RETRIEVING AUSTRALIA FORUM

I'm new on this site. I am interested in finding out as whether or not there is a Versatile Hunting Dog Testing Organisation along the lines of the NAVHDTA or similar here in Australia?

Alex in Australia Versatiles are called Utility Gundogs. Various clubs run field trials for these dogs and they can run in retrieving trials which are for all breeds of gundog.

Prue Winkfield wrote:Alex in Australia Versatiles are called Utility Gundogs. Various clubs run field trials for these dogs and they can run in retrieving trials which are for all breeds of gundog.

Thanks for your response Prue. I'm keen to gauge any interest among "Utility Gundog" folk on setting up something along the lines of the NAVHDTA or the JGHV testing systems. Field and retrieving trials are great but there is a lot more we can do with many of the "Gundog" breeds here. There is a considerable level of interest in the use of the Gundog breeds in the hunting of several deer species in Victoria, in particular Sambar. I regularly hunt over "Gundogs" (versatile breeds) in Europe and the US. It would be good to see something along the lines of the above systems happening here?

Alex - very much doubt that there are enough people to make this happen - we have a very small population! Currently the GSP Club in Victoria is probably the strongest Club with an interesting in hunting/testing Utility Dogs so it might be worth contacting them to get a response. Contact details can be found on its website.

Prue and Alex, maybe David Blacker would be interested in talking to Alex about this sort of thing?

Thanks again Prue and Diane. I signed up as a member of the GSP club a couple of months ago. They have been very helpful. I'll follow up with David. Cheers.