Tracking

Due to popular request I'll tell a little bit about tracking and how we train. As you might know, we dachsies are known as "the small all-rounder". We were originally bred for going into a den and tell a badger (dachs in german) or a fox who is boss. Dachsies are still used for this, my mother's sister (Extra) has a first prize at a den-test.

At some point someone realised that short legs could work wonders when chasing prey. This seemingly illogical conclusion was downright brilliant and ran contrary to everything humankind had so far been breeding dogs for. The classic breeding has been to breed fast long-legged dogs when they wanted to chase something. But a deer has no problems at all outrunning all dogs in deer terrain, despite dogs being quite fast. Wolves in a pack might prevail, but it's not efficient for human hunters to follow a pack for 20km through rough terrain. The superiority of the deer on his home turf is the essential part here, it doesn't take a deer long to realise that the small but annoying barking creature following it is slooow. The dachshund has a fine nose so with persistent tracking at his pace he will eventually get to where the deer is. So the deer will gently move along in the forest, offering hunters in position ample chance to shoot.

The third major use is as a tracking dog, both for wild animals alive, but also to track down wounded animals to stop their suffering. We're small tracking dogs at heart and we love to track down things. Tracking blood is a good way to train the tracking and the skills one gets can also be used for tracking wild game too, whether on a leash or chasing while barking ("løs på drevet halsende" is what in english?).

So I am training with blood tracks so that I can be used to track wounded animals, whether hit by a car or a non-perfect shot. We also track deer and we're consistently finding fresh deer tracks. This picture is of me, so eager to get out the gate and into the real world. I love being in the forest with the smells, and I can sense when a track is coming up. E A G E R.

Some dachsies are picky about rain and water. I am fine about it in the forest. I'll happily wade through a small creek in order to get what I want. Heck, sooo much smell in the forest on a rainy day. Of course I have an excellent wiry coat to protect me.

This picture is from halfway through the track, We had been tracking for awhile, and there was Fay. How did Fay suddenly appear in the track? Maybe she's been sniffing out the track too. I'm gonna beat her to the end! I am fast (look at my ear in the air) and I am eagerly pulling along on the lead. Following the scent of blood. Each little drop of blood is about 0,5m-1m apart, sometimes longer. Sometimes the track breaks off at an angle, sometimes they change height. But I looove to track.

Here's me again, concentrated, I know where I'm going now. I smell blood and I have a feeling I know what I'll find at the end. A deer's foot that Charlotte gave me! Thank you Charlotte, you rock! Also at the end of the track I get my favourite food, raw liver. If there was ever a gourmet restaurant for dachsies, then they would serve the liver blue.

I found the foot after 200m in roughish wet terrain, and I even crossed a well-used path. When they let me lose as reward I went and hid the foot. I'm getting awfully good at hiding things so that only I can find them. But they tricked me, they walked around and when I saw them near it I had to rush ahead and grab it before they got it. Afterwards we went home, me with the big prize!

And I carried it all the way home, almost a kilometer. Haha they've been trying to teach me "Hold" as part of the retrieve/fetch/apport-training, and I have been a bit sloppy. Not with game though, that's mine. I know how, I just need the motivation. It will take some work to turn me into an obedient retriever.

To fully understand how much work it is to carry a deer's foot so far, look at this picture for the size-difference. It's almost my size. I rock when I want to rock!

And when I got home I wanted to bring it with me inside. What's wrong with resting in front of the fireplace and chew on a deer's foot? Eh? I loooove deer!