by Highlander » Sun Oct 20, 2019 12:25 pm
The range is important. Especially for the hunters of western states and provinces. And the most of the German breeds are very good at adopting the terrain and cover where they happen to be hunting.
I watched video of a hunting where a few DD and DK, from Germany, were hunting arctic ptarmigans in Swedish arctic meadows, which is basically very vast and open country.
Their host, a local hunter with Irish setter, said that the German dogs have never seen and never hunted such open space and did not quite know how to hunt in such open range with strong wind. In Germany these particular dogs only hunted pheasants and woodcock, which does not need them to ran far to cover the area. But then he said that it only took a few hours for these dogs to realize what to and how do it in such environment.
The dogs were running 300-400 yards away, for each side, using high nose to spot a ptarmigan. The only difference was that the Irish setter's gallop seemed a little faster, more refined and if you ask me more gracious.
The host guy also made an interesting point stating that in these kind of places they need dogs that run far but not very fast, which allows their dogs to cover a vast area and the same time save more energy. So, efficiency is important.
I assume the similar point can be made for hunters of Western US and Western Canada.
However, the reason they have kept breeding EP to PP is not so much range but speed and the graceful movements the English pointer is known for. The range varies even among the pointers, There are dogs that run 200 meter each side and there are dogs that run 1/2 mile each side, but what these dogs have in common is the style and speed. For me English pointer resembles a cheetah chasing an antelope. And then a sadden stop and they go into a point. Only breed that can compare with pointers in terms of speed, gracefulness of movement and ability of exclusively using high nose is English setter. At least in Europe.
So my point is that EP brings not only a bigger range, but very solid point, light movement, high nose and speed.
One thing that is missing from the NAVHDA and JGHV tests is that they don't have Style, which is unique to each breed, as a separate gradable category.
Both system evaluate the search as how one covers area and how efficient a dog is. But, the aesthetics is totally absent from both systems.
You may see a dog running with very heavy and slow trot but still covering the areas the judge wants him to. This dog will get the same scores as the dog that had run with full and graceful gallop, holding the head above shoulders while covering the same area and finding the exactly the same number of birds.
I feel that both system have an "as long as it finds" attitude when it come actual performance of the search.
At least this is my imprison after reading both test rules.
Other interesting case is that JGHV is part of FCI, which in fact has a testing system wherein the search and the style (of the search and point) are two separate category.
The hunter from highlands