Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The UKC Earth Work Hunting Program is Dead


Mountain slides out, a happy hole dog.

It appears the Earth Work Hunting Program at the United Kennel Club has died on the vine due to lack of interest.

I do not follow the Club scene too much, and apparently this is old news. Rumor has it that no one had applied for any titles in quite a while. Too bad.

It seems only a few years back that I was being told the UKC hunt program was going to take the world by storm and leave the JRTCA a hollow shell devoid of membership and working dogs of any kind. Apparently that did not happen.

In curiosity, I checked out the AKC Parson Russell Association web site, and it does not appear to have been updated in more than three years. There are no recent newsletters, no membership brags, and the "earthwork" page is simply a place-holder that takes you to a form if you want to go ahead and fill that out. No education here, and not much encouragement!

The American Working Terrier Association (which is not a registry) has go-to-ground trials, but that's some distance from real field work, and here too things seem to be moribund to the casual observer. This seems to be a web site presentation failure; if you really want to find out what is going on at AWTA, you have to go to Jo Ann Frier-Murza's site to get a schedule. A hat tip to Jo Ann; few have done more in service to the dogs (and, in case you didn't see the earlier mention on this blog, her excellent book on earthdog trials has been reprinted).

Over at the Jack Russell Terrier Association of America, things seem to be in pretty fine fettle, with massive amounts of information, a national trial scheduled 94 days from today in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and regular shows and trials that are google-mapped for easy locating. In addition, the JRTCA web site sells locator collars and fox nets, and has links to JRT Rescue and JRT health research.

Is there any question as as to why the JRTCA is the backbone of terrier work in the U.S.?
..

14 comments:

HurricaneDeck said...

The UKC title was a hard one to obtain for logistical reasons. I looked into it for my dogs, but found out that I would have to fly a judge out from the East and pay their fee. There were concerns about having permission to hunt on private land or the ability to hunt on public lands.

It was also pretty hard to get one being a college student in Wyoming - there just isn't a whole lot of places to do earthwork and money is always tight!

I couldn't get any AKC or JRTCA folks interested - not enough JRTCA members out here and the AKC folks were a little freaked out at the prospect of actually hunting live game, so I gave up on the UKC earthwork title.

PBurns said...

I believe there are JRTCA folks that hunt in Wyoming. Can't remember the name, but there is a coal connection....

P

HurricaneDeck said...

I'll be damned. There's a trial in my backyard in a month. I don't have JRTs, but I'd love to go and help. Thanks!

PBurns said...

Tell 'em Terrierman sent ya -- they will charge you double for a hamburger ;)

P

HurricaneDeck said...

I'll just wear a shirt that says "Blame it on Patrick." :-)

Maybe if I ask really nicely they will let me run a Rat dog or two through the tunnels at the end of the day.

PBurns said...

If you're looking to hunt with terriers in Wyoming, see here >> http://erin.troxell.tripod.com/avalancheacresjackrussellterriers/id43.html

Patrick

HurricaneDeck said...

I got ahold of her last night - she said that she hadn't been to your blog in forever but was happy that you sent me her way!

I'll surely be pestering her now - she doesn't know what she is in for! :-)

Thanks again - I'm thrilled to have the chance to do earthwork with my smaller dogs and let my bigger dogs hang around in case of something bolting.

PBurns said...

All good. The folks on the boards and on Facebook like the chatty nature of that format; it drives me nuts as the noise-to-sound ratio is too high for me. The good news is that the internets has many forms for many people. It even has twitter for the ADD set ;)

P

Yvonne Moore said...

Patrick,
Just thought I'd let you know that the AWTA is far from "moribund". We have awarded over 100 working certificates in the last two years.
The JRTCA does not publicize it's NHCs other than to members, either.

Yvonne

PBurns said...

Yvonne, if you read the post, I said AWTA seems moribund to the casual obersvor.

Which is correct.

The web site seems pretty close to dead and it is certainly a very dead front door.

And considering the load of shit you say about me when you think I am not looking or listening, I am amazed you even come to this blog.

P.

Yvonne Moore said...

I don't come here often. Just wanted to see how that new dog of yours looks all grown up. I've hunted with his sire, who is an awesome terrier.

PBurns said...

Nonsense Yvonne. That dog has been around for 2.7 years and if you wanted to see what it looked like, there's no shortage of pictures, is there? You did not post on that -- you came over here to defend AWTA because it's the only tenuous hook there is for AKC certificate-hunters.

AWTA's weak web site and weak record speak for itself. AWTA will write paper on every animal bagged. So 50 certificates in two years (why pick a two year period except to inflate the number?) is really 25 critters a year (at most) for all of the AKC and the Patterdale folks too. That might be five people hunting. And how many of these folks were brought into hunting through AWTA? Not many. Maybe none.

I have never said a bad word about you Yvonne. But, of course, you have never said a good word about anyone so far as I can see. Good luck with your dogs. A small suggestion, however: throw less dirt with a key board and more with a shovel. It's absurd that on the bulletin boards that you frequent on a daily basis, they post pictures of my dogs working, but your dogs are never seen. Yes, I have noticed. I bet others have too.

P.

Yvonne Moore said...

Patrick, I saw your new dog at Dawn's when he was a youngster. Since then, we've gotten together elsewhere to hunt, and he wasn't along.

I don't frequent the high testosterone boards where the macho hunters all call each other names. I go to one working board where that shit isn't allowed.

And you are right, I don't post pictures of bloodied dogs and dead quarry, neither do the folks I hunt with, for the most part. The folks I have hunted with in England have decided that only gives the antis more ammo to take us all down. The thinking terrier people on this side of the world have decided the Brits might be right about that.

I can't wait for this weather to break so I can go check out the 1000 acre place I got permission on a couple of weeks ago. It's all in veggies, soybeans and alfalfa. No fences and no gates, fairly level. It ought to be a great place.

As for the AWTA being the tenous hook for AKC people? WTF? The AWTA was the FIRST working terrier club and it is open to all terriers and terrier crosses. There were over 100 certificates written for terrier work in 2008 and 2009, which is over 50 per year. And no, we don't award paper for every animal "bagged". Each one is reviewed by the Trustees and either approved or denied. I don't know why you think you know all about this, but then that is typical of you.

BTW, the only thing I ever remember posting about you was that you didn't know all you think you know. I haven't changed my mind about that.

PBurns said...

Yvonne, I know what you post and I know where you post it, and I know what you said. You got caught, and now I know more about you than I wish to. So good night, and go away, and good luck with whatever you do.

For the rest of the world's benefit, this woman says "I am full of shit" because I said many AKC breed standards intentionally select for defect. The English Bulldog is not selected for defect? The Boston terrier? The Chinese Crested? The Dalmatian? The Pekingese? And how about those over-large Fox Terriers that cannot go down a hole? Is that a defect? How about the Bassets that can barely walk, or the cripple-gaited German Shepherds? You have to be a complete ignorant to argue the point.

The back story here is that Yvonne and a handful of others left the JRTCA a few years back thinking there was big money and fame in the AKC. They lectured the world about what a great place the AKC was going to be. Only one problem there, was that some of us had been with the AKC a long time, and we knew that it was just a building in New York City, and a bureaucracy as cold and hard as stone. Now Yvonne is in a big club (the AKC) whose breed club for her dog seems to be in a shambles if the web site is any indication. As for the UKC (another place that was supposed to be great for working dogs) that organization has killed their earth working field program entirely. So now Yvonne is reduced to claiming AWTA is better and bigger than it really is. All I said, however, is that AWTA presents poorly -- and that is something I have said before to people who matter like Jo Ann Frier-Murza. There is no AWTA guide to digging on the terriers, no AWTA store to buy locators or nets, no AWTA web site with instruction on skunk toxic shock, or how to use a locator, etc. There is nothing of any use to anyone wanting to learn how to work a dog, and there is nothing to bring anyone but a ribbon-chaser through the front door. If Yvonne is thrilled with that, good luck to her.

As for being ashamed of hunting and afraid of "antis" it is a sad thing to see America become a nation of cowards.

The good news, of course, is that most American hunters are not ashamed of hunting, nor are they cowards, nor do we share the "farked up" hunting tradtions of the UK (another area where Yvonne's lack of basic knowledge about dogs and hunting is showing).

We are a hunting people, with hunting magazines on every rack, hunting shows on television seven days a week, hunting web sites, hunting ammunition sold at Walmart in season, etc. The hunting causus (Congressional Sportsman's Caucus) is the largest on Capitol Hill, there is a right to hunt in many state constitutions (including my own), and the Federal Government and the states are constantly buying and leasing more land to expand hunting opportunities. Hell, one of last season's American Idol stars is now doing a hunting show, hoping she can find fame there!

I do not know how Yvonne hunts, but there is nothing I do in the field that cannot be seen, and I will take folks from PeTA out if they will only carry the post hole diggers. Hell, the freaking HUMANE SOCIETY is quoting me in their magazine, and yes they know I hunt, have seen my pictures (nothing too dramatic there!) and they sure as hell know where to find me if they want me, as I am in the book and I work around the corner from their office in D.C. (you may recall that I have asked them to bring their direct mail accounting books with them when they come).

Afraid of "the antis?". Is that cowardice or ignorance? One thing for sure, it is un-American.

As for AWTA, it is what it is. Not much, plain and simple -- a place for go-to-ground trials, and for chasing paper. If you think AWTA is a going concern, God bless and carry on. So far, I have not needed AWTA (or the JRTCA) to dig, and neither has anyone else so far as I know.

P