Finally some competition!

Animalia or IHA St. Gallen 2009 dog show saw 11 members of the local appenzeller family on both days. Quite unexpectedly some dogs only came on one day or the other so we actually saw more dogs in one weekend than on all the other shows together. To sweeten the deal there were also a few non-competing visitors running around, one of them showing off his guide (seeing eye) dog skills.

Hanibal finished off the weekend with a second (of 3) and third place (of 5) among dogs, sweeping in for two more CAC titles and a reserve CACIB with excellent grades.

comments by I. Huber (DE)

unfortunately the handwriting is damn near illegible which makes it impossible to decipher some of her comments. Best effort below…

• Harmonisch aufgebauter Rüde
• Korr. geschnittene Kopf
• Braune Augen
• Kräftige Hals
• Feste Rücken
• Korr. ausgesetzte & getragene
• Korr. winkelung
• Harmonisch Bewegungablauf
• Stehhaar
• Richtige Abzeichen
• Havana braun
• V1, CAC, res. CACIB

comments by judge Alenka Černe (SLO)

• 2 y.o.
• Good type
• Nice head
• Good front
• v.w. angulated in front
• a bit straight behind
• Nice mover
• Good coat color and markings
• V1, CAC

frisbee demo

We took the Saturday afternoon off to walk around Appenzell and up to Seealpsee so Hanibal would at least get to enjoy a small part of the trip. Nice views, spotted some sweet skiing lines off Säntis if I ever return in winter. There’s still quite a bit of snow up there, making it possible to ski almost to the lake with careful route choice.

On Sunday we took off as soon as possible as we had a long drive back. Rather than going around through Germany again we went straight (well, in theory) through Austria, with a diversion through Liechtenstein for 5min where we were stopped by the swiss border patrol for obviously acting suspiciously by driving around a roundabout one too many times :)

Säntis

But the real navigational achievement was that we managed to take a different road in and out of St. Gallen each time :) We approached or left it from nearly all possible sides. Ohh, and I must not forget the absolutely heavenly food at Gasthaus Forst located among orchards in Kressbronn am Bodensee. It’s a not-so-short drive away from St. Gallen but absolutely worth it for the food alone. Highly recommended!

young bulls, playing

More photos in the gallery as usual. Feel free to browse.

After a few years of status quo on appenzeller-sennenhund.si I finally got the ball rolling again with a few face lifts, liposuction and botox injections. In other words I changed the look, content and structure of some sections of the website to bring it up to date :)

//tech stuff
Notice the use of Vista C-fonts (if you have them), general adherence to HTML strict doctype (not all sub pages have been updated yet though) and an attempt to get the entire thing off unnecessary markup. We’ll get there eventually :) //

Things are bound to change further in the coming days and weeks but nothing major is planned for the immediate future. I am hoping to eventually transfer everything over to my own server and wordpress to make things just a smidgen easier but for now it stays basically as it is.

All new content is dedicated to Hanibal (since he’s now a fully certified stud) :p and we’re ready to start showing him off anywhere there’s a chance to see a concentration of lady appenzellers. Next stop IHA St. Gallen.

I have recently learned that Frazier died of what seemed to be food poisoning on March 10th 2009. He was barely over a year old and is now buried at the new Archipelagos marine base in Ormos, Samos. He was by far the most lovable dog at the base and—unfortunately—one of the few things that kept many of the volunteer crew going.

The two of us didn’t have that many chances to spend time together but he sure made up for it. Our hike up Zizokampos and Ammoudia will remain a lasting memory, this little inbred mutt will be missed.

More photos and videos can be found in the memorial Facebook group.

See you little man, we’ll continue exploring!

And so Hanibal adds another CACIB, a CACA and a best of breed title to his pedigree.

Judge’s comments (Uschi Eisner, AT) with translation:

• Harmonisch aufgebaute Rüde (harmoniously built dog)
• Sehr schoner kopf m. typ Ausdruck (very nice head, m. type expression)
• helles Auge (bright eyes)
• havanafarben (havana colors)
• schön geformte Brust (nicely formed front)
• kräftige Knochen (strong bones)
• gute winkelung (good angulation)
• gut getragene Rüde (well carried dog)
• flottes Gangwerk (jaunty motion)
• angenehmes wesen (agreeable character)

(note there might well be mistakes in the transcript that make even less sense when translated, I tried my best)

photos below by Janja Lebar

Another year another dog show weekend for CACIB Ljubljana & CACIB Tromostovje 2009. From the start there needs to be a clarification. I largely agree with Jure on the subject of dog shows. Most dogs there are very cool, many people aren’t. It may sound harsh but I never understood how anyone could possibly care how much time and effort has been put into grooming, trimming, spraying, waxing, polishing, powdering, whitening etc. of dogs hair, nails, teeth and whatever else they can come up with.

Things like this shouldn’t happen:

Identity of the poor dog intentionally left unknown. This is one of three FCI approved show trims for a poodle.

Unfortunately though, dog shows are an inevitable part of breeding. Entirely understandable from the perspective of keeping a breed within desired parameters. I just don’t get how hair acrobatics is a part of those parameters.

Moving on…

Hanibal observing the procedure of the show & judge Satu Ylä-Mononen

This year we tricked Hanibal into his very first dog show appearance (came with his first proper shower as well) and although he did well he didn’t do really well. He just doesn’t feel comfortable being shown off for the judges. Oh well, I guess he’s not obsessing over it. Neither are we :)

weimaraner & pointer

Altogether Hanibal got himself the titles of SKVPM club champion, 3x CAC* SLO & 2x CACIB**

Dina only got to show her stuff on Saturday and she got SKVPM club champion, CAC SLO & BOB*** which means she walked out as the winner of the mother vs. son showdown for the best of breed title in the club special.

CAC = Certificate d´Aptitude au Championat
CACIB = Certificate d´Aptitude au Championat International de Beaute
BOB = best of breed

Judge’s comments for Hanibal

Otto Schimpf(AUT) breeder of Dogo Argentino

• Nice dog
• good head
• good colors
• doesn’t have ring training
• good front
• good line of the body
• correct type
• eye color acceptable depending on the hair color

Excellent grade

Béla Siklósi (HUN) breeder of Newfoundlands

• 1.5 years old
• elegant type
• correct size, bones
• nice head
• correct white
• correct front
• strong topline
• need more angulation behind
• nice movement

Excellent grade

Judge’s comments for Dina

Béla Siklósi (HUN)

• 5 years old
• correct size, bones
• little too long
• nice head
• correct
• little soft topline
• correct angulation
• correct movement

Excellent grade

Satu Ylä-Mononen (FIN), breeder of Berner Sennenhunde, only gave verbal comments at the club special. Since I didn’t hear them in person I can only report she had praise for both of them. Dina won over Hanibal because of her more relaxed character.

This year I took a slightly different approach to photographing dogs at the show. In previous visits I mostly used wide angle lenses to show the dogs interacting with their owners/handlers. Sometimes it came out well, sometimes it didn’t. Somehow people feel like they need to present the dog as if I was a judge. The problem is that I couldn’t care less about all the show poses it can do. I see them as beautiful and entertaining dogs, not as fashion accessories and beauty objects. So this year I switched tactics a little bit.

Using a borrowed 50/1.8 lens I could simply isolate the dog from its immediate surrounding and focus on expression. I didn’t forget to include the owners whenever there was an opportunity though.

dachshund (?)

afghan hound

many more photos in the gallery

The H-Gang is well into their second year so I guess it’s about time for some teenage photos as well. Over the past few months we visited all of them to see how they’re doing and naturally took some photos. Some owners keep sending us their own photos (which I love looking at) with occasional “status reports” and I’m happy to say the dogs are doing just fine wherever they are.

I took the liberty of editing the photos a bit to keep everyone anonymous. Hopefully nobody objects to this treatment. Copyright of course stays with whoever took the individual photo and I uploaded a few extra in the gallery as well.

Dina @ F1.8

and here exact clone

Heidi Hiwakea

Hana Haiku

Hawkeye Hooch & Dina

Helvetica Hirti

Heli Hachiko

Havana Hina

Homer Heineken

and finally…

Hanibal Hayabusa looking at Eiger & Mönch

I’ve been working on this ongoing project for a while now and although it hasn’t finished exactly the way I expected I feel I have something decent enough to show and describe.

The curious thing about dogs on Ikaria is that a lot, if not most of them, end up tied to about 2m of rope, in the middle of nowhere. Quite often without water and food. They last, for as long as they do, roasting in the sun with minimal shade and get replaced by another poor canine soul.

Pezi guard

The purpose of all this nonsense (to the common outsider) is supposedly to keep the goats away from roads and villages. Whether a dog can effectively do this, tied down as it is, is something I’ll let everyone decide for themselves.

Ag. Isidoros guard

I have talked to one of the shepherds about this practice, specifically I wondered why they refuse to use dogs proactively for guarding, herding, driving and other similar duties that resulted in such wonderful breeds as appenzellers, collies, kelpies and other sheep/cattle dogs. (see dogbreedinfo > flock guardians & herding dogs). I didn’t get a definitive answer but I did manage to raise some interest and ended up describing how dogs work with animals elsewhere. So maybe there’s hope. Maybe it’s not just a case of lack of interest, time and energy but more a case of lack of information.

Kalamos guard

Whatever it is, it constantly amazes me how incredibly friendly all these dogs are, despite their miserable existence and ultimate fate. They will greet you enthusiastically and most will assume a submissive position if you approach, then start playing if you feel so inclined. Quite unlike what I’d expect…

Ag. Dimitrios guard

This tiny creature above became the big kahuna below (photo taken in March so he’s probably even bigger now)

I wish I had photos of the remaining 7 at hand but, sadly, I don’t. Miss you guys!

happy b-day

Frasier on Zizokampos

What’s even more amazing is that ticks, so far, have shown no interest in human blood. Back home you’d probably find similar numbers on yourself after walking through such obvious tick hot spots.

Pepper

The cat is also a safe bet for ticks but, unlike the dogs, she refuses to stay still long enough for me to get them off. Can’t say I didn’t try though…

Hanibal’s been catching frisbees with some consistency for a while now so I guess he was due for a quick photo shoot. He’s still a long way off from the standard Dina set but what he lacks in acceleration and accuracy he makes up by jumping real high. He’s a bouncer ;)

Of course there’s now way we can have just one of them having fun so it was her turn catch a few. It doesn’t work with both of them at the same time though.

More shots should be in the gallery as usual (when I figure out why it doesn’t work with WP2.5 I’ll get it back online)

update – gallery works