These were the words we introduced our club to the Working Gundog Community and the WWC decided to start a series of posts under this title:
The Working Weimaraner Club was founded in 2023 when it became obvious that we need a club that is dedicated to the real working gundog in general, but also specifically to the Working Weimaraner.
Just to give some background information:
The Weimaraner was bred as a Versatile Hunting dog, which means that he is a dedicated hunter on any sort of game. This ranges in his home country from small game like birds and rabbits, to big and dangerous game like wild boar and stags.
Another key ability is to follow tracks of wounded animals, so whatever animal is wounded, either by a hunter or for example in a car accident, can be found and be relieved from his pain. Finding wounded animals after a hunt is the most important duty in sustainable and ethical hunting and in Germany this honour is by law only granted to dogs that have successfully passed their tests.
But testing in Germany is not only about qualifying dogs for the hunt. The system was developed by a group of dedicated hunting dog breeders about 150 years ago and since then every pedigree hunting dog is bred from parents that passed the tests with a minimum standard that their breeding clubs adhere to.
Here in South Africa a few clubs, dedicated to this performance based qualification system, decided to follow this approach and formed an alliance that is called the South African Versatile Hunting Dog Alliance, in short SAVHDA. One member of this alliance is the Working Weimaraner Club, the other Club, that shows his main purpose already in his name is The Working Deutsch Drahthaar Club (WDDC).
The Working Weimaraner Club believes in the old breeding principle „Form follows function“, which means, if you are selecting in a breed for the dogs with the highest working abilities, at the end you will end up with a breed that within reason is also looking alike, but more important also has uniform character traits.
Worldwide it is a sad trend, that Weimaraners (and many other breeds) are not bred for their hunting qualities anymore, but for looks only, or even worse without any breeding concept, due to the big demand for puppies by people who only want beautiful pets. Even more sad, the show people are breeding for the looks that show judges, that might not once have seen a real hunting Weimaraner hunting in their life, think they should look like. That led to dogs that are the sad imitation of the once so strong dog.
Just to give some examples:
- Thin and long necks
- Deep and heavy chests
- Overangulated hind legs
How is a dog like that supposed to carry a ten kilo fox (Germany) or Jackal in South Africa for several hundred meters,
How is it supposed to run in the field the whole day and jump over bushes and ditches,
How is he supposed to get away from an attacking bush pig, warthog or antelope, with all the weight on his front legs.
The elegant long strides, that a show dog is supposed to show in the ring are bought with loose ligaments at the joints, but according to new studies, the same genes that cause these loose ligaments and the elegant trott cause weak connective tissues. Why is it, that bloats occur so much more often in show lines than in hunting lines. Deep chests and weak connective tissues could be the explanation.
I could endlessly go on with that list, but the most important thing to me is, that most of these dogs lost their main character traits, which were their hunting drive, their drive to take down potentially dangerous animals and their absolute will to follow tracks. And where did the will go, to protect their owner and his property with their lives? Thank goodness my dogs never had to protect me, but nobody who was not regarded friend or family ever entered my house in my absence ,and some people had a very unpleasant surprise when they opened my car and my old boy Cardhu was inside.
So if we want to preserve our treasured breed, what can we do. In South Africa we have not yet the multitude of breeding dogs, that we can adhere to all the selection criteria like in Germany and some of the neighbouring countries, but the Working Weimaraner Club decided to bring out a qualification system over and above the KUSA pedigrees. Breeding dogs, that qualify will get special certificates of merit, and the club will follow up and keep the documentation in the form of a working stud book, so every breeder or potential puppy owner can inform himself about a future breeding partner for his dog or the parents of the designated puppy. Physical faults will be noted in the stud book, and severe physical faults can be breeding prohibitive, but show results are not regarded to be a prime criteria for a breeding dog. However for the future we are planing club internal breed shows after the German model, to make sure that the dogs are following the breed standard (FCI). For this breed show a character test will be developed, to highlight the dogs with a strong, calm and confident character.
In 2024 we are looking forward to 3 Tests dates in April, August and November, where we are holding different schedules of the KUSA Tests for Hunting dogs. (Schedules 05C04 – 05C06).
Follow us so we can tell you more details in the next articles.