Playing with adult dogs

At almost every meal we bring 2-3 puppies to our kitchen/dining area and let them play with other dogs. This morning it was Rilla and Questa's turn. They had a chance to play with Keena (white collar) and Paika.

Poppy's best friend

Derek, sent a picture of Poppy and Blue (blue heeler), Poppy's best friend. Thank you Derek!

Poppy's first recovery

Derek Harris called from northern Texas with the news that Poppy found her first deer. The scent line with very little blood was around 400 yards, eight hours old. The deer was bedded and jumped when Poppy got really close. It had to be shot, and luckily Poppy was not concerned about three shots that were fired.

Poppy lives on a ranch, and her best canine buddy is a blue heeler. Derek says that she is fearless.

Thanks Derek for the phone call, and congratulations!

Doc's first deer

Stanley Thrasher from Alabama reported that last weekend was opening weekend for youth hunt. Doc (Pushkin) got his first call to recover a deer. The deer was for a 7 year old his first deer it was an 80lb. doe. the little boy was so happy when doc recovered his deer.

The trail was approx. 2-3 hours old. It was about 75 yards out of the clear cut. It was so thick we had to crawl on knees to get through it. Doc had no problem finding the deer. It took him about 5 minutes to find it after he hit the trail. The first thing he did was latch onto the deer's tail and chewed on it then he would chew on a leg. I got Doc off the deer and asked the man to cut the deer tail off for Doc to have as his trophy. Doc did not want the tail he wanted the deer. As the man pulled the deer past Doc he latched onto the deer. The man was pulling Doc and the deer up the hill. I then took Doc and put him in the truck.

Congratulations to Stanley and Doc!

Lucy (Patti) and her experience on real tracks

John and Jolanta

Just thought I would check in and get you up to date on Lucy's (Patti's) progress. I have been able to get her out on 5 "real" tracks so far. 3 of the 5 I knew where the deer were and had marked the route. The other 2 were blind tracks. She has managed to make it to the end of every track, some with a little more help than others, but we celebrated them all the same. The long and the sort of it is that it appears that her biggest shortcoming is her trainer. Each outing has provided a new experience and I have "learned" many of the lessons that John cautions about in his book. Her tendency is to work quite fast so our top priority right now is getting her to slow down. The only other issue is that she tends to pitch a fit whenever I go hunting and she doesn't get to come along (which isn't a bad thing unless its 4:30 a.m.). The bow season is just starting to pick up so I anticipate having more opportunities to get her out yet this fall. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Dan

An overnight blood track for Doc (Pushkin)

Those who follow this blog know that Doc's (Pushkin's) interest in blood tracking came later than with other pups, but now at 5 months he is doing really well.

His owner Stanley wrote:
I laid a blood trail for Doc at 5:30 p.m. on August 29th. The trail was approx 300 yards long. Let it age overnight. It also came a rain during the night. I took Doc out at 7 a.m. on August 30th, we were walking down a logging road. I had laid the blood trail across this road the day before. When Doc got to the point in the road where I had crossed the road with the blood he hit the trail and was off. The trail I had laid was in weeds and underbrush that ranged from knee high to head high. At times I could not even see Doc and would have to drop the leash to get through the weeds myself. It took Doc about 20 to 25 minutes to work this blood trail to the end. Doc is only 5 months old and this is the 2nd blood trail that I have aged overnight and Doc has successfully completed both trails. Also I have laid a trail that was approx. 1/4 mile long and aged it about an hour. Doc completed it in approx. 15 minutes I try to work with him once or twice a week depending on my work schedule. I AM VERY PROUD OF DOC.

Sam's progress in blood tracking training

Lincoln Anderson from Quebec writes:

Here are a couple of pictures taken when I was with Alain Ridel. I really enjoyed my encounter with Alain; he's a real nice guy and I learned a few things from him which should improve my tracking. Sam did a good job, but as I mentioned I have to talk a bit louder when I encourage Sam. Yesterday I did another blood trail he did very well. There was one spot where I had put the blood trail across a deep ditch, Sam had a little trouble but what I had noticed is that he always came back to his last point where he had scented the blood. That I found very interesting. I thought in a situation like that I would have to bring the dog back to the last sure point of blood. Anyway back to the ditch I helped Sam across and from there he went on his merry way to find the deer skin.

Next week I will be going to a camp which is about two hours from Quebec City and I will be doing another couple of blood trails with Sam. I'll try to get this on film if I can get my hands on a camera.

I also included a few pictures of Sam I took today. He's up to 17lbs in good health.

Breeders' satisfaction - P-pups at 4.5 months show a lot of talent

Yesterday Poppy left for a new home in northern Texas. Derek Harris is a wildlife biologist, and Poppy will have a lot of opportunities for blood tracking.

We are going to miss her -- she stayed here longer than other pups, and we got to like her a lot. She was not as precocious as some of her siblings but in the last few weeks she showed a great potential for tracking. Maybe it was just a coincidence but when Poppy found herself as a hunter, she started to stand up to Paika. A week ago two of them had a pretty bad fight. We don't know how it started but it did not end pretty. Neither of them was willing to submit, and we had to separate them. From that moment they became enemies. Even last night when Derek was leaving with Poppy and we let them loose in a room, there was a lot of tension, their tails were up and I had to pick up Paika as they were ready for another confrontation.

We wish Derek and Poppy well, and we are really happy to see young people becoming involved in blood tracking!

Today I got a phone call from Stanley Thrasher, who actually was planning to get Poppy but ended up taking Pushkin (Doc). Stan is an experienced dog man and he knows hunting hounds. It was great to hear how pleased he is with Doc, who became an important part of Stanley's family. In spite of hot summer weather in Alabama, Stanley manages to train Doc 2-3 times a week; he does it early in the morning and late in the evening. He called to report that the other day Doc did well on a ten-hour-old line laid in the morning and aged through the day, and today he tracked a quarter-mile-long line, which was pretty fresh. Initially Stanley had some problems with Doc's possessiveness of the deer tail that Stanley puts at the end of line. But now he got some really tasty treats from a vet, and Doc is ready to give up the tail in exchange for treats.

Stanley also came up with a good solution how to deal with fire ants getting on deer parts used as reward at the end of line:

"Just about everyone has a broken fishing rod around there house somewhere. Sharpen the end of the fishing rod so you can stick it in the ground. Take a piece of fishing line and tie it to the 2nd from the tip eyelet , then take the other end of fishing line and tie it to the 4th or 5th eyelet and tighten the line to make the fishing rod bow. Then take a piece of fishing line and tie it to the tip of the fishing rod and drop it down to make it face level with the puppy and tie a treat at the end of it. Then if your still having trouble with fire ants get just a little bit of insect spray and put some of it at ground level around the fishing pole. This should be enough to keep the fire ants off the pole and preserve the treat for the puppy. "

Recently we also heard from Lincoln Anderson who owns Sam (Petrus). He wrote: "Sam is doing very well. I laid a few more blood trails and he still has his concentration a 100% on the line. According to my knowledge on tracking and what I have read Sam is doing his job and more. This weekend I will meet Alain Ridel at Granby. He will bring down some moose blood and hide. Alain will set up a moose blood trail on Saturday and we will see how Sam makes out. I’m sure he will do ok, and this will also be a test for me to see if I’m reading my dog right and how I’m handling my end of the rope." (Alain Ridel owns Theo, a sire of P-litter.)

Well, so far we could not be happier with this litter. When we bred to Theo we took some chances as it was his first litter. Sometimes excellent individuals don't nick well, but the Theo/Keena combination looks really good!

Puppies open on a rabbit for the first time - they are spurlaut!

Today we had another wet day. Yesterday Albany received 2.5 inches of rain, and July 2009 was the wettest July on record. Well, rain or no rain, puppies need exercise so today while we had a light drizzle, I took the two pups out. I did not expect that rabbits would be out, but at the end of our walk I noticed a small rabbit sitting on the edge of the path.

Paika picked up the rabbit scent quickly and opened on it. By then the rabbit was gone and she never saw it. Poppy followed and was opening too. This was like a music to my soul. Not all dachshunds open on rabbits so hearing pups voice at four months is a treat!


There are three articles on spurlaut in dachshunds posted on our website and they are worth reading - go to http://www.born-to-track.com/our-writing.htm

Puppies' night out at the local concert - a rabbit in attendence

Today Theo and Keena's pups are four months old. Paika and Poppy have grown and they must be around 14 lbs now. They are a handful. Poppy will be leaving us in two weeks for her new home in Texas. We will certainly miss her!

Tonight we went to a local concert - the Georgie Wonders Orchestra was playing at the Guilderland Performing Arts Center (GPAC) at Tawasentha Park. The orchestra plays the music from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, including Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra and others. We thought it was a great opportunity to take pups along and let them socialize. Oh boy, we were for a big surprise!

Ten minutes into the concert a woman came with a RABBIT on the leash. The rabbit was wearing a harness, and it looked like it was not its first time on the town. John and I just could not believe our eyes. Luckily, we did not have any other dogs, besides pups, with us. I know how they would have reacted to the rabbit.

Paika and Poppy were not too close to the rabbit and did not realize its presence. And it was a good thing!

Summer days and puppies

The last few days have been busy. Dean Davenport came to breed his dachshund Elka to Billy. Elka is our Sabina's granddaughter. Just when Dean and Bruce were leaving, Beth and Gentian Shero from Deer Search came to visit with their two young dachshunds, Mae and Mariel, two sisters, who also are Sabina's granddaughters. Paika and Poppy had a chance to socialize and play. Mae loves to swim and Poppy and Paika joined her in the pond.

Also our neighbors, Paula and Kevin with their kids Logan and Mackenzie, tried to fish in our pond. Logan got a nice catfish, which you can see in the picture.

Paika, the wunderkind

It does not happen too often but every few years or so a puppy comes along that is so full of promise at a very young age. Paika, the wunderkind, has a right conformation, great temperament and tracking potential. We are happy... at least for now.

Patti and her sisters, Poppy and Paika

We got a nice update on Patti from Dan Davis from Wisconsin:

"Just checking in to let you know how things are going with Patti. Today we ran a 200 yard bloodline that aged 4 hours. This is the second one of these we have done. Last week when we tried the same set up, she struggled staying focused after the first 50 yards or so. She drifted pretty severely and eventually got to the end, but was not at all precise. Today she did much better. I believe the weather played a part as it was much cooler today than it was during last week's track. I put some treats on the line and offered more encouragement. That might have helped some too. She went past the one turn in the line, but corrected herself and picked the line back up. Just for fun I took the very end of the line across a paved walking path with a lot of blood all of the way across. She was unable to make it across the path and it seemed to break her concentration because I had a little trouble getting her focused once we picked the trail up on the other side. I realize what I was asking her to do, but just wanted to see how it would go. Overall I was very satisfied with the track.

We're still not doing great with the house training, but we're trying. We can tell when she has gone in the house based on her body language when she comes around us so we are hopeful that is a step in the right direction. Guess we need to watch her closer even though several times we have taken her out only to have her go shortly after we bring her back in.

We feel like you did a great job fitting her with our family. Basic obedience is going well and she has been very easy to care for. Bow season is only 7 weeks away, we should be able to get her out on some real "tracks" and are excited for that!"


Yesterday we worked a blood line with Poppy, and the video clip showing it is posted here. Few days ago, when Joeri dispatched the woodchuck we trapped in John's garden, we used it for doing a drag for Paika. It was a long drag, over 200 yards, and we worked her on it 12 hours later (overnight). She had problems with picking up the scent at the beginning, but once she recognized it, she followed the drag without any problems. Today P-pups are 16 weeks old.

Poppy with a dead pigeon placed at the end of blood trail.

Few pictures of Poppy

Today I snapped few pictures of Poppy. The first one shows her with her mom Keena.

Poppy is getting better with every day so we probably just should assume that she has not been as precocious as her littermates. We will hold on to her for a while longer as we are really enjoying her, but there is no way that can keep her permanently as Paika is the one who is going to stay here. Decisions...decisions...decisions...

Update on Petrus (now Sam)

Last night we received a nice e-mail from Licoln Anderson, owner of Petrus, whose new name is Sam.

I just thought I’d give you an update on Sam. I ran two blood lines from 60 and 100 meters with two turns in each blood line. My third and fourth line were liver drags, one at 120 meters and tonight close to 200 meters. I have to say that Sam is right on the button. When he comes to a sharp turn in the blood trail he will circle around for a second and when he picks up the sent he looks back at me as if to say - let's go I’m back on track. Today I dragged the liver through a fresh deer bedding to see how he would react. So far Sam does not lose his concentration on a blood line but I’m sure there will days he’ll be distracted by fresh rabbits, deer, moose tracks.

We were in Sudbury, Ontario on the 4th of July for a family reunion and he loves the water and gets along great with young kids, other dogs and the adults. As I mentioned the other day on the phone he loves to dig holes, eat my flowers, lettuce and cucumber plants, munch on water bottles. Here are a few pictures of the blood line I did today and some pictures of Sam in a swim meet.

Swimming puppies -- dachshunds who love water

Today we have a gorgeous summer day, warm and sunny, without even one cloud. It was a great opportunity to take our two pups to the pond. Paika and Poppy are natural swimmers, and they love water. Not only they swim but actually they play in the pond. But then, they are just puppies after all.

Saying good-bye to Pushkin

Today we said good-bye to Pushkin who left with Stanley and Clarice Thrasher for his new home in Luverne, Alabama. Initially Stanley wanted a female but in his priorities he put dog's performance over gender. So instead of taking Poppy, he chose Pushkin, who right now is doing better in tracking than Poppy.

We like Pushkin (his new name is going to be Doc) a lot and believe that Stanley's decision is a right one.

Good luck Stanley - stay in touch!

Four Pound Woodchuck with a Death Wish

These are two versions of the same story:

Jolanta’s version

I did not have a chance to get my second cup of coffee today when an unexpected visitor caused some disturbance. While washing dishes in the kitchen I heard the four puppies who were louder than usually. I can see their large yard from the kitchen window so I called them but nobody came to the gate. I knew that something was up.


John was pulling weeds in the garden nearby but he did not seem to pay attention to what was going on in the puppy pen. I had to go to investigate. There is a wooden platform in the puppy yard where they can lie in the sun, but all the pups were underneath the platform barking. Some pups were coming out but they would go under the platform right back. There was a lot of commotion and noise. I started to lift the heavy platform and called John at the same time. I peered under the platform and could see that pups had something there. As it turned out a young woodchuck must have gotten into the pups’ pen, got chased under the platform where he was cornered by the pups.

It was really surprising how ferocious these three month old pups were. I could not see as I was holding the platform but John swears that he saw Paika with her teeth in the woodchuck. Actually all the pups were very aggressive towards the chuck and towards one another once the chuck was removed. They were really fired up. Watch the video clip to see their excitement.



John’s version

The puppies (there are four of them left now) were barking, barking, barking. Clearly it was more than a puppy disagreement. Then Jolanta began to yelp too. “There’s something under the wooden platform! The puppies are going after it. They are going to get hurt!”

We lifted up the platform in the big puppy pen, and there was a young woodchuck with the puppies swarming around him. Attached to the chest of the woodchuck was 14 week Paika, oblivious to the dangers that Jolanta was foreseeing. With so much good puppy help it was an easy matter to tail the chuck and lift him above the fray.

The chuck was somewhat the worse for his uninvited venture into the puppy pup, so we asked Tom vom Linteler Forst to finish things off. He had never seen a chuck before, but he knew what to do. These German dogs have a lot in their ancestral memory.

Not wanting to waste the dead chuck, we used him later as an a dragged alternative to liver drags and blood trails that we had been using to train and evaluate puppies.

Paika is following John after a successful completion of the woodchuck scent trail.

Puppies work a deer liver drag

Today our forecast called for more rain, and indeed we got several thunderstorms and huge downpours throughout the day. As I am writing this post at 9 pm, we have standing water in our garage, mudroom and my office. However, in the morning there was a short window of opportunity to work the pups so we did.

This time I did a liver drag for the pups in our 12 acre enclosure. The pups are very familiar with other places around our house, and the field in the enclosure gave us fresh ground to work them. The line was long, around 170 yards, which is at least double of what they have done on blood so far. There were four turns, and a big chunk of liver was placed at the end. The temperature in shade was in the low 70s and rising. Parts of the line were exposed to the sun.

I ran Poppy first on the drag, when the scent line was an hour old. Poppy knew where the line was and never overshot it or lost it. Her work was quite slow and precise. However, her problem was weak motivation and desire - she needed a lot of encouragement to make progress. The good news was that she went nuts over the liver, and was extremely possessive of it. This is going to be a good motivational tool for Poppy.

The second pup was Grock. His desire was excellent and he was very fast. One time he was distracted when I praised him but was able to go back to the line by himself. The second problem he encountered when he was just 15 yards from the liver. He turned left instead of going straight. It did not look like he was going to correct himself and I had to bring him back. His loved the liver but was not as possessive of it as Poppy was.

The third pup running the line was Paika. On the last two lines she got the lowest scores but this time she aced it. She was a bit sloppy, but her desire was strong, and she never needed to be encouraged or corrected.

The last pup was Pushkin who did the best of all the pups on the last two lines. By now the scent line was two hours old. He started very well; he was precise, slow, methodical. But he lost his focus on the last leg of the line (last 1/3rd) and needed a lot of help there. He liked the liver but it was not too difficult to take it from him. He looked tired at the end of the line.

Since Poppy seemed to be so motivated by the liver at the end, we ran her on the same line second time. This time scenting conditions were more difficult. The line was trampled by other pups, was much older, around 2.5 hours old, and it was getting hot. As I suspected her desire to track was much stronger this time. Her work was not as clean as the first time around, she veered off the line some but she was able to correct herself and did not need any help. Several times she stopped for a moment and looked at us but this time we did not say anything and ignored her. She resumed her tracking right away. Again, once she got to the liver she wanted to devour it. When we tried to take it from her, she growled and snapped. This kind of behavior can be corrected but this possessiveness provides a good foundation for motivating Poppy to track.

All the pictures included show Poppy on her first track.

Observations from the field - puppies are starting to hunt

We are down to four puppies - Grock, Paika, Poppy and Pushkin. It is hard to believe that just three weeks ago there were 15 of them! As you can see the last three weeks have been very, very busy meeting pups' new owners. Within next 12 days two more pups will be leaving.

Yesterday was the first time in a while when I could spend quite a bit of time with the pups. Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating. It was way too wet for blood tracking, but I managed to take pups to the pond. They have not been there for a while, and I was surprised at their reaction. It looks like P-pups love the water! Pushkin went in right away in a spot where water is quite deep; he swam away and after a while started to have problems. I had to get into the pond and help him some. Luckily, I did not have camera with me so there was no damage done. Pushkin did not get traumatized, but now he may have second thoughts about swimming so far on his own. Poppy and Paika were swimming too; Grock did not mind to wet his feet but I did not see him going into the deeper water.

In the afternoon we had a huge loud thunderstorm, just when puppies were snoozing in their crates. When the rain stopped and it started to dry, I took them out for a long walk. Once they hit our freshly mowed lawn in front of the house, they put their noses to the ground and started to hunt. There must have been a lot of fresh scent left there by rabbits because the pups clearly were following some scent lines. They are precocious little hunters, that's for sure. When we went to our 11-acre enclosure, it was still very wet and water was dripping. Pups did not mind running into the thick brush, where they got completely wet. Their noses were glued to the ground and if the scent let into dense cover, they were not concerned. This is a good experience for them. All in all a good day in spite of the bad weather.

After the walk we came to the house, where pups dried in the kitchen. I cut two apples for them, which they devoured, and then gave them two more to play with. Grock claimed one of them and almost ate the whole thing.