ALSO: as I read this thread i'm seeing various points being made and wanted to address them... For the UGA, our biggest objection is and always will be "your titles are not recognized by the AKC or UKC". This is a true statement, yet we feel that is not something that should deter us, or our participants from participating. I would not call our business a "money game", believe me there is no money in it! Our hunt tests filled a few voids that we saw in the industry. 1) upland hunt tests were hard to find for retrievers (UKC upland test is only offered at a Finished Level, which is not achievable by several retriever owners who still own outstanding hunting dogs that can hunt, handle, find birds, and retrieve). 2) Pointing labs do not have a lot of options in terms of competing for true pointing titles. Personally, I do not own pointing labs but for the people that do, they should have a place other than just the APLA to earn these types of titles. 3) The "money game" is being played by the AKC and UKC as well technically, entry fees are not too bad as they have lowered recently, however you need several passes to earn the title which may help evaluate a dog's ability more, but lets be honest, you then have to find at least two events which almost always means you travel. So our goal was to provide a really nice hunt test that can truly evaluate a dog's hunting ability that can be run twice on saturday to earn the title in one weekend/event. We want to make this more affordable and rewarding for our dogs, and us handlers, trainers, hunters, dog enthusiasts, etc. As for the titles being recognized, that is our goal to get our upland hunt tests in front of you guys, to show that they are legitimate hunt tests and that a dog needs to be at a certain ability level to compete. Our "gundog" level tests are somewhere between a junior level akc test and a senior level. All in all, the gundog level tests do not require steady to wing and shot, but the rest needs to be there. Advanced level tests are more master level. Case in point, for those of you that own kennels or are in the breeding aspect of hunting dogs, these titles still show your active participation in hunt tests, as well as success in the field and your training program which will never hurt your breeding/training business. For what it is worth, I have seen MANY dogs with all kinds of AKC or UKC titles in their pedigrees, as well as on the dog themselves who were not great "hunting" dogs. As I said above, I participate in AKC hunt tests with my dogs, and belong to an HRC club as well. I hesitate to call any other organization competition because I think these organizations are what make us successful as breeders, trainers, and hunters. I invite all of you to run our event and see what we are about!
