Only for your understanding: If you have the intention to go hunting,
you need a special license the "Jagdschein"and you only get the
"Jagdschein" when you have the "Jägerprüfung". It's a real difficult
test, and before, you have to join courses for a period of about a year
( two times a week ). So when you have the idea to go hunting it
normally takes you about a years time, before you really can start. 

If you are finally in the possession of the hunting license you are not
allowed to go hunting anywhere you want. Either you lease a hunting
ground, but this very expensive and you're only allowed to do it three
years after having passed the test (the Jägerprüfung) or you find a
leaseholder who leaves go hunting in his hunting ground. Therefore you
have to do some work in the hunting ground or to pay for it, but you are
allowed to go for hunting there whenever you want. 

O.k. my husband found a hunting ground where he could join. It's about
10 minutes from where we are living and it has about 300 Hektar. Besides
the leaseholder and my husband there are two other hunters going hunting
there. 2 or 3 times a year, mostly in the autumn or winter a battue
takes place. A battue means the following: In the hunting ground there
meet hunters, beaters and dogs. The beaters and the dogs run through the
woods and the thickets to rouse and chase the game ( especially boars and
foxes, but also deer and hairs ). The hunters get their places where
they wait for the chased game.

But now to the story of the last battue, it took place on the 29th
December 1999. They were approx. 25 hunters, 10 beaters, 8 Jagdterriers
( of course, also Oskar participated ) and some other dogs. It started
at 09.30 a.m. . The dogs were together with the beaters running through
the wood to rouse and chase the game, the hunters were waiting on their
hunting places. After some time my husband heard a rustling in the
thicket and he as well heard the Jagdterriers, he was prepared but can't
believe what he was seeing: First Oskar was "flying" through the thicket
turned three somersaults but directly ran back in the thicket ( the boar
had shaken him off ). Then a boar came out of the bushes and 5(!!!!)
Jagdterriers including our one had bit in the boar and were "hanging on
the boar" not letting off their victim. The boar ran straight towards my
husband, he had just some seconds to decide not to shoot, because of the
Jagdterriers still "hanging" on the boar and other dogs ( also a 13
years old dachshund ) being around the boar. He beat the butt of the gun
on the boars had, gave his gun to another hunter who came for support
and took his knife to kill the boar. With two stitches in the neck he
nearly killed the boar. The boar attacked him by the feet but as he wore
thick and firm boots he was not hurt. The final shoot was made by the other
hunter, as the boar was so weak that it was possible to shoot in the
boars head without endangering the Jagdterriers. 

They also got another boar, a deer and five foxes. At approx. 3 p.m. he
phoned me at work to tell me the story, at 6 p.m. he came home and than
I took him to the place where they were celebrating the successful hunt,
He was the "Jagdkönig" and they were celebrating until I finally picked him up 
in the evening. 

When I read that story I'm really glad that I've not seen that all. You
see hunting sometimes is dangerous, not only for the dogs but also for the
hunters. But my husband was very proud of himself and of course of Oskar
who did a real good job that day. 

Written by Ursula Deubel
Published in the Traditional Sporting Dog Magazine Issue March 2000