# Versatile Hunting Dog Test



## Ali-MAc (Jul 12, 2013)

Big shout out to the local chapter of the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA) for running a great test last weekend.

For those of you that are not familiar with Versatile Dogs go on over to https://www.navhda.org/ or our local chapter www.wmnavhda.com/

Versatile dog breeds are bred and trained to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of hunting dogs being strong at upland game search and point, waterfowl retrieving and scent tracking, many of the familiar US breeds are there (Shorthairs, Wirehairs, Drathaars, Setters)

One of the best things about the weekend was watching 2 youth handlers take their dogs round (both got perfect scores, one with a Drathaar and one with a Pudelpointer)

2 years ago I was a complete beginner who had never owned a hunting dog, had only hunted over them a few times and other than reading a few books had zero idea how to train one.

NAVHDA is assessment based rather than competitive, the skills and abilities of the dogs (and so the training skills of the handlers) are measured and scored against a standard.

If all the dogs in a test score highly enough then all the dogs get a coveted Prize 1

What this does is produce in the club a collegiate atmosphere where because handlers are never going to be competing against each other they all help each other train their dogs, they train the new trainers like me and they come out to offer extra pairs of hands, they share training equipment and even take a ton of their time to work one on one with other trainers to help them.

The local chapter members have lent me equipment and given of their personal time to help me train my dog from scratch.

If you are interested in learning more come and join the facebook group and ask questions

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1422994137947622/


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