walk them on a leash and they did well.

Reports on T puppies at the age of 11 weeks

Thor and Theo left a week ago, and it does not look like Tuesday has been missing her brothers. Now it is easier for us to spend one-on-one time with her. She made the transition to being the only young puppy here easily. At night she sleeps in her crate, and she makes it through the night without any problems. We don't have to get up during the night to let her out. The last time she goes out is around 11 pm, and then in the morning she is let out at 7 am. She is not housebroken yet, and has some accidents in the house when we don't pay attention. During the day she spends some time in a pen on our front lawn, where she has plenty of toys. We don't want her to be too dependent on the rest of her canine family for all her social needs. She needs to bond strongly with us too so we take her for walks, we play with her and train her. She has been very easy with the leash training. It was too hot for blood tracking training, but we will resume it next week.

We have been getting good reports on the other three pups.

A couple of days ago Woody wrote about Tarah: Five hours ago we did a deer skin drag for Tarah, about a hundred yards. We went down a hill side across a little creek the water, which was about 12 inches deep and about 4 yards across. I used deer skin that I had poured blood on, 30 yards after crossing the creek I hid the deer skin under a big pile of brush. I put Tarah on the trail it took her 9min and 5sec my son and I were so proud of our little Tarah.

Darren Doran reports that things are going well with Theo: Theo is doing good. Karl and Theo have really bonded well. Karl has always liked other dogs and these two play all day together. I make sure Karl gets equal attention and they were both sleeping in my lap in the recliner last night. It's been hot here but its supposed to break Saturday, I might try a short line Sunday night. I have my vet appointment Wednesday.

Karl ( bottom) and Theo

Karl and Theo on a walk

Theo with a hoof

Bob Yax  had Thor on his first training line:

Just a note about our first training line tonight - Thor did great ! - I definitely have to challenge him more on the next one. We did a 40 yard liver drag with a 90 deg turn after 20 yards. It was aged for two and a half hours. We did it about 8:30 tonight. It took about a minute in total. He spent about 10 seconds sniffing and licking at the start point where I smeared a little liver blood, then he took off on the line at a good pace. At 1 point he circled back a few feet and then continued back on the line. When he got to the turn, he didn't even slow down, he made the turn and then went directly to the tail and small chunk of liver I left there. He couldn't have done better - he was never more than 2ft from the line.

Looks very promising - can't wait till the next line !

Nate Yax with Thor

Glowing reports about Paika's puppies

Raising a litter of puppies is a lot of work, but if puppies turn out well, it is a very satisfying and rewarding experience. It looks like Paika's pups are doing really well in their new homes. They are eleven weeks old today.

Joe Mason shared this e-mail with us:

 

Shome just completed his first liver drag find in the state of Kentucky. He did a great job under probably very trying conditions. We have 15 mph winds and sunny. I laid the line out about 120 yds. long with four 45 degree turns and waited 40 min. He strayed off line a few times just maybe 5-6 yds. and always on the down wind side. He would immediately come back and find the line and start out again.I think I was as excited as Shome was.

-----

Ray and Pam Maurier from New Hampshire sounded really pleased in this e-mail from few days ago:

 

Tucker (Storm) is doing awesome. We have been introducing him to new things all the time and he learns fast. Sunday morning I laid a blood line in the hard woods 125 yards. At the start was a drop of blood and a finger nail size piece of liver then one drop every foot and every ten yards another tiny tiny piece of liver. I hung a ribbon over the each piece of liver so I'd know where it was. At 60 yard I put a left hand 90-degree turn down a hill to a creek, another 65 yards to a half of fist size piece of liver under his bowl. Four hours later we took him to the start, changed his collar and a 30 ft leash and he was off. He stayed right on track and found every piece of liver. The wind was blowing 25 mph, two times he went up wind of the track about 5 feet, put his nose up and checked the wind and then jumped right back on the track. He went through in under 20 min, he really took his time and did absolutely awesome...We got it all on video, it's great.

 

So this morning just to see what he would do I took him back and I ran to the end a different way and left a small piece of liver under his dish, and then took him to the starting point. This is a 24-hour blood trail and no liver or man scent on the track, again the wind was maybe 15 mph. He followed the line  right on and got to his piece of liver in 5 min tops. I couldn’t believe it , I am so proud of my little guy. I just have to let your know how he is doing and see what you think. I think we got a great pup he is house broken already. He goes to bed at 9 and gets up at 6 and sleeps right through the night.

 

We couldn’t be happier thank you both so so much. Ray & Pam 

Today we received pictures and some of them show Tucker with another wirehaired dachshund, Ted , who is owned by Mike Lafleur. Tucker and Ted are related through Billy, who is a sire of Ted and a great-grandsire of Tucker. Ted was bred by Gail Berger from PA, and his pictures are at Mike's website at www.trailsendguideservice.com

 

Tucker and Ted

Dubya goes for a first swim

When Matt and Jenny were here they asked whether pups had started to swim. This August and September we got so much rain that our pond was overflowing. There was no easy entry into the water so even though pups were going for frequent walks around the pond they never really got to swim the way pups from 2010 did.

Yesterday Matt sent us this nice update on Strut aka Dubya:

Dubya had a busy weekend. He spent time at two of our family's farms and a family get together that served as a send off for Jenny's cousin to an overseas posting. Dubya saw lots of people including some kids of all ages at the gathering. He was excited to see the kids. He also did liver drags and went for his first swim!

The first two pics are of Dubya on a liver drag this weekend. The first is of Dubya on the track and the second is of Dubya with his "prize" at the end. The conditions were very dry and windy with blowing leaves, this line was 1 hr old and about 50 yards with three gentle curves. He ran it with an incredible amount of precision and stayed very focused despite the blowing leaves, they usually provide a distraction he has trouble overcoming.

 

The next couple pictures are of Dubya's trip to the water. He was very hesitant at first which you will see in the the third photo. All of the sudden he jumped in and started swimming. It scared the heck out of me, I had to compose myself to get a photo! His head never went underwater and he looked like a natural, the fourth picture is of him swimming. He seemed to really enjoy the water!

 

 

Shome left for Kentucky

We spent Sunday with Joe and Marlene Mason from Mayfield, Kentucky, who came here to pick up Shome (Blue boy). Joe went out on a deer call with John, and even though the deer did not bleed Joeri had no problems with finding it.

We will certainly miss Shome as this little pup loves people and is really affectionate. He has a potential to be a great tracker. Good luck with him Joe!

Puppies' last walk as a trio

Pups are ten and a half weeks old now. Tomorrow Shome (Blue boy) will be leaving for his new home in Kentucky so today's afternoon walk was the last one as a trio. Colors in our field are at their peak but it was very windy and on a cool side. Paika was with us but she was moving much faster, especially when she was running rabbits. Only Summer tries to keep up with her, and surprisingly she usually manages to find her way back to the rest of us.

Even though not all of them are leaving us I will miss Paika's pups as in many ways this was one of the best and easiest litters ever. Maybe because there were only five of them, and usually our litters are larger. Last year we had 14 pups being raised at the same time!

All the pups were precocious in their tracking but also responsive and super people oriented. We really have high hopes for them, and most likely repeat the litter next year. For now Sky (Red boy) and Summer (Pink female) are staying here.

I could not stress enough how helpful my training with Suzanne Clothier has been when it comes to evaluating these puppies. The CARAT course made me look at them from a new perspective, and now I can articulate much better their strengths and weaknesses in terms of sociability, excitability, resiliency, biddability and so on.

 

Sky (Red boy)

Shome (Blue boy)

Summer (Pink female)

Pups are trying to follow Paika

Quantum aka Geico leaves for his new home in Maine

Today it was a sad day as we said good-bye to Geico. He is going to live with Koren and Jeff Libby in Maine. I met Koren several times when visiting a good friend of ours, Susanne Hamilton. In January 2007 I flew to Ocala, Florida to breed our Keena to Susanne's Buster. While there I took quite a few pics of Koren training horses, and this is one of them:

Koren is a vet tech so Geico is in good hands in case any health problems arise.

John and I got really attached to this little guy. In the last week Geico has blossomed and has gone through transformation. He got bigger, and his color, initially light brown, got much darker. His coat has grown. This is not an ugly duckling any more.

This is Geico a week ago:

And this was Geico today:

Today I met Susanne who was on her way from New Jersey to Maine, and she took Geico for Jeff and Koren.

Susanne is holding her puppy Meggie and Geico

I hear that Geico is with his new family now. Jeff wrote: "Hi Jolanta! We just wanted to let you know that Geico arrived here safe and sound this evening. We have introduced him to the family and he is making a smooth transition. :) Koren and I can't thank you enough for this wonderful gift. He is very special! We already love him very much and he is such a fun little man. We will provide lots of pics and updates. Thank you again. Sincerely, Jeff and Koren"

Thank you Jeff and Koren for providing a perfect home for the little pup! Good luck and keep us posted. We surely will miss him.

A different kind of scent line for puppies...

It is about time to write more about what has been going on here for the last week or so. Having 12 dogs plus two litters of pups does not leave time for writing about them. The update is in order.

When we were in Germany ten years ago, we visited Manfred Siekmann who breeds wirehaired dachshunds for hunting under "von Rominten" kennel name. We spent probably a half day with him, and one of the things he showed us was his way of training pups and young dogs. Since pups usually like to lick blood off the grass, ground etc, he works them also on different kinds of scent lines. When we were there, he shot a pigeon and his daughter dragged the dead pigeon in the field. Then he worked his young dogs on the scent line.


Since our barn got invaded by pigeons, John shot two of them. We used them to lay scent lines for pups. This was done five days ago, when we had ten pups - five in each litter. The first five pics show Keena's pups, the other ones show the "G" litter". First we showed the dead pigeon to pups and we let them sniff it. Then we dragged the pigeon and then let the pups work the scent line. It was done in a group, off-leash. One pigeon per litter of pups. When pups followed the scent, found the dead pigeon, we let them go after it ...and we observed.

There were some surprises. It seems that Pushkin had a breakthrough and of the P-pups he was the most possessive of the pigeon. It is impossible to say whether the exercise with dragged pigeons really fired up Pushkin, but today we did some blood tracking with pups and Pushkin did really well. This was the first time he showed interest in following the deer blood (he is 12 weeks old), and he was very aggressive towards the deer hide at the end.



In the second group, there was no doubt that Gunther was the most possessive and he claimed the pigeon. No other pup was able to take it from him though they really tried.

Pictures of Keena's pups - at ten and a half weeks

Puppies' new digs

"O" puppies are being moved to new quarters where they will be very comfortable. It is a fenced yard attached to a shed. There are several dog houses there and many toys to play with.

This is how the inside of the shed looks like. The white house is heated. Puppies will stay during the night when it is not too cold. On those nights the door leading outside will be blocked so pups cannot get out, but they will be able to go to bathroom in the wood chips. We have been using this setup for older puppies for a number of years and it has worked very well. The shed with the fenced yard is situated just next to the parking area next to our house, and we can see pups from our kitchen window.

Yesterday puppies had another session with liver drags, this time on a light plastic tracking leash. We started to walk them on a short leash but they are not leash-broken yet.

Oak enjoys a piece of deer liver and a deer tail at the end of line.

John is handling Olive.