Woof Woof Woof

I was at a show today, and it was not fun at all. I am so happy to be home and resting in my new bed. Fay and Stig were apparently happy with my discomfort at the show, so they bought me a new dog bed. And all I won was a pink rosette, how gay is that? I sometimes hump dogs to show them I'm boss, but I'm not gay, it's what we dogs do to tell the other dog not to bend over and pick up the soap in the shower. It's not gay. But at least I got the pink rosette, most didn't get anything. Some long-haired beauty of a dachsie told me it means that I was winner quality but someone else was a tad bit better today. I ended up fourth of the male dogs, and I'm barely a year old. That's a bit like a 13 year old winning a beauty pageant for grown-ups. So I guess I'm sexy for my age, even if I got a gay rosette, I wonder which dog in the Village People I am. I think I am the hunky cowboy on the left in this shot or maybe the black'n tan in the middle. (I won two red ribbons (1st prize JK and JKK) and one pink ribbon (CK)).

But this is what I like... to be out in the snow and run in nature. I luv it! Dog Shows suck!

We have had winter here the last week, with lots and lots of running in the snow. It's been fun, fun and SUPERFUN. Yesterday I was out running for four hours in the snow. Supercool! Tomorrow is more ring-training, going to the dog show at Bønes this weekend. There will be 20 wire-haired standard there so it'll be tough. But I'm there to check out hot dachsie-ladies and if I get a prize that's just a bonus.

Winter! Winter! Winter is approaching, and making little freezing attacks on us. Do you know how much fun snow can be? Running through snow so it splashes about! Digging in snow! Sliding along the snowy path! Winter's coming. Let's chase the bunnies dressed up as snow.

But Autumn is still fighting back with heavy rain, sleet and being miserable. But I have a good wiry coat, so bring it on! I can take rain, I can take snow, I can take it! I was built for this terrain! But I also like to sleep in front of the fireplace.

In other news I have a tendency to disappear for while if I get out of hearing distance, so Stig is pondering on getting a gps-tracker for me. Just to calm his nerves and bloodpressure so I don't get stuck in the cold darkness chasing prey. It's a bit expensive, but since Stig is a geek he can excuse it on gadgetmania. Pondering on the Garmin Astro which should be sufficient in distance for the coast.

I must admit I have been a lazy bum at telling how things have been going. But I live NOW and I like to play, run, sleep and eat when I want it. Anyway, what has been happening in my world?

I've been doing more blood tracks, I am now doing 15-16 hour old tracks, which is because it's dark at four o'clock. Stig disappears in the afternoon and I get to track the next morning. It's been fewer tracks lately, but I think there'll be more. I am in puberty now and some days I just don't obey anything, unless I want to. I also seem to forget things I used to know. Can Alzheimers strike such young and dashing dachsies? My hunting instinct seems to be coming along, and I don't discriminate, I will hunt everything and anything non-dog and non-human. 400kg horse, no problem, horsies are prey for a fit dachsie. Stig is not so keen on me hunting horses though. I can't see a problem with it. They are fair game.

I also got into a fight with an older dachsie, Daxán. He invaded my space and we clashed. But the sneaky BASTARD attacked me later when we were on neutral ground. Those shorthaired black'n tan dachsies are not to be trusted. In the second run-in when he was sneak-attacking I couldn't put my sharp teeth into him, so I lost some skin from my ear. Spent the rest of the day with the torturist (vet) and got some stitches. I was supposed to go to a dog show the next day but Stig said I was to sleep and regain my strength. A pity I didn't get to see my sisters and brothers, they all got 1st prizes which was all the judge gave to puppies. We'll see what it'll be next time, I'll have to show off on the stage one time. Fay needs to teach me show-fu!

I also attended a second class of obedience and I think I was better than the spaniels, which is cool because those dogs keep sucking up to their owners. I just do it when I want to. Suckers! We're making progress and we'll keep on training, and I miss Fay and Stig when they're off working and when they come home I want to train, to play, to track, to run, to cuddle, and all sorts of activities with them. Too bad it's dark when they get home. At least there are weekends and the days that Stig works from home.

Besides that I'm a little rascal but I do it with style. Here's a little series with me and Fay. Enjoy

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!

Miss Reina had a nice list of things to put in the blog, so here goes.

1. Your age?
   - 4 months and almost three weeks
2. Your age when came to live with your people?
   - 8 weeks
3. What color is the collar you’re wearing right now?
   - No collar, but I have a brown leather one and a black and yellow paw one
4. Who is your favorite person other than the people you live with?
   - Stig's mum I think, but I like everyone!
5. How much do you weigh?
   - I am past seven kg already, all muscles and bones. Look at the map and norwegian nature, I need the muscles and exercise.
6. Most expensive thing you’ve ever chewed up?
   - Nothing major yet, but I am working on the sofa
7. Do you like other Dogs?
   - I love to play with them and hump them!
8. Who is your best non-human Friend?
   - I loved my cow so much that I bit him to death.
9. Squeaky Toys or Tennis Balls?
   - Squeaky toys aren't allowed in the house and they don't want me interested in small game, just deer. I am allowed a tennis ball for the fetch/apport training, and nothing else. Terriers can chase small game, I'm after the big ones!
10. Do you like to be brushed?
    - Brushing is ok, I also like to bite the brush
11. Peanut Butter or Cheese?
    - Cheeeeeeese! What are peanuts? What's butter?
12. Do your people cut your toenails?
    - When I doze off they cut them I think. I get so upset if they are close to my toenails with that cuttiethingie
13. Any formal education?
    - I have finished Fjellanger's puppy class and I am studying blood-tracking to become an official tracking dog.
14. Couch potato or Energizer Bunny?
    - I'll chase and kill that bunny because I am faster, meaner and more lethal, and then I'll be a couch potato for a day.
15. Five nicknames your people call you.
    - Turbo, Lille Venn (Little Friend), Little Beasty, Bad dog, Putin, Fliiink
16. What is your best trick?
    - LIGG (Lie Down), maybe KOM (COME) when Stig says it
17. Do you like kitties?
    - I hope they'll soon let me chase one of them. I really want to and I bark them out of the garden. My garden!
18. What did you have for breakfast?
    - Soaked dry food, and I also stole some raw liver that fell on the floor. I thought I only had raw liver in the forest, hmm. Maybe we'll do a track today!
19. Can you hunt (aka have you ever killed anything living)?
    - I cornered a hedgehog and held him in place till Stig came, I kill snails, spiders, flies and anything I can get my teeth into. I've also killed my plushy cow. We have hunted red deer, but we're not allowed to shoot deer this early in the season.
20. When & why was the last time you went to the V.E.T.?
    - When I was 16 weeks and got my second vaccine.
21. Where do you sleep at night?
    - The duvet in the guest room. It's insulting that I am sleeping in the guest room, I run this family. I am the Goddachs! Would Don Dachso Corleone accept sleeping in the guestroom? Stig calls it the office, but guests also sleep there.
22. Do you like to swim?
    - It's ok, but I prefer to paddle. Maybe when I have learnt fetch and we shoot a duck I'll swim out and get it.
23. Can you make puppies?
    - Only if I show my skill at a hunting test, dachsies aren't really meant/allowed to breed unless they show skills at tracking, hunting deer or den-hunting (badgers and foxes).
24. Do you give kisses?
    - I'm a licking dog!
25. Can you potty on command?
    - I refuse to obey such orders.
26. To Cuz or not to Cuz?
    - I tell cats a thing or two about what I'll do to their necks.

This picture is old, it shows the days when I was cute and everyone liked me. Now I am slowly moving into badboy status. Nothing like a badboy ruffledachsie with tons of energy! I think I humped all the other dogs at the puppy class. And today I jumped up and peed in the bed. And they thought I was houseclean. HAHAHAHA! Suckers!

This is what I look like most of the time, running, playing, running, playing, ... I am starting to like the fetch/retrieve/apport-game as I get to run. I also did a bloodtrail with Fay last weekend, so we're a team too. Me and Fay should spend more time in nature too, digging up roots, paddling and hunting wabbits. We tried today to track Stig, but that was not as fun as blood or deer. I have also discovered the joys of digging:

Of course I have only dug up the neighbour's flower bed. I get most upset if Stig and Fay try to put the dirt back. I will now apply for jobs as soil relocation engineer.

I will happily bark at cats and chase them. They run! I also bark at hedgehogs and sniff around for deer and mice in the forest. When I catch a fly I will also play with it. Sometimes I have the wickedness of a cat I think.

As any badboy will tell you, the essential trick is to get away with it all. This is my way of doing so. I look so guilty/innocent and they just have to forgive me. Could you resist this look?

As you might know, I live in a place called Norway. It is far to the north and is often confused by the illiterati with a place called Sweden. It's a big country, and the population density is about 0,03 dachises for each square kilometer (editor: assuming about 10000 dachsies based on registrations last five years, but might be the double). So there aren't that many of us here. But roughly half of the dachsies are ruffledachsies.

Wildlife in Norway is varied but not as exciting as many other countries, like Africa. I like to watch the tv about animals in Africa. I bark at them and they run. In Norway we are allowed to hunt many different animals, but since it's such a big country it varies what kind of animals are nearby. Dachsies excel at roe deer hunt, but we don't have roe deers where I live. But we have red deer (hjort or cervus elpahus) and they are very very shy, have excellent vision for movement and their ears are very sharp. And they have a lot longer legs than me. A challenge!

Three weeks ago, on a day with bad weather Stig took me with him and we went into the wet forest. It was damp, wet and it was drizzling. Definitely not dachsie weather. What's wrong with lying in front of the radiator Stig? Anyway, Stig spotted a deer on a glen at a distance and then started sneaking ahead towards it. The wind was going towards the deer, a 3-4 year old stag. The deer sensed us so it moved gently, but swiftly into the forest. Stig continued to where the deer had been and allowed me to sniff around. I found so many interesting smells. The deer had been chewing on a treestump, lying in the grass, eating, and of course pooing. So exciting. Stig allowed me to sniff all I liked for 10 minutes, then he urged me towards the forest where the deer had gone. Deer are sneaky fellows Stig said, they will outwit you. I was quiet, that's how it should be. We sneaked into the forest, me sniffing and trying to track it down. I found a place where a deer had been lying down after tracking for five minutes. Then Stig (who was still moving slowly and quietly) circled and went back where we had been. And this time the wind was right. There he was. The stag. We watched it 30m away for 3 minutes. Beautiful. then he must have sensed us as he slowly moved away to the forest on the other side. We moved slowly to where he started and I was allowed to track his fresh tracks. Stig whispered "Spooor" and I followed his tracks (instead of where I saw the stag), and Stig was noticeably happy. We tracked it into the forest where Stig lost sight of it. But I could smell it and found the way into the evergreen part. Stig thought that was it for the day but I found a spot where the stag had kicked up needles and earth. Stig was impressed, but enough was enough, I was only 13-14 weeks old so we ended while it was still fun. That night I dreamt of deer. Pity that Stig forgot the camera :(

When I am guilty I try to put on the best face possible, could you resist this?

This is a picture of me an my cow when he still had head. I bit it off eventually during a "kill-the-prey" game. So Stig sewed it up so now I have a headless cow.

Fay takes pictures of everything I do, even the unflattering things like peeing. Give me privacy!!! :O

It's hot in Norway. Hot! Hot! Hot! And then I'm not talking about dachsiegirls with summer fur, I'm boring enough to talk about the weather. It's so hot that eastern europeans give up fishing old shoes and instead go swimming in their boxers. But should I swim?

Water has gotten warmer though, it's very interesting and I must always check it out when we go for walks. I wonder why we always go for walks near lakes. It's not like this place is Finland, how about mountains? I'm a climber and I like to look down upon the world for obvious reasons. Anyway, I'm secure enough to put my feet into the water.

I am still a bit skeptical about the water, but it's getting easier as it gets warmer. It would be no problem if it was something to swim out for. Like a red deer, and their tracks smell yummie. Or even a dachsiegirl. But what the heck, I am doing this for the camera because I'm not gonna have it on me that I chickened out. I'm not yellow!

After they're done with their photo-op I can run free again. It's so good to run free. Fay and Stig are muttering about the mandatory leash and whether it applies when I am swimming, and whether they'll get a harness for me or wait till I've grown. I just want to be freeee!

So much is happening in my life and Fay has taken so many pictures of me. So Stig has decided that we should split the pictures up a bit, so this blog is about last weekend's trip to the mountain cabin. As you might know I am a nature dog, I don't fancy the town that much. The town's ok and all, and everyone loves to come over because I'm so cool and I get to chase pigeons and seagulls. However, I am truly myself when I run wild in nature.

PS - Miss Reina wanted to see more action-shots so I hope this is to her liking, and Daxán had a nice blog with action-shots too. Active Dachsies are good dachsies.

PS2 - also found another nice blog about Bella, a vorsteher puppy, that is also being raised to love nature and eventually to hunt birds. It's in norwegian and it's really good.

Last weekend we went to the cabin at 650m above sea level. The snow had just melted that week so the lake was still a bit icy. I raced around at the "seter", and Stig muttered something about being happy that there were no sheep yet so I could run free. What are sheep? Anyway, I love to run around and investigate things. Stig usually carries his WW2 medical bag to carry me in if I get tired. I'm a big dachsie, I don't get tired like small dogs do.

Of course, since I'm a big brave dog I am not afraid of a bit of ice or a cold lake. My fur is good and wiry so I'm fine. I'm not a labrador though, so I am not jumping into water all the time [yet]. I can eat more than a pack of labradors though, if only they would let me. But Fay and Stig don't want a sausage dog, even though sausages are yummie!

Of course there was snow up there too. Snow is fun, except when there was a snowstorm and I was eight weeks old and had to go out to pee and poo. When the weather is warm, snow is just cool. Cooool! Running in snow. Rolling in snow. I do it all!

At home I have dug up the entire flowerbed. Stig thinks I want to dig down to China, but hell no, they eat dogs there. I want to go to Vietnam and hunt VC in the tunnels as my friend Eugene has told me about. According to Eugene Dachsies were created by the US military during the Vietnam War to hunt VC in narrow tunnels. Of course this might be communist propaganda that Eugene was forced to listen to when he grew up in Soviet Russia. After all, we're german, not american.

After running around for awhile it's good to rest. Especially when outside. I like to rest close to the people that I own, Fay and Stig. And I keep my eyes open for any deer that might be in the area. But they usually don't go this far up in the mountains.