Mistwetter

Those who were paying attention to the German language lesson last week will know "Mistwetter" doesn't mean misty weather but mucky weather.

The temperature keeps going up & down around 0°C and +4°C with snow flurries. But must not complain. Daughter Kate is wanting to get rid of quite a lot of snow in the north of Eire while the two children are having great fun building snowmen and father is on standby duty in case called out by any damage caused on the estate he manages.
Not far away, son J and girlfriend Laura are flying back from a fun but cold weekend in Dublin. I think he describes it as being a cultural weekend, I suspect the harp he talks about was not of the classical orchestra type.

On Friday evening just after I got back with the dogs from the late walk, the police called us to ask if our dogs were at home as there had been an accident in the village involving a dog. No idea where they got our name as there is no local bobby who might have this information. The nearest police station in good 20km away.

Today I found out more via Facebook from the owner of the dog. I think Johannes has been Bliped in the past and we meet irregularly as he's based in Ottobeuren. He's a close friend of Mr&MrsB and shares many of the same interests. Johannes is a state forester in our area, but his "free-time" passion is his breeding and working with German wirehaired pointers and again using them in his other passion hunting. He is a leading force in the breeding and training world of this breed and has also recently passed the show judge exams.

I don't have all the details, only the little Angie gleaned at MrsB's evening birthday party last night which I wasn't at. It seems the accident actually didn't happen in the village but just 200m from our house and it must have been almost exactly when I took Friday's Blip.

From the last litter of pups, he had kept one to train himself. It was now 9 months old and he was out at dusk training. It seemingly picked up the scent of a fox and off it went but at some point crossed the fast road near us and on crossing back was hit by a car and killed.

It was probably the same fox we saw during daylight during this week at the bottom of our garden eyeing up our chickens. 

Naturally, Johannes is heartbroken, he cared so much for the dog and I am sure feels responsible.

Strangely, if the car had hit the fox rather than the dog, Johannes would have been called out by the police to confirm for the driver's insurance policy that the damage to the car was caused by a "game" furred animal. Only with this certificate does the insurance pay the damage without loss of no-claims bonus.

It is one of the responsibilities the official area hunter has, added to finding any injured animals. Which is one of the duties Johannes and his dog train for such as searching for hurt wild boar, deer, badgers and foxes in the middle of the night. In this case, Johannes' 3rd party insurance will have to pay. Accidents with game animals on the stretch of road from our house to Ottobeuren are very numerous.

Our dog walk in the forest this evening was uneventful and only had a small number of snow flurries. Flash still has an excellent sense of smell but not the energy to dash around. Luna though is constantly with her nose on the ground and particularly in the snow, the tracks are even better. One has to keep an eye on her.