Breeding Versatile Hunting Dogs

Recently, I was asked if I would consider my Deutsch Kurzhaar (German Shorthair) for stud service to a female not registered with the breed club that I belong to. Admittedly I was flattered to think that someone thought enough of my dog to request a breeding. Mostly, I was surprised, since the person doing the asking is well aware of the strict breeding and testing requirements of the organization in which my two Kurzhaar’s are registered. After giving it some thought I decided to decline and felt compelled to write down exactly why I chose not to breed out of the system that I belong to and believe in.

Having previously owned a German short hair registered with a popular nationwide dog club, I can honestly say that I had no complaints regarding her temperament, looks, or even her pointing instincts.
However, at the time, I had no metric, other than my own subjective opinion by which to gauge her hunting abilities. Frankly, I lacked experience with the breed, had no knowledge of training, had only rare contact with other hunting breed owner’s, and no contact with a good training mentor.

 For fun, my wife and I entered her in a few conformation shows and she even scored some points towards her show champion title. Though showing her was kind of fun, when finances became a little lean due to raising kids etc., the dog shows went out the window along with subscriptions to a couple of my hunting magazines.

In retrospect quitting the dog shows and canceling hunting magazine subscriptions was probably a pretty smart move. Here are a couple of my thoughts regarding the relation ship each has to hunting dogs: 

1. Both dog shows and hunting magazines are kind of fun to look at, but not of much practical value.

1. You can read all the hunting magazines you want but that won’t put meat on the table.

1.  You can take your hunting dog to all the dog shows you want and that won’t give it any natural hunting ability.

It was obvious to me, during the time we were attending dog shows, that making your dog a champion was just a function of your persistent entry into dog shows and how much money you were willing to spend on entry fees and expenses. It’s pretty much like paying for your dogs breeding credentials.

I am a big believer in fair play and always have been. I attribute that to being raised with three older brothers always telling me, “ I let you win!” whenever I beat them fairly at a game. (Or, thought I had)
 Well may be they did let me win once in a while, but I came to believe that letting someone win (or buy credentials) makes playing the game kind of pointless.

When my old German shorthair past away a few years ago; it wasn’t long before I was pining for a new hunting companion. Being a few years smarter, I intended to look for something special and began a nightly ritual of web surfing the web trying to see what really makes a good hunting dog and finding out where I could get one. I did a lot of surfing, a lot of printing, a lot of reading, and spent more than a few dollars on long distance phone calls before I finally came upon something that made practical since to me – The North American Deutsch Kurzhaar Club (NADKC).

I found out about the NADKC purely by accident. I spoke to a fellow that owns a kennel in the Midwest regarding purchasing a puppy. He immediately started quizzing me regarding my intentions, his requirements, and how he wanted me to train any puppy that he sold me, and on and on and on about some German testing system. He went on and on about the German testing/breeding system and the NADKC but I had no idea what he was talking about. I really was not interested in having someone dictate to me how I should train or breed a dog that I was going to pay for.

I did get a few words in edgewise and was finally able to tell him that my intentions where to purchase a German bred dog since during my web search I had seen some very good looking dogs displayed by some of the German breeders.
Importing a German bred dog made good since to me. After all that’s where the Deutsch Kurzhaar breed originated and sometimes you just have to go to the mountain.
The Midwest breeder informed me that it was unlikely that the Germans would sell me a good dog; implying that they kept the good dogs for themselves. I took that as a challenge and politely said good bye to the fellow then continued my search. A firm, ya volt her commandant, almost slipped out of my mouth before hanging up the phone. Suffice it to say I finally did get a dog from a German breeder and I think he’s a good one too! I guess I was just lucky.

In a fairly short time, a lot of question asking, reading  and discussion I gained some limited knowledge regarding the NADKC/German testing and breeding system. I came to believe that the NADKC testing principals are practical and sensible methods for obtaining and maintaining the attributes that are associated with a versatile hunting companion.

Though it’s likely that a lot other versatile hunting dogs, registered and unregistered, are beautiful animals and would do well in the show ring, they are most beautiful when performing the work they were designed to do - hunting.
To quote Charles Darwin (here it comes again), “Form follows function”.
That concept is the product of Darwin’s observations regarding the natural selection process that allows a species to become more perfectly adapted to its particular environment. Humans apply that concept to domestic animals including hunting dogs in order to achieve a form and instinctive behavior that they desire the animal to have.

By selective breeding of versatile hunting dog breeds hunters have accelerated the process by selecting breeding pairs that perform/adapt to the hunting environment in ways that hunters find more suitable to their particular hunting needs. Overtime a greater level of perfection is achieved if the most suitable qualities are selected and passed on to the progeny.

 In other dog clubs, particularly the show ring, and quoting me “ Function may be sacrificed in order to adhere to form and form is a function of how much time and money you can dump into show entries or in some cases, how many quail your dog can sniff out at a field trial”.

I do understand that all dogs are not competing in the show ring and that there are a lot of very respectable field trial dogs out there and I’ll bet a lot of them are darn good hunters.
However, as far as I know there is no comprehensive metric in place within the show ring or field trial kingdom to test the versatile capabilities of a potential breeding pair prior to breeding. Hence, the selection of breeding pairs falls squarely on the shoulders and the subjective judgement of the owner/s. The only exception to this lack of attention to a dog’s ability prior to breeding that I am aware of is the testing and breeding system of the NADKC.

I joined the NADKC and imported a German bred dog for several reasons, but the primary reason is that I am convinced that the principles of the testing and subsequent breeding of a dog is the best method of achieving the objective. That objective is to produce the perfect versatile hunting companion.

It seems to me that the owners and breeders who engage in breeding hunting dogs without measuring hunting ability are accomplishing little with respect to achieving a better more capable hunting companion. Why put in all the effort and expense of breeding, training and caring for hunting dogs if you aren’t doing it improve upon your particular breed.
I made a commitment at the time I purchased my dog that I would not breed out of the DKV and that I would complete the NADKC required testing prior to breeding. Testing a dog’s ability prior to breeding just makes sense to me. Thus, I intend to keep my commitment to breed only within the NADKC system.

I at least owe that to myself and my dog for all of the training time, game costs, travel time/expense, sweat and even frustration that goes into producing a well trained, obedient versatile hunting companion. I also owe it to a system that doesn’t always “let you win”.

G.W. Fleming