Annie has a dense, soft, shiny, medium-length, slightly wavy, roan coat. Her coat is correct for a Small Munsterlander. She beautifully feathered hind legs and a long-flagged tail. Versatile hunting dogs, such as Annie, are expected to be "sharp on fur." They are expected to relish the tracking and chasing of wounded, furred animals in order to dispatch and retrieve them. No one wants a live fox retrieved to hand! Annie is every bit a versatile hunting dog and becomes more and more so the older she gets.
Annie has dark brown eyes and a sweet, feminine face. Annie weighs about 48 pounds and is at the upper-end in height for a female at 54cm tall. She has her mother's head and her father's body type.
THE HUNTRESS
Annie has so much drive, cooperation and talent in the field and water that preparing her for the NAVHDA Natural Ability Test was a breeze. At the Test, the Field Search portion was a cake walk with solid, steady points when she found a bird. The birds that didn't fly well and were caught were retrieved to Michelle's hand. It was the Tracking portion of the Test that is very memorable and probably says the most about Annie as a hunting companion. The released pheasant started downhill towards heavy cover, then took a sharp right turn and headed uphill into a large section of clover. A Spring rain was heading our way, so it was very breezy. Just as Annie took the right turn and was tracking the pheasant uphill towards the clover, the wind changed and blew the scent from the 4-wheeler full of pheasant crates (bird truck) right to her. She stopped tracking and ran to the bird truck which held the additional distraction of her co-owner, Mark. Michelle waited a few minutes for Annie to return to the track on her own. Then, at the suggestion of the judge to call her dog, Michelle yelled just one word, "Annie!" (in a friendly tone) and Annie returned, took the track back up, followed it to the bird, briefly pointed then caught it, and retrieved the bird to hand. Michelle knew issuing any type of command during the track would cause Annie to lose at least one point in her Tracking score. Thus the 3 Annie earned in Tracking (still, prize 1 work). Following the issuing of scores, Michelle spoke with the judges and was told, "If we could've given Annie a 5 for her cooperation during the Tracking portion of the Test, we would have. It was very impressive. We were expecting to have to re-run her track." As an aside, at the Test the next day, the same scenario played out, except the dog wouldn't leave the bird truck and therefore re-ran his track after the other dogs finished theirs.
In the field, Annie is a zealous, relentless searcher of game, but she is also extremely cooperative. She really does not want to hunt without you. Therefore, you don't have to "manage" Annie in the field. She'll stick with you and generally hunts in the 50-100 yard range, only getting out to further if she can smell a bird or it's necessary to find one. Else, or in heavy cover, she'll hunt 30-50 yards from you. Annie is "easy" to hunt with.
Annie honors naturally and rarely bumps a bird. She is very proficient at marking downed birds and will track a downed bird for as long as it takes to recover it. If a pheasant happens to be brought down in a pond, Annie will make the water retrieve without hesitation. She is also very soft-mouthed, never putting so much as a toothmark in gamebirds.
Her strong desire to please and her high intelligence have made her a trainer's dream. We have had to use very little negative reinforcement in Annie's training. She loves to train. Annie always greets Michelle with something in her mouth and will bring objects to Michelle in an attempt to coax her into doing some retrieve training.
THE HOUSEPET
Around the house, Annie is quiet, unassuming, gentle, sweet, patient, calm and relaxed. She is a pleasure to live with. She is one of the few dogs we do not have to put a bark collar on at night. Even with the coyotes howling in the woods behind the house, Annie remains quiet. The only time we hear her bark is if she's chasing furred game or protecting her babies.
THE HOMEMAKER
Annie is a wonderful mother. She keeps her puppies and their box immaculately clean. For the first two weeks, she barely leaves the box, constantly feeding, cleaning and doting over her little ones. The only exception is for about 30 minutes per day when all the dogs go for their daily run. By day 3 following whelping, Annie is ready to get out of the whelping pen and into the field for some fun.
One of the most wonderful traits Annie passes on to her puppies is a natural desire to retrieve. All of her puppies have a strong natural retrieving instinct, which makes it easy to train them for hunting and testing.
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