La Visite!

Souris and Uma welcomed a longhaired Weimaraner named "Zeiss" (rhymes with "ice") to our place last week. He's here for some last-minute preparation before his NAVHDA NA test near Fargo this weekend. His owner is unable to make it to the test, so I will be running Zeiss for him. Wish us luck, will ya? We're gonna need it!

You see, I'm a mediocre dog trainer on a good day. And my NAVHDA experience is slim. So it's pretty much a sure bet that I will do something to cost us a few points during the test. And Zeiss? Well he's a 65lb puppy! I think he has enormous potential in NAVHDA. However, at just over a year old, he's the canine equivalent of a daydreaming 10 year old boy. One day, he can do no wrong, showing a great search, fantastic point, excellent water work...and the next day, his head is in the clouds. So watch for either a great score...or a crash and burn on the weekend. With time, I am convinced he will be an excellent hunting dog. But for now, his NA performance could go either way.

What's in a Name?

As I worked my way through a few more chapters of my humungous book project last week, I realized that something as simple as the name of a breed, may not be so simple after all.

The most obvious difficulty in many cases is pronunciation. When it comes to tongue twister names there are some real doozeys among the continental breeds. Try saying Slovensky Hrubosrsty Stavac three times fast!

One obvious solution will be to provide a phonetic spelling of the name which best approximates the sounds of the original language. Another will be to list the FCI approved English translation of the breed name. Where no official FCI translation exists, I will provide the most commonly used English name for the breed.

With some breeds, English speakers have adopted the original name and anglicized it…with varying degrees of success. I cannot tell you how many different ways I have heard Weimaraner pronounced;

“Wee-mar-eener"
"Weisen-heimer"
"Why-nen-eye-man"

Even names that seem to be straightforward can sometimes be tricky to pronounce correctly. Since I speak French and have gathered most of the information on the various Braque breeds from French sources, I just assumed that everyone pronounced the word braque like the French do: "Brak", it rhymes with back. I’ve noted however, that many Americans say “Brock”, (rhymes with stock). I have no idea why.

Drahthaar is another name that gets mangled from time to time. The most common English twist on it is to put a “th’ sound in the middle. While Europeans say Drat- (rhymes with bat)-har, you will often hear North Americans say Drath (rhymes with wrath)-har. Some will change the “a” sound as well. They say Drawth-har.

So I guess I will have to come up with a quick and easy way to describe the various ways the names are translated and pronounced. And in so doing, I’ll explore some other questions such as:.

• Does Spaniel really mean “from Spain” ?
• Why do Hungarians call all birddogs “Vizslas” even the ones that aren’t actually Vizslas?
• Is the Pudelpointer actually part Poodle?
• Is Spinone a kind of icecream?
• And finally, the “big can of worms” question that I’ll tackle in my next blog post: “Are German Wire Hair Pointers and Deutsch Drahthaars the same breed?”*

Stay tuned! Oh, and if you have a question about a breed’s name, feel free to ask. I will do my best to get to the bottom of it.

*The same question can be asked of GSP’s/Kurzhaars or Brittanies/Epagneul Bretons etc.

Maybe I Should Stick With Still Photography

Felix and Souris sharing a point on sharptailed grouse, Fall 2003

Yesterday we finally got out to do some training after a winter from hell (we were more or less cooped up since early December, in fact it SNOWED only three days ago!) Anywho, one of our goals this year is to teach a young Pont Audemer Spaniel to honour a point. My Ponto Uma does it just fine, but her cousin Vinnie still needs to figure it out. So we headed to our training grounds with pigeons and launchers and figured we would give it a try.

On the way out the door, I decided to grab my video camera instead of my usual still camera just for fun. It ended up being a very educational session. Here is what I learned;

1. I suck at making videos
2. It is really hard to train a dog and video-tape at the same time..especially with the remote for the bird launcher in one hand and two or three dogs running around the field.
3. My dogs have completely forgotten what "steady to flush" means
4. Despite all the hassle, it was actually a lot of fun! I think I will ask a friend of mine who is a journalist with a pro video camera to come out one day to get some better footage.

So, if you are interested in watching my very amateur attempt at video, check out

Part 1 and Part 2

And please be gentle with your critiques....

Craig

Perdiguero de Burgos

The memories I have of the various breeds I’ve seen are inevitably linked with my memories of the countries where I observed and photographed them. For some reason, with the Perdiguero de Burgos the link is particularly strong. I simply cannot think of them without recalling the hot, arid areas of Spain where we’ve seen them and had the opportunity to watch them work.

Our first encounter with the breed was in northern Spain where we spent an afternoon with a lovely young female Burgos as she worked oat-stubble fields for quail. On that hot, windless day I came to understand why hunters in the area would prefer dogs that pace themselves instinctively for a long, hot day of hunting. Several years later, this time on a visit to central Spain, we once again watched Perdiguero de Burgos work in warm, dry conditions. And once again, I saw the reasoning behind the dog’s working style.

Burgos are large dogs, up to 67 cm’s for the males. Their build is a classic fusion of hound and pointer; loose hanging skin, long low set ears, powerful muzzle and a well proportioned, muscular body built for endurance. To my eye, there were significant differences between the sexes; males being quite a bit larger and more heavy-set than the females. Even among individuals of the same sex, there was significant variation, especially in the heads.

As with their appearance, there were noticeable differences in the way the individuals ran. All displayed fairly good speed and agility, covering the dry rocky ground with ease. Some were noticeably faster than others however. Some dogs worked closer, others further out. Regardless of the individual working style, none left any question as to their desire and ability. They hunted, pointed and retrieved quite well. They also seemed fairly easy to handle. Speaking with club members near Madrid, they all agreed that one of the best things about these dogs is how easy they are to train and handle. Miguel Trevijano of the Asociación Española del Perro Perdiguero de Burgos told me that “Our dogs are very useful for hunting almost everything. And they are also easy to train and easy to get along with. Many of our members used to have other breeds, Pointers, Setters, Bretons, but now they have Burgos because they are so easy to get along with, very easy to hunt with and good in the home. Our membership has doubled in the last five years. Hunters are finding out just how good these dogs hunt and how easy they are to live with”.

From what I observed I would agree with Senor Trevijano. The Perdiguero de Burgos that he and the other members of the Asociación so kindly allowed us to observe and photograph were very nice hunting dogs indeed.

Click here or on the photo above to view a gallery of photographs of the Perdigueros de Burgos we saw on our recent visit to Spain (all dogs featured courtesy of the Asociación Española del Perro Perdiguero de Burgos)

8K and a make-over.

Two weeks ago, when I finally downloaded the last of the images from our recent whirl-wind Euro-trip, I was stunned to see that I had over 8 thousand shots to edit. Well, here it is two weeks later and I’ve managed to whittle the 8K down to a more reasonable number hovering around 900 frames. I’ve almost done sorting them into breed-specific galleries and have begun posting a few to my website. Speaking of my website, I’ve given it a bit of a make-over. I combined my fine art site with my dog-photo site into a (hopefully) easy-to-view one-stop shop featuring a bunch of old and new photos combined into a bunch of new galleries.

Have a look and let me know what you think!

www.craigkoshykphoto.ca

On the Road Again...and Again and Again

I strapped myself into an aisle seat of a plane headed for Chicago this morning. A couple of bumpy hours later my wife and I landed at O’Hare airport and spent much of the day wandering from one Starbucks to another until we boarded a flight to Munich. As I write, I am strapped into yet another aisle seat on yet another plane. This one is bigger. And so are the bumps. So in an effort to forget my fears during this white-knuckle flight, I figured I’d whip out the laptop and update my blog.

Munich is not our final destination today. We’re actually heading to Madrid, via Munich. We’re on our way to photograph several gundog breeds native to Spain. On Saturday we will visit with Carlos Contera, a renowned breeder of Spanish Double Nosed Pointers for a photo shoot of his dogs in action. On Sunday, we are scheduled to meet with breeders of Perdiguero de Burgos, another Spanish pointing breed, similar to the Bracco Italiano. On Monday we head to Majorca to photograph a gundog breed that is only found on that island. It is called the Ca Mé Mallorqui. I think the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is to ask the club members how to pronounce Ca Mé Mallorqui!

After Mallorca, we head to Portugal, after that, Italy, France, Holland and Germany. So stay tuned for updates, photos and more tales from the aisle seat.

Now, where’s that barf-bag?