Northwapiti Chat

[tanglefoot]

[Breeze]

Karen, (and Mark), YOU be proud of the furkids, and let US be proud of YOU at the same time.

"Dual" dogs are very special. It says volumes about you, your dogs, your lifework and your commitment to your dogs and the Breed Standard that you can and DO run with Crunchie, Tesla and Hector 1100 miles across the State of Alaska and a few weeks later have the same 3 dogs in the show ring, in show coat, going down and back for a conformation Judge, coming home with ribbons.

Awesome accomplishments all the way around.

Have you been told today that NORTH WAPITI ROCKS?

breeze

[aren]

Hi Karen, I must say that I am soooo impressed with you and your dogs and I second every bit of what Breeze said in her post.
When working with pure breed dogs, the looks and the working ability must go hand in hand. All pure bred working dogs was "created" for a purpose and the breed standard sort of describes the perfect dog for this specific line of work.
Karen, you clearly manage this difficult task, that is so impressive and you surely have the right to be proud of you furkids!!!

Unfortunately, in many breeds today,the dogs that are winning at shows are not the same dogs that can perform well at their intended line of work. I am so sad for some of the breeds that I love and which are slowly turning away from the true dual purpose ideal.
We breed, work and show flatcoated retrievers ourselves and have allways tried to be true to the dual purpose way of thinking, both when buying and breeding dogs.

[tanglefoot]

well said, we see alot of dogs being bred for show and not for their working purpose.

worse is that we are also seeing alot of these so called 'northern inuit dogs' or 'inuit dog's in the uk, none! related to the real inuit dogs from northern canada, rather these are a breed created in the uk... husky/mal x GSD...and the reason for them breeding them? to work? nope...to look like wolves! and to be a 'more trainable form of husky for about the house''!!!!!!!!.drives me mad!!!!!!! they have ended up with dogs that look a bit like alaskans, are not worked in harness and just are a trophy dog that are getting the real working huskies a bad name and worse, giving the inuit peoples a bad name too, which i feel is worse! you can see the gsd in them, most i have met are very aggressive dogs...i have actually heard an owner calling it a 'northen inuit dog, then when it started a fight with another dog..'oh its a husky...' sorry a bit off topic

[Breeze]

Matt,

Your response isn't totally off topic, at all. You just said things that Aren and I did not go as far to say. Heck, Aren said what I wanted to convey better than I could, and he did it in a non-native tongue. ( Thank You Aren, flatcoats have a special place in my heart, too).

In the US, there is not a requirement that purebred dogs MUST prove that they can DO what their breeding says they should be capable of doing BEFORE they take ribbons for their looks.

This is different in other parts of the dog-showing world, probably why Aren could relay the information more succinctly than I could. In the UK and much of Europe, Kennel clubs/Sponsors demand that the dogs have their working titles before the conformation " beauty pageant'.

Karen and Mark, much as Aren and his family, are ensuring that their dogs maintain an honest link to their historical legacy and breeding in capability and looks. A simple concept, you'd think.

I am a follower of the Sporting Dogs, especially the Setter breeds, and it is a BIG DEAL when a Setter ( Gordon, Irish, English or Red and White)carries a Master Hunter certification in tandem with a BIS ( Best in Show) or a BISS ( Best in Specialty Show.)

I know we could all have a jolly fine time over a pint or three anywhere in the world talking about this in person~

Breeze

[tanglefoot]

pints all round then on me! couldnt we just...well you know how i can chat for england..i think we'd need more than a few pints...

we having a sled dog BBQ in the uk this summer, get together and fun, plus chat with some folks who ran the yukon quest trail a few years back. on august 30/31st. anyone in the uk/gb is welcome to come along as our guests!

we are planning a litter from lolly this year and a friend spent 3 days for us researching lol's bloodlines and what lines woukld be best for waht we wanted, working lines with a bit more speed but still typical of the siberian breed, that would be capable of being shown to standard (although we dont show ourselves anymore) that can still be liveable with.

[aren]

Hi all, Been away from the puter for a few days. I spent the weekend in the mountains and what a weekend it was Sun shining from a clear blue sky, temps around 32 F at night and around 50 F during the day, lots of snow and good skiing.

Breeze, you make me kind of with your kind words. The truth is that 10-12 years ago I was involved in a rather heated debate in the norski retriever club about this subject. This debate actually went on for a couple of years. To make a long story short, some of us was sort of trapped in between the show people and the field trail people as we both showed and worked our dogs and we were rather successfull at both.
After this looong "fight" it was decided to change the rules for obtaining the show championship. It would still be possible to become a show champion without having a proven working ability, but the KC set up a new kind of championship (almost similar to the british modell) where a show champion had a posibility of "improving" the "show champion title" to a "full champion title" by obtaining a certain price from a working test/field trail.
This was actually not a bad compromise as anyone would be able to see which dogs actually had acomplished well both in the field and in the show ring and thus had proven their dual purpose ability.

Yesss, it would be fun to meet sometimes, I bet we would all enjoy a talk over a pint or 3.