Forming a breed club in the US

[GalomyOak]

So, finally, I think we will have a website for our very informal "club" - but, hopefully something we can grow and move forward from.

I am asking for the help of the wolfdog community...

1. What would be some useful links to add to our site? For instance: CSV clubs from different countries, links to online European registration databases, etc. I'm sure there are plenty of links I have not stumbled upon - and, they do not need to be in English.

2. Is there anyone that would be willing to share some photos for a gallery (with credit given to the photographer, of course)? I think it would be especially to useful to have some photos of very correct conformation, working photos, bonitations, etc. My biggest goal with these photos is to open the eyes of newcomers to the wonderful possibilities, versatility, dedication and hard work of breeders up to this point, and of course, the beauty of our breed. Photos can be sent to: [email protected]

Thank you in advance!

Marcy

[draggar]

I know this thread is almost a year old but you have our support, Marcy.

[yukidomari]

Marcy,

I hope that if a breed club is established, it will be one of the stricter breed clubs out there. There is a huge variety of breed clubs, standards, bylaws, and who they will or will not list as breeders on their site.. I think the stricter ones like the French Bulldog club (in the US, breeders will not appear on referral or list if they have not been with the club for at least 3 years and have not bred at least 1 dog to have titled CH.)

Then there are clubs that seem like just about anything goes. Not a whole lot of clubs mandate relevant health testing.. it's all just pretty much 'research your breeder and even if these breeders appear on our list, we do not explicitly endorse them' type deals.

Personally, I would like very much to see a club that requires at the least the mandatory relevant health testing of breeding dogs in order to be listed, as well as minimum ages to be bred. One of our dogs' breed club requires new owners to submit their dog to their database after an examination at 15 months by a vet.. information like size, health problems that have appeared, etc etc are recorded there.

It seems very similar to a bonitation and the database available here and I hope that the future CSV club of america will have something similar.

[draggar]

Good points, Yukidomari.

I think the international vlcak community would like to see every dog FCI certified (hips) before breeding. I'm also thinking CERF (I think it's an eye?) tested also.

Maybe we could also look at the Sieger standard with GSDs - only dogs with working and show titles will be on the referral list. Here in the US you can easily tell working lines from show lines (this is very obvious in malinois). What working titles will have to be worked out. It is fairly easy for any dog to get a CGC and if it gets the CGC then it's only one more step to get a BH. Maybe SchH1 or obedience titles?

[yukidomari]

Originally Posted by draggar

Good points, Yukidomari.

I think the international vlcak community would like to see every dog FCI certified (hips) before breeding. I'm also thinking CERF (I think it's an eye?) tested also.

Maybe we could also look at the Sieger standard with GSDs - only dogs with working and show titles will be on the referral list. Here in the US you can easily tell working lines from show lines (this is very obvious in malinois). What working titles will have to be worked out. It is fairly easy for any dog to get a CGC and if it gets the CGC then it's only one more step to get a BH. Maybe SchH1 or obedience titles?

Hips/elbows and CERF sounds like a good start!

Sieger standards of Germany? Well it's easy to tell GSD from West German show lines, even if they require SchH titles.. SchH is a sport.. a dog could certainly pass SchH1 and not be able to be put under any real working situation. Course, it's also easy to tell which is American, and which are DDR as well.. It's all a big controversy, of course, I'm not criticizing one way or the other.. many, MANY people criticize American standard GSDs, but a large number of people also criticize West German show GSDs, even if they have a SchH title..

I agree that something needs to be there, more than just a conformation CH. like can be permissible for companions or toy dogs, but above that, well, it's so very tricky. I wish that there really wasn't a need for titles, that people could just evaluate their dog fairly and honestly, like how many landrace breeds came to be, but it appears in this day and age, without titles, 99.999% of the time you're just looking at a breeder who is kennel-blind.

[michaelundinaeichhorn]

The German "Working" Shepherd lines are a good example that sport exams of the old type like SchH etc. don´t help much, in this special case looking at character they made things worse.
The German Police and Border Patrol often buys dogs out of other countries or changed to Mallinois beacause the German dogs often are not usable because of health and character.
By breeding for easy obidience and high prey instinct they got extremly excitable (in the meaning of too aroused) dogs that are too nervous for real work (in the sense of work not sport) and switch in emotions very quickly what makes many of them not reliable. And many of them are in no way healthier than the show lines. The lines of Eastern Germany were the old type of good working dogs that also were healthier but mostly got mixed up with the Western Germany type and are very hard to find nowadays.

Ina

[draggar]

Don't forget in Sieger shows it is required to keep the dog at a trot for a while (I don't know exactly how long but I think more people can't do it for being out of shape).

SchH1 isn't that easy to obtain (and I only used that as an example) but holds true to the vlcak's reason for existence - tracking, protection, and obedience. (Too bad the SchH2 and SchH3 trials are very similar to the 1). I think we should start looking into schutzhund with our vlcaks (hell, they are descendants of working line GSDs - and the Czech Republic / Czechoslovakia made some of the best working line GSDs).

As for real working - what should be considered real working? I am sure most SchH3 dogs don't do much of the schutzhund work outside of the field (except obedience). I don't think the CsV was created to herd but if it's going to be in the herding group, then maybe we should also look into that.

Making the "official" breed club - I've gotten no response from the ABLA (American Belgian Laekenois Assoc) so I've asked Fred Lanting to reach out to the Shiloh Shepherd community to find out what they did to form the "official" club - as well as any costs that were associated with the formation and annual costs. While I understand that money can be tight with the members at this time, I'd hate to see someone else come in and form the club without the community's (or breed's) best interests in mind. Next thing we know we could have a commercial breeder breeding anything and calling it a vlcak.

I think the club should continue to be called the "Czechoslovakian Vlcak Club of America" (CsVCA) and continue to use Marcy's site:

http://www.czechoslovakianvlcak.org/

As the club's site. To keep cybersquatters away, I did register czechoslovakianvlcak.com and csvca.org and pointed them to Marcy's site. (.com is sill king - most people will type that in and .org because it suits an "organization" and people will type that in). I also added her site on the Wikipedia page on vlcaks.

Sadly, though, when you type VLCAK into Google, some of the top sites that come up still call them wolf hybrids. We need to get those pushed down in the rankings so people can see the truth.

Edit: I see the APRI, ACR, and DRA all recognize the vlcak as a breed - let's try to stay away from these registries and *not* accept them for AKC registration (if we have a choice).