Freddie is a Champion!

Championat!! Found out today that Freddie received a 1st prize in open class at the Tax camp in Bassholma. This closed Freddie's blood tracking championship (SEVCH)! Freddie-Fallilou du Sangre Bleu- is a son of Kobeddus Effendi and Canaille de la Meute a Cheops. LZ: Sfk, Sp, BhFK/95, BHP1&2, I-Schwhk, I-Schwk/40(CACT), I-Fbja(resCACT), I-BHFK95(100pts), S-grytprov Kval 1, S-Schwhk 3x1st prize
FW: Ex1 JBob, int. Ex1 VDH-CAC
Many thanks to judges E. Hörnfeldt Ahlin & J. Nilsson for their time and judgement.

So proud to have all three dogs in the family complete Championships! Such a great group of dogs to work with. 😊

Freddie at 4 months and his first tracking practice

Freddie at 3 years old and 5 years old below

Skåne Blekinge Taxcamp

Sorry for the long delay, but there hasn't been too much to report. Baxter returned home on the 28th of June and then from the 11th til the 19th Kennel Barbwired was in Sweden doing tracking trials with Baxter's brother and 2 of Liina's full uncles. They had great success and ended up with 5 new titles for the boys: 3x SEVCH (Swedish Tracking Champion), 2x FICH! Now their first breeding bitch Iiris (Baxter' s mom and Liina's grandmother) has 5 Working Champions out of her 11 total puppies: Austria-MultiCH/Winner, SEVCH, IT Working CH; Andau-FIJVA (Finnish tracking CH), SEVCH & Drevprov (Mäaj-1); Amadeus-SEVCH, FICH; Better than the Rest-MultiCH, SEVCH & multi-working trial; Blaze of Glory-SEVCH, FICH. Quite an accomplishment for such a small number of dogs from a relatively young kennel! Grattis! Onnea! Congrats guys!

Team Barbwired: Salla with Viljo, Markku with Max(left) & Pronto (right)
More info on any of the Barbwired dogs, check them out HERE

So this was my last week at work before a short holiday. I wasn't going to take holiday this year, but the weather in Sweden has been SO cold and rainy, that I needed to get away for a little bit. On Thursday my vacation started bright and early by driving up to Bassholma for the Skåne Tax Camp. It was the 1st time this camp was being held and, overall, everything was well organized and went smoothly. 

I spent my days at gryt training with Baxter-who hasn't been in the den since last year- and doing Permodjur with Freddie and Baxter.

Swedish gryt

The bear (Björn), Wild boar (Vildsvin) and Moose(älg)

Basically the Permodjur is a reaction test. The dog is put into a fenced in area with a bear, boar, or moose for upwards of 20 minutes to see how they react. The animals move via remote control, the pelts are all real, and all of the animals have scent. We thought it would be stimulating for the boys and just fun to try. Would I ever put them up against a real bear... no. I would also avoid the boar as they are usually a lot quicker than dachshunds, but with the Permodjur, it is a fun activity and the dogs leave unhurt.

Freddie was the real star! He is persistent, unafraid, but smart about how he works. He also can go, go, go! The 1 day that Freddie and Simon attended the camp he had 2 tests (one on bear, one on wild boar) and a tracking trial. He was awesome, but led to a very tired Freddie. 

Baxter also did well, but he isn't the natural hunter that Freddie is and he is a bit slower for the lightbulb to click on. When it does click, he shines, but he is slowly becoming a more self confident dog. He barked up the bear, but at a much further distance than Fred, and today he went in on the boar. He was slow to start and admittedly was more likely to go chase and bay at the boar when it was moving. He also did SO much better on the badger this year, working right against the bars a couple more practices and maybe a 1st prize is in his future...we will see.

For those interested, here are short clips of Freddie's boar and bear tests.

Mission Accomplished!

So June was a good month all around... well, except for the weather! Swedish summer has yet to appear and as of yesterday, it was still totally necessary to wear a jacket to work. WTF Sweden!?!?!

End result of this day... CAC, CACIB, BOB, BIG1 :)

So one great thing... Baxter is home! Oh how I missed my fuzzy boy! Don't get me wrong, I love Liina and Freddie, but Bax and I have a special bond. Liina is not especially happy that he is home. They play and wrestle, but she constantly patrols the kitchen and any food bowl on the floor (empty or full) is hers. We are working on her guarding. I can take things away with no problems, but she is a true bitch to both Bax and Freddie in this respect. She is still young and we are working on it.

2x Barbwired dogs... one standard and one mini

 I also did something for myself this month... I took a course, practiced, and studied my butt off for the Swedish Hunting Exam. It was a lot of firsts; learning about Swedish hunting laws, learning European animals, of which I had NO idea of the Swedish names, though sometimes I knew the German, not that it helped me, and learned to shoot a shot gun and a 308 class 1 rifle. As I am a true beginner, I didn't always put the guns flush to my shoulder, resulting in some gnarly bruises now. The written/theory portion for me was ok. I can learn and understand laws and facts fairly quickly (thanks to a bajillion years of schooling), but I was nervous about the shooting since it wasn't something that I could practice or learn on my own at home. I was a bit down after our 2nd session at the shooting range the day before the exam. I seemed to do ok on the rifle, but the stupid clay pigeon shooting, ugh. I felt hopeless. My class was small and a nice group of people, me and 4 guys. I said our class sounded like a bad joke, " An American, an Irishman, an Englishman, an Aussie, and an Italian walk into a bar..." Anyhow, the guys all had previous shooting experience, two of which having served in the military. After inconsistently shooting clay pigeons for 2 days, I thought I was getting the hang of it, but nope. Final practice and I was stuck with a "score" of 3/6, just not enough. I was discouraged but reminded myself that tomorrow was another day.

So on Sunday we traveled up to Markaryd to take our theory and practical exams. The theory exam was ok and consisted of 70 questions, which we were allowed to have translated. I think I could have done ok on the test even without the translation. Once it was confirmed that we had all passed with at least 60/70 questions correct (we all scored much higher than that), we were allowed to go for the practical test. It consisted of several parts. I and 2 of the guys were up first on the shotgun. We first had to pass a gun safety test, in which we had to pretend we were on a hunt and come up to several obstacles, such as a river, fences, people out in our hunting area. Once we had been approved, we could go shooting. The first shooting test was on a running hare. We had to get a minimum of 8 pellets into the target area. Then off to another gun safety area where we had to determine if the various animals that "popped up" were close enough to safely shoot and (hopefully) kill. All of these tests were fine and we all got our cards signed off with no issues. The final test was the clay pigeons. We were given 6 rounds of shot and had to hit 4 of 6 clays. I was so nervous as this was definitely my worst area (though not horrible). We did one round and it felt good. I hit about 8 of 12 clay pigeons and decided that there was no time like the present and to just go for the test. Well, it was awesome. I think I hit 11 of 12 clay pigeons! I was so elated that I ran to my instructor afterwards to give him a bit hug! I was so excited that not only had I passed the theory portion, but I could now officially hunt with a shotgun (my favorite). :) Next it was onto rifle shooting. We performed gun safety again and then I was the first in the group to take gun safety and start shooting. We did precision shooting with a 22 calibre rifle, then onto the moose. For this the moose is about 80-100m away standing. Once the first shot hits, the moose begins running, then stops, turns around and runs again. You have to shoot the moose while both standing and running and hit within the target 4 times in a row and then complete 3 sessions of this. There are 9 chances to complete it. It was my last test of the day and I was tired. My first 2 rounds were flawless and after a short break, I finished... passing all aspects of my hunting exam!

Booyah!

I am now licensed to hunt in Sweden! Now to just wait until deer hunting season!