Bark Game: Expanding Hunting Tests and Hunt Trials for North America

edited August 2013 in General
Hello!

Last year, Neda Joss, of the Canadian Norrbottenspets Club, was exploring different venues of activities with her recent import from Finland. When she looked into hunting possibilities, she looked toward the United Kennel Club for their squirrel trials. However, since she lived on the western half of the continent, she was not able to participate in the events without long trips to the east. So, she began iinquiring to different spiz-, hound- and cur-hunters about establishing a barking bird-trial. She wrote a letter to the magazine "Full Cry" campaigning for support for a trial; and has received positive feedback from the readers. Eventually, dialogue was opened up with the UKC.

However, the UKC said in order for them to adopt and sanction such trials, there need to be a healthy group of enthusiasts. They advised us to remain decentralized while we conduct trials. So, she approached me, wondering if it is possible to get the project off the ground. I offered my web-design experience.

Brad Anderson ( @brad1878 ) was kind enough us assistance with the web-server. Although Neda and I have been working on the concept for 8 months translating documents, we didn't really have a break-through until a member of the Suomen Laikajärjestö got us hooked up with the Suomen Pystykorvajärjestö and we were able to obtain the English translation of their 2013 bird-trial and moose-trial.

So, I introduce to you: Bark Game.

The website is still a diamond in the rough. We still need people to supply profile photographs of different breeds, hunting photographs and so on. Even more article-writers than just Neda and I.

At the moment, we are translating the Russian documents since they are more concise than the Nordic rules and possibly adopt the formats as "hunt tests". We also have a FInnish bird-trial judge who is reviewing the modifications made to the original English translation for North American context.

We don't anticipate the support to be very high. Those who are already hunt have their own special strains: curs, feists, retrievers, hog-dogs. And those with imported breeds, some of them need encouragement to get out in the field. However, we all need to start somewhere even if only a few people showed up in the first few years. So, because the North American hunting culture is extraordinary diverse, and there is no statistics on how many hunters own hunting spitzes, we decided to make the trial open to any breed.

The document for the bird trial: http://ow.ly/o1VVm
URL of Bark Game: http://www.barkgame.org

Comments

  • edited August 2013
    Oh, if we got any of the "facts" wrong such as the breed's description. Don't be afraid to provide feedback and corrections!
  • edited August 2013
    Reminder: We will perfectly be willing to add breed-clubs to the list if the organization has a history of supplying dogs to hunters. :)

    http://barkgame.org/resources/organizations/
  • That's pretty cool, can't wait to see footage of the first trial once everything is set up.
  • Slowly adding list of books from Russian sources to the list of literature: http://barkgame.org/resources/literature/. Apparently there is a lot to be said about training a hunting dog in European languages.

    If anyone has hunting books or breed books they would like to add, let me know. I would like to include Korean and Japanese texts if they exist. :)
  • This is extremely cool! I'm curious to see how this develops--when I eventually get an NK (and maybe someday some other sort of hunting dog, too) I would be very interested in trying to learn how to participate.

    And apropos of nothing, this reminded me of someone in the Finnish Lapphund (which is mostly a herding dog, though some of them do have decent hunting instinct) club who bought a male who developed juvenile cataracts. She removed him from her breeding program, of course (and had the cataracts treated with surgery), but instead of placing him... she gave him to her husband as a bird dog. And it actually worked, he trained him into an adequate hunting dog.

    Wish I could help with the resources... but unfortunately I don't speak Japanese or Korean. Just English, Russian, and some German. If I happen to come across something in any of those that isn't already on the list, however, I will let you know (and if you need any additional help with translation, I would be happy to volunteer).
  • edited September 2013
    Thanks. :) We will keep in contact.

    I got an interesting critique from the Airedale people: they tried to unite the breed through the "working" mantra several times before, but the hunters and show-people didn't get along: mainly because hunters wanted bear-, cougar-, and coon-dogs; but the show-people wanted to be respected by the HPR culture (Hunt, Point, Retrieve) and wanted pointing and retrieving trials only. The protection-sport people thought it is possible test a dog's prey drive through Schutzhund trials.

    Hunters didn't want the breed to be banned by breed-specific legislation because people were breeding dogs for protection; show-people didn't think other forms of hunting was ethical and so on. The organization eventually fell apart over this quibble.

    So, the critique? Make sure the trials and tests examine the instinct of the dogs, not the handler's ability to train the dog.
  • I'm very interested in this! Also, the fact that something might happen in Alberta is ver exciting to me!
  • edited September 2013
    Progress on transliterations, translations, copy-editing, modifications and changes to the rule-sets can be found here: http://barkgame.org/programs/trial/revisions/.

    The reason why this project is open-source is: there is only a handful of people working on this. In the ideal world, we would like to have each breed to be fairly represented on a committee and an adviser for each of the country of origin sitting on the board. However, since this is ultimately in the hands of a few, the best way to make the system accountable is to publish everything for the prying eyes.

    It is still a long road from getting regular attendance on a yearly basis. There is probably like one or two, maybe three, Laika-owners who definitely attend; maybe two Norrbottenspitz owners (out of quite a few interested people) and who knows for other breeds.

    For those who are interested in rule-sets for other trials and competitions in other countries, refer to here:

    http://barkgame.org/programs/trial/references/

    Again, like always, let me know if I am missing a country or anything like that.
  • edited January 2014
    Have not forgotten about this.

    Going to collaborate with Darren Petty of LHANA (Laika Hunters' Association of North America). Originally we were going to finish translating the documents before approaching LHANA for sponsorship, but the organization have their own ideas now. Going to keep in touch with LHANA so we can get more participants.

    I remember hunters in Norway and Finland telling me only about 10% of people actually go to trials. So, we already know that the numbers will be really low.
  • Been working on more indepth breed profiles.

    Here is one for Finnish Spitz:

    http://barkgame.org/breeds/spitzes/finnish-spitz/

    Would like to get some assistance with the history of Japanese spitzes and their hunting utilities.
  • I apologize that I forgot to finish the translation I was doing to help out! Let me know if you need me to get back on that or work on some other aspect of it, I'm definitely still interested in helping out! Just got sidetracked.
  • It's all good.

    After awhile, it becomes obvious which Russian phrases and sentences are simply copied and pasted into other documents. So I copied and pasted your corrections as well. :)

    I will have to give them another read to figure out which ones don't follow that format.
  • Current revisions along with history can be find here:

    http://barkgame.org/programs/trial/revisions/

    Will do translation for penned boar test since people like Gen are worried about the inability to hold trials in the wilderness area due to animal-welfare laws.
  • Added first revision of the hunt-test for wild boar.

    URL: http://barkgame.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/hunt-testboarfreecast0.1.doc

    Would like to get some feedback from experienced boar-hunters such as @TheWalrus and @shishiinu before publishing the revisions soon to follow in version 0.2.
  • I read through the boar section. If you're going to score a hunt, I guess that would be the way to do it. As a boar hunter, I agree with the guidelines.

    Only thing I'd add is that most of the best hunting NK I've seen so far would probably end up with very mediocre scores, or at worst disqualified. A good hunting dog does not have to follow the rules, all it has to do is bring home the bacon. Most of the best I've seen are very fluid in the way they hunt, intelligent in the extreme, but not methodical. They adjust to each situation and individual boar, and to the terrain. This to me is why I love to hunt with them, as it requires me to adjust as well. There's a real sense of teamwork and connection with my hunting partner when we're both reading each other's signals and deciding how to tackle a boar. And I ramble on...
  • edited February 2014
    Thank you for replying, @TheWalrus.

    In the unreleased version 0.2, I took into consideration Vladimir Beregovoy's translation from 1997 which states a pair of Laikas can reliably holds a boar up to 90kg (or 200lbs). Also amended among other things like including the grammar of "griping" and "biting" in addition to the component which measures the aggressiveness of the dog.

    URL: http://www.shelmapackkennel.com/content/boar-trial-rules/

    So, may I ask why the best Nihon Ken would end up with mediocre scores or become disqualified?

    And what changes could be amended so that those dogs will get more points?
  • Been cleaning up my bookmarks. Added a list of database.

    I noticed people tend to worship a handful of breeders in North America and whines it's too difficult to find a dog outside their gene-pool.

    So, I added a page which lists third-party databases to empower the would-be importers.

    http://barkgame.org/resources/db/

    Enjoy.
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