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chiendog · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 206 **Breed:**

Hi All,

Just popped into town today for a couple of hours and then it's right back into the field with dogs, guns and a new pair of boots ( we've been chasing birds pretty much every day, all day since the first week of September...and I finally wore a hole through my boots...)

Anyway, I thought I would mention that I will be hunting for the next two weeks with friends from Germany. Among them is Tanja Breu Knaup, a very well known breeder and judge of Weims from Dortmund. I want to interview her for a possible magazine article and/or short video while she is here. Her knowledge of the breed is very extensive and she and her husband are hard-core hunters with years of experience in the field. Before I sit down to tape the interview, I thought it may be a good idea to ask you all for any questions you think I should ask her about the breed, training, hunting...anything at all.

Personally, I am most interested in seeing how her dogs work in our conditions and to hear her thoughts on our ways of hunting. I also want to make sure she sees how our dogs work over here so that she will have a better idea as to what we look for in a dog and will therefore, hopefully, be able to identify good candidates for us to breed to from German stock.

So, do you have any questions you would like me to ask Tanja?

P.S. I should mention that I have already hunted for a couple of days with my German visitors. They arrive last thursday. Their dogs are adapting very well to our game, learning quickly. So far, what I have seen has confirmed what I already knew about German dogs but has also showed me some surprising things as well. I will detail my observations when I come back into town in a few days.
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Fogdog · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject:

I would like to know her attitude to questions relevant to the dogs' nature v. nurture in view of the fact that the original German standard gave dogs marks for their ability to:

1] totverbellen - barking over fallen game. Useful in olden days on big estates where deer culling, in fact venison hunting per se, was common and acceptable. Less acceptable in the modern, urban, European pet weim? I had a bitch with strong German lines who could bark and bark.... I now have an almost silent entire rescue male, and I know which I prefer!

2] mansharft [? spelling] - sharpness on man as 'prey'. Again, not something one would look for in a pet weim or even in a working Weim who was kept as family member in today's circumstances.... is this quality still being aimed for in German bloodlines?

and
3] the old German tests called for a cat or fox [I am told] to be sought and killed within a certain time, and once again I think it would be fair to say that most of us would not like our dogs to show this behaviour today.
My own dog came to us with no experience of cats but someone had clearly knocked [and I do mean with violence] the desire to even look at fur out of him and it was easy to get them to accept each other.

While I cannot condone the methods and have spent long months teaching him that no violence will be offered to him in this home, I am grateful for a dog that can safely be left with my cat and therefore with other small creatures I hope! He remains an eager worker of all feathered game which suits me fine.

I would be interested to know how the modern German breeder and trainer
views these practices and how relevant they are nowadays to the choice of breeding stock.
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Fogdog 'n The Woozle

Life is learning curve - Weimaraners simply make it steeper!

sako75 · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:41 pm Post subject:

I look forward to your interview Craig and hopefully one of your videos of the dogs in action.

I would also be interested in the points that fogdog raised re the German weims particularly the cat "killing".

Barry.
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chiendog · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 206 **Breed:**

Hi All,

I just got back into town from hunting pheasants in the US, and I will be heading out into the field again tomorrow. I will do my best to have some photos and a blog update done in the next few days. I've just been too busy chasing birds all over the place to sit down at this computer!

Before I head out the door though I will post a few quick highlights/stories/observations…in no particular order.

1. Saskatchewan was HOT in early September. Daytime highs were almost 30 degrees! There were lots and lots and lots of birds (grouse and partridge) but we could only work the dogs in the very early morning and again in the evening. Nevertheless, it was a great trip. All the dogs I brought along for training did very well including 5 month old Henri (my new Weim pup) who pointed his first wild birds!

The highlight of the Saskatchewan trip was when my wife’s Pont Audemer Spaniel Uma pointed a partridge that I managed to shoot and then pointed another one as she was returning from the retrieve with the first one still in her mouth. When it (the second one) flushed, I shot it and Uma retrieved it as well!

The opening of the season in Manitoba was a bit cooler, especially for the early morning duck hunts I enjoyed with friends from Ontario who travel here every year to hunt waterfowl. I mainly worked with Zeiss, my friend’s 18 month-old longhaired Weim, who did a fantastic job fetching ducks and geese.

The upland season in Manitoba was so-so in terms of bird numbers, but absolutely outstanding in terms of company! 4 friends from Germany hunted with us every day for almost three weeks. Their dogs ( a male and female Longhaired Weimaraner) adapted very well to our game and terrain. It was a real treat watching them learn the ropes of upland and waterfowl hunting as it is done in Canada.

I will have lots to say about what I saw/learned hunting with them on my blog and/or right here.

In the meantime, if you want to watch a very home-made (ie: pretty bad) video of me and my female Souris hunting snipe (yes, snipe!) last Sunday, have a look at this: www.craigkoshykphoto.ca/Snipe.mov (you may want to keep your finger on the volume control, the wind was pretty loud that day!).

Cheers!

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