At today's agility trial in Walnut, California, Olive again qualified on the Excellent B Standard course! Five seconds under SCT, she now needs just 36 more of the 750 points required to become a Master Agility Champion!

FC Autumn Olive von Dorndorf VCD1 TD CD RE MX MXJ NF, owned by John Willmore (handling) and Diane Webb, was 10 seconds under Standard Course Time at the agility trial in Walnut, California today! So she earned 10 more points toward the Master Agility Champion title bringing her grand total to 709. She needs 41 more points! Go Olive, GO!!

George Richards was a long-time dachshund enthusiast and highly accomplished trainer. Phenomenal, really, that George did not train his first dog until he was 59, yet he and his dachshunds earned the first AKC Tracking Dog Excellent title ever awarded to any breed, multiple advanced Obedience titles, and also, when George was 98, an Obedience High in Trial!

From "History of Tracking Events" on the AKC website, "This advanced test, called Tracking Dog Excellent, was approved by the AKC in 1979 and became effective on March 1, 1980. The first TDX dog was a Dachshund, Gretel Von Bupp Murr UD, who passed the Tracking Dog Excellent Test on March 15 of that year. This dog was owned and handled by George Richards of Sun City Center, Florida."

I consider myself fortunate to have met George and his last dachshund Hummel, a longhair, at an obedience training seminar hosted by Gail Binder in Rochester, NY in 2005. George was 94 at the time and had traveled from Maryland with his son for the event. I found it inspiring to be around someone like him!

Today, I have added two articles about this amazing man on the George Richards page. One of the items, written by Tracy Freeling, contains a link to a video of a qualifying advanced Obedience performance with Hummel in 2009. George was nearly 99 years old!

I understand that Hummel is now living with George's son. May George and his dachshunds meet again.

We have known that we need new bloodlines. When we were told of some planned spring litters in Denmark and Sweden that might be of interest to us, John Willmore and Diane Webb of California planned their two week Scandinavian business trip accordingly. Their itinerary included visits to Kennel Tranevang in Denmark, Hound's Kennel in Sweden, and Chirribi's on the Swedish isle of Gotland. They came away with a puppy from the oldest litter. She is 14 week old Chirribi's Bossa Nova Baby, call name Bossa (long "o"). Bossa was bred by May-Gun Bandinge who is an Elvis fan and chose an Elvis theme for naming this litter. Both of Bossa's parents were bred by Marie Gadolin from whom I imported Kasi in 2002.

Weighing 9 pounds at 14 weeks, Bossa was the smallest puppy in the litter which was a big (ha!) plus. Active and friendly, her Volhard test scores were good and she seemed to want more attention from the visitors than her littermates did. It will be a long time before her talents become well known but she has a great deal of potential. That is the most that may be said of any youngster at this age.

Bossa's father, SE U(V)CH Hound's Uncle Sam is a son of Nexus' brother Nick. Her mother is SE U(V)CH Hound's Mercedes . Asti says she thinks they may keep her. Olive is not so sure yet. I look forward to meeting this girl!

Dual-registered with AKC and the DTK and born on this date in 2004, the litter of seven by SUvCH NUvCH SvCH FC Hound’s Kashmir (Sweden) x FC Marta v Dorndorf L JE LH is the most accomplished litter I have ever bred. They are (in alphabetical order with males listed first per DTK tradition):

ABS5 FC Alpine Owl von Dorndorf TD JE NA OAJ SchwhK SchwhKF BHP-G Wa-T, Patricia Nance
ABS FC Apache Otter von Dorndorf (Lost from his new home at 3 years, I pray that Otter is alive and well.)
ABS7 FC Audi Oslo von Dorndorf, Stan Knoll
Axel Odin von Dorndorf, tracks and recovers wounded deer in North Carolina, Stan & Alicia Wenner

ABS5 FC Annie Ochre von Dorndorf TDX, Laura Knoll
ABS FC Arlina Ossie von Dorndorf RE AXJ BHP-2, called Asti, John Willmore and Diane Webb
FC Autumn Olive von Dorndorf VCD1 TD CD RE MX MXJ Wa-T BHP-G, John Willmore and Diane Webb

• Six of the seven are Field Champions.
• Five of the seven have won at least one Absolute.
• Odin is doing a superb job of recovering wounded deer for hunters.
• Oslo has this spring surpassed his grandmother FC Ilsa v Dorndorf L as the winningest longhair in US field trial history.
• Owl is the first and only longhair in the US to earn DTK blood-tracking titles AND was Absolute Winner at his first field trial in an entry of 157 dachshunds.
• Ochre was Absolute at the 2008 DCA National Field Trial AND earned Tracking Dog Excellent at the 2011 DCA National, the first TDX test she and her young owner ever entered.
• Olive is very nearly a Master Agility Champion.

Laura Knoll has been Ochre's owner and handler since Ochre was nine months old and Laura was seven. All the accomplishments, awards, and titles are really great, but Laura's relationship with Ochre and their amazing teamwork is the breath of life for breeders like me. Here is what dear Laura posted on Facebook: "My baby girl turned eight years old! She has been such a blessing in my life and I thank God, her breeder, and my parents for allowing us to be so successful in our seven years of running together! She became a Field Champion at about two years old and has led me to winning five Absolutes, with one being the National Absolute in 2008. [I've made a link to a good article on the AKC website.] And two tracking titles; Tracking Dog and Tracking Dog Excellent. Ochre has taught me so many things about field trials and has let me travel all over the States. She is one of the best things that has happened to me! Happy Birthday Ochre and your litter mates!!!"

Well, the bad news from Stan Knoll is that ultrasound done in Mississippi this morning showed that Babe is not pregnant. No little Owlets for us this summer. Needless to say, this is very disappointing. I very much expected that Babe would be expecting.

The good news is that there have been a couple of standard longhaired litters born overseas this spring that hold a lot of interest for me. I am grateful that there still are a number of breeders who think "dachshund" means much more than "show dog" and remember it in their breeding decisions! (You all know who you are.) In that vein I extend deepest thanks to the Knolls for their willingness to have pups this summer even though it did not work out that way this time.

I have not been a particularly big fan of Patricia McConnell. But on my exercise bike this morning I began watching her two-DVD presentation, "Dog Play." I got it half-price somewhere and have had it for months but had never opened the package. If the first 30 minutes are indication, it is excellent. "Define play", "Self-handicapping", "Winning", "Play differences between the sexes"...Many species are included in the slew of video clips. Including one of rats apparently laughing in play which was unknown until a behaviorist converted the sounds that they make to a frequency that we can hear. VERY interesting stuff!