by Eberhard Felsmann
All of the VDD tests, except for the Hegewald, are conducted under the auspices of the Jagdgebrauchshundverband e. V. JGHV is made up of many different versatile Breed Clubs and the same test regulations apply regardless of the Club. Although the same JGHV test regulations apply to tests held in Canada and in Germany, they are applied under totally different conditions. This leads to some differences in conducting the tests that I would like to discuss here.
The major goal of the utility hunting dog testing system is to foster good breeding and thus make available to the hunter a dog that is capable to shorten the time of suffering of wounded game by bringing it to bag quickly. The versatile hunting dogs are not intended to be masters of a single subject, but dogs that are capable to fulfill all aspects of hunting in a satisfactory way in the field, water and forest.
JGHV tests, such as the VJP, HZP and VGP, are designed in their demands for different stages of a hunting dog’s development and training, and allow us to assess if the breeder met the goals of the versatile hunting dog movement. Test regulations not only describe the different tasks in which the dogs are to be tested, but also how a test has to be organized, the testing grounds required and the reporting requirements.
What then are the main differences between conducting the tests in Canada and Germany? The major influences have been the lack of appropriate testing grounds and the relative lack of the required game in the natural environment in Canada. This has led to the use of pen-raised game and a fixed course for running the dogs. I will outline the significance of this for the testing procedure.
In Germany, tests are held in Reviers that in most cases represent all the lands of a township. The township, representing all landowners, leases all the land to a hunter or a group of hunters, who are then the only people (along with their guests) who can hunt in that township. Due to a totally different hunting system, tests here in Canada must be held on fixed and restricted grounds.
The geography is also different. Except for a VJP, the only part of Canada in which JGHV tests can be held on proper grounds are Eastern Canada, Quebec, most of Ontario and parts of British Columbia. The arctic region is out for everything naturally.
The thing that struck me most when I came to Canada was the fixed course in the field for all participating dogs resulting in a “ring around the Rosie” type of course. All over Europe, not only in Germany, handlers and judges are constantly on the move to new grounds. (Exceptions may be with water and forest work.) It is unheard of that team after team tramples over the same course, which has a ‘bird field’ at its end.
The lack of naturally occurring game in sufficient quantities in the natural environment has led to the use of pen-raised game in the tests and the ‘bird field’ at the end of the search. This of course has implications for the dogs’ performance in pointing. At the first tests I saw, I thought that the dogs must have terribly poor scenting ability. Later I realized that the dogs knew that they could crowd pen-raised birds.
In order to have a VJP without the presence of field hares we had to search for a substitute that would be acceptable to the VDD and the JGHV. We adopted the track of a flightless pheasant and received the approval of the VDD and the JGHV. While the VDD records our tracking in the yearly Breed Book in the same category as hare tracking, the JGHV separates it and shows the Group Canada VJP results not mixed with the other VJP results.
Group Canada had no choice. If the VDD or JGHV had not accepted that we test tracking on a flightless pheasant, we would have had to delete VJP testing. We don’t even have enough ‘bunnies’ (cottontail rabbits) that would let us pretend we do field hare tracking. How important this change to the VJP procedures has become for us is the demand of a minimum tracking score for the approval of breeding.
So the main differences between Canada and Germany for the VJP are the substitute of the flightless pheasant for the hare in tracking, the specially released pen-raised birds, and the fixed course. Almost identical differences exist for the HZP.
While the same fieldwork differences exist for the VGP, the added item in this test is the deer for the end of the blood track and the game-eating test. In Canada only one deer per hunter is allowed. To have the deer killed to the exact time needed would definitely cause stress. Also, deer season opens late and if we held the test at that time we could encounter ice at the water. So, at times we were lucky and got a deer killed accidentally by a car or a fallow deer killed during the rut by another stag at a pen. We were lucky that we were able to get freezer space to store the deer until needed.
A deer carcass stored in this manner must be gutted and the opening must be sewn up again tidily. (The carcass must also have a bullet hole.) How important cleaning and re-sewing the carcass is became painfully evident to me at a VGP. I had spent a lot of time — months — to train my dog as a Bringselverweiser. But realizing that the deer had not been gutted and consequently resembled the Goodyear blimp and smelled badly, I did not dare to send my dog to a carrion-smelling deer carcass. The bitch was just before her heat and a smelly carcass represented too much of a temptation for game eating. I wasted all the training and my only chance to get the dog Verweisen certified.
One other difference that is notable between Canada and Germany is the attitude toward game and hunting. A trial system like what occurs in North America does not exist in Europe. Testing of hunting dogs in Germany is only allowed because it is essential for breeders of hunting dogs to test what they bred. Again, this is only in the name of speeding-up recovery of downed game and shortening its suffering.
If German hunters would dare to call hunting and testing of hunt dogs ‘sport’, the animal rights and anti-hunting groups would have ammunition to shut down hunting and training of hunting dogs. Therefore, quite often one will find statements in Der Jagdgebrauchshund, the official JGHV magazine, that the handling and training of hunting dogs must never become ‘sport’. Limits are set on how often a dog can be entered in a VGP. What a difference from the CKC or NAVHDA testing systems where (theoretically) a dog is allowed unlimited entry in tests until the day it dies.
As one can see, substitutes were necessary for Group Canada due to the differences in game conditions as well as geographically caused differences. Without these substitutes it would be impossible to hold tests very close to the regulations of the JGHV.
We must not forget that Group Canada represents a minute part of the VDD and an even smaller part of the JGHV. We wanted to have that VDD pedigree and since it can only be had by complying with all regulations of Drahthaar breeding, we must do so.
I sometimes think that if the Drahthaar Weltverband would have existed at the time we decided to make the change, we still might be Club Drahthaar of Canada. But on the other hand, in order to have VDD pedigrees we would have had to comply with the VDD breeding regulations anyway. Since we asked and were accepted as a VDD Group we must abide by all the regulations of the VDD and the JGHV.
As you can see, there is much that goes into the successful running of a JGHV test. In addition, the judges, including the senior judge, most often come from out of town or even out of the country. It becomes crucial that the test coordinator or host of the test prepares well for a smooth execution of testing according to regulations.
This article appeared in Drahthaar News, January/February 2002.
Permission to reprint this article may be obtained by contacting
Sandy Hodson, Tel.: 902-757-3116, E-mail: hodsonhaus@eastlink.ca
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