For 22 years I have been tracking wounded deer in the United States. Most of the 147 wounded deer that I have found were tracked with my wirehaired dachshunds from Germany and France or from European ancestry. Recently we had the opportunity to breed our very good German bitch, Gerte vom Dornenfeld to Zalud Staccato who is owned by George Krs, a Czech immigrant to British Columbia, Canada. This was a very long way to send a bitch from the Atlantic coast of the USA, but my wife had heard great praise of the Staccato dachshunds when she talked to some hunters and dachshund owners in Austria.

We ended up having our "S" and "U" litters by Zalud Staccato out of Gerte vom Dornenfeld. These were the two best litters that I ever produced. At a very early age the majority of the puppies showed a very strong desire to track old cold lines. They work slowly, show excellent concentration and are very good about checking back to a point of loss on their own. They are a little stubborn, but with work and firm discipline they become desirous to please.

A majority of the deer that we track are wounded by archery hunters. When deer wounded by arrows stop bleeding externally there is little wound scent to follow. For this kind of blood work the average dachshund nose is not good enough. We have been very impressed with what the "S" puppies could do before they were two years old.

The dam of these puppies, Gerte vom Dornenfeld, has an excellent nose and found nine wounded deer this year. However she had not been as effective as a producer until she was bred to Zalud. The two litters by Zalud were superior in every respect: conformation, voice and blood work.

Sometimes a breeding succeeds for reasons that are not very clear. We do not have all the answers, but we would like to know more about Czech dachshunds and about the breeding program of Staccato Kennel since Rudolf Kristl passed away. We have heard that the hunting tests for Czech dachshunds are very rigorous. We would like to know if they are different from the DTK model.