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Licensed Hunting Test Set For September 26
The Westminster Kennel Club is holding a Licensed Hunting Test for Pointing Breeds on Sunday, Sept. 26, at Tamarack Game Preserve in Millbrook, NY.
Entries close at 4 pm ET on Monday, Sept. 20. The entry is limited to the number of dogs that can be run safely during daylight hours and will close when the limit is reached, if this occurs prior to the scheduled closing time.
Click here for the premium and entry form. For additional information, contact Hunt Test Secretary Harvey Wooding at (212) 213-3026.
The Westminster Kennel Club became the first all breed kennel club to hold an American Kennel Club licensed hunting test for pointing breeds in 2008.
Under the leadership of Hunting Test Committee Chairman Steve M. Bedford, Westminster has returned to its roots with this event. The Westminster Kennel Club was begun back in the mid-1870's as a gentlemen's sporting club, with its primary activity being bird hunting and primarily with pointing breeds, Pointers in particular.
Beginning in the late 1800s, Westminster gradually began to shift its focus a bit to that of the dog show ring. There, they could show their own dogs and also help dog fanciers exhibit their own dogs for the world to see. But at the same time, the original intent of the club's forefathers was firmly evident: protect and promote the purebred dog and its abilities to do what it was bred to do.
A hundred years later, in 1986, the American Kennel Club created a hunting test and Westminster hosted the first demonstration in Pine Plains, NY. The February 1987 issue of Town & Country reported it thusly: "Top pointers, spaniels and retrievers were sent afield under the whistles of amateur handlers, while about 800 members of the bird dog fraternity from across the country stood staunchly on the rolling hillsides to honor the AKC's new, noncompetitive program for judging a dog's handiness towing and shot."
Many specialty clubs have staged hunting tests since then, but up until September of 2008, no all breed club had done so. It was appropriate that the Westminster Kennel Club, the country's oldest organization dedicated to the sport of purebred dogs, would do the honors and open the way for other all breed clubs to follow.
GALLERY
Click here for the premium and entry form.
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