KENNEL NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 228, 25 August 1938, Page 7

KENNEL NOTES

CHAMPIONSHIP GUN DOG TRIALS. (By “Kuri.”) The New Zealand championship field trial was held recently at Springston, under the auspices of the Canterbury Gun Dog Club. The all-breed championship was won by a springer spaniel, a curly-coated retriever being second, and another springer third. A dog of the latter breed also won the puppy class. The setter and pointer championship was won by an Irish setter. There were separate competitions also for land and water sections, and in both of these events springer spaniels secured the judge’s decision. This indicates a measure of undoubted superiority in respect to the breed. Of a useful size, not too big nor yet too small, springer spaniels are ideal for most types of gun dog sport, and are especially well suited to New Zealand conditions. In .America, the breed is highly esteemed for field sport, and many excellent dogs are bred there. The type of springer seen at our shows is not often of the highest standard as a show specimen, although an improvement has been noted during the last year or two. In England, many very 'handsome specimens are to be seen at shows, and' American fanciers are always willing to give big prices for good ones. The usual handicaps, from a show standard point of view, of our Dominion springers arc an overlong back, light eyes, and high set cars. As quite a number have been imported from England recently, the improvement noted already should be sustained.

As a house dog or a companion the springer is very good, but such dogs should be given sufficient work at their own particular task to get the best possible results from them. The proper name of the variety is the English springer spaniel, and they are usually coloured brown and white, several “sizes’ l’arger than their cousins the cocker spaniels, and otherwise somewhat similar in appearance. One is at times apt to overlook the fact that all our doggy folk are not famliar with the varieties which are so well-known to most fanciers and members of the sporting fraternity. The name was given to the breed, which was said to have originated in Spain (spaniels), an account of the use of the dog to make the game “spring” ; not to be confused with a dog which should “spring on to the game.” “Springer” and “cocker” were the words in use in 1790 to distinguish the game dogs used for hunting at that time. In some specimens of the present day “cocker spaniels” one is led to suspect a recent interbreeding with the springer on viewing the “optimum” strength of foreface, which is often accompanied by loose lips and a considerable display of haw of the eye. Such an outcross would, result in a larger dog, and the increase in size of some of our latter-day cockers may be explained in this manner. WORKING COLTJES.

On reading the comments of a working collie enthusiast, published in a Dominion journal, the writer was intrigued to notice our confrere urging the working collie owners to breed more for type and not to continue breeding together dogs and bitches simply on account of such dogs having been distinguished at working collie trials. The show dog breeder and exhibitor is always somewhat diffident in matters appertaining to the breeding and development of dogs used entirely for utility farm purposes, but wo have noticed of recent years a definite tendency, on the part of shepherds particular lv, to breed or purchase dogs which had some standard of value in appearance in addition to a known “working dog” ancestry. In conversation with a gentleman who has had extensive experience of sheep station duties, the writer found that there has developed a strong interest in the sheep country to attempt to breed dogs of better appearance than those at present seen. I recently had the opportunity of inspecting a very large “kennel” of working collies some miles out of Palmerston North, and a treat it turned out to be. About fifty dogs were on the place, and all showed the results of great attention and care. The writer was very impressed with the symmetrical build of the dogs and the remarkably high standard of soundness of legs and feet. A large proportion of the animals would be judged as almost flawless in respect to what utility dog owners once termed “show points.” By these we mean shapely outline, sufficient depth pf chest, firm. bone, properly formed and straight legs (as seen from front and back), nicely carried tails, good feet, dark eyes, strong muzzles (not snipy), and neatly set-on ears alertly carried. A good coat of healthy bloom we would consider a necessity. We are convinced that if there are many other breeders of working collies who have evolved dogs of an average quality as high as those we saw on our recent visit, then the exhibitors of pedigree show dogs of the ' so-called fancy breeds would need to exhibit only their very best specimens in order to secure the judge’s decision over sonie of the working collie canine aristocracy. There have always been a considerable number of breeders of working collies who have made a profitable business of breeding pups for their fellow shepherds, and the mimer of such breeders has increased considerably in the last few year's. The shepherds of New Zealand have, in fact, become quality conscious in respect to their canine helpers. It can easily be seen, of ourse, that if shepherds breed weedy looking specimens together because such dogs have won cups at working collie trials; they will evolve many undesirable looking animals which may be deficient in vitality and working ability. Good looks may not be of much assistance to a dog entered in a sheep dog trial, but good looks coupled with ability to give a good display at such events must assuredly be what the modern shepherd or .trial enthusiast desires as his chief objective in this connection. With all the mechanisation one witnesses in rural activities, there are many aspects which do not lend themselves readily to mechanical assistance, and it’s rather a happy thought that dog work on farms comes prominently under this heading. WILD JUNGLE DOGS.

In tlie Indo-Chinese and Malayan jungles there are numerous wild dogs, somesomo fox-like in appearance and others more similar to the wolf. It is said of these animals that they are courageous, if pitiless, hunters, and invariably do their hunting in packs. Although these dogs will hunt and kill all. other jungle animals, they have never keen, known to attack 3mmans, and on occasions, upon which people have come across a pack the dogs have stared curiously and then made off. It is also recorded,of the species that, leopards and tigers run from a pack of wild dogs. The wild dogs are, as a matter of fact, complete masters of the forests in which tliev roam, and they would tend to he a disastrous force to the other jungle animals were it not for the fact that whole packs are periodically wiped out of existence by epidemics of a particularly virulent type of canine distemper. Nature has made provision that the

balance will be retained, and the pack methods of one of the world’s most intelligent animals avail it nothing against the grim law of bacterial infection. Interesting features in relation to these wild dogs are that they are usually reddish and grey in colcar, and they do not bark, but howl when in hunting action. Students of the history of the canine usually agree that domesticated dogs bark in an effort to please or imitate man. Although there is a need for some types of working dogs to bark, we can readily see many advantages in a “back to nature” attempt by some of our canine friends in an unsympathetic’or perhaps an unsatisfactory locality.