 Test, test, test, testing, testing, testing, all right you guys, thank you very much to Naughton International for the invitation. I am Laura Reeves, I am your keynote speaker this evening, what do you need here? Apparently they don't like this one, we're going to get rid of it, hold please. Test, test, now you can definitely hear me, and I don't have to yell, which is super exciting, but I do have to use both my left hand and my right hand, so I'm not entirely sure how this is going to go. But we're talking tonight about what is a great standard and why does it matter, and I know that there's people out there with a stockpile of frozen tomatoes, I'm just going to ask you to hold up on those just for a minute, all right. I promise we're going to get to the point here, all right, great standard start, okay. Land raised dogs are dogs that develop in isolated areas, breeds like Azawak and Pasangins, and they are locally adapted, you see plants that are land raised, you see other species of animals that are also land raised. Purpose bred dogs are what we have, purpose bred dogs are developed by people to do a very specific job, whether it's hunting or herding or companionship, okay, we have hunting dogs, other people have pup dogs, all right, all of those are purpose bred dogs. Breed standards were created as a description of the ideal dog, the ideal dog, not just the random average dog, the ideal dog, the perfect dog of that individual breed, and the first breeds at the first dog show were breed dogs, pointers and centers specifically, the first breed recognized by the American Cow Club as a pointer, all of the first eight breeds recognized by the American Cow Club in 1878 were bird dogs, every single one of them. So bird dogs have a long and vaunted history in the world of dog shows where breed standards are applied. So imagine if you will, it's kind of like my fanciful vision of how dog shows actually started, they started in England, by the way, with bird dogs, we mentioned that, right? And so you've been out hunting and Ted and Jeff have sat down at the bar with their fill of birds and now they're deep in the whiskey and they're having a conversation about which one of their dogs is better looking. My dog's better looking, no, my dog's better looking, all right? And so they're going to get all Darren Tulson down the end of the bar, come here and answer which one of their dogs is better looking. And voila, we just had our first dog show. Early breed standards were written to describe the dog that did its job the best. So that dog that just got the most birds, that's what they wrote the standard to describe. To this day, the ideal dog represented by the breed standard is a vision for which every breeder, all y'all, should be striving for, right? Form follows function. I want you to know, I just gave the flip side of the same speech at the AKC Breeder Symposium to all the dog show people about why form follows function. Okay, my friend Wayne Kavanaugh, also a dog show judge, notes that when hungry hunters back in the day needed a meal, they didn't form a club, write a standard, and then make a dog to match their written words. They're hungry and go get a bird until they eat. What's in a breed standard? Okay, that's going to vary by your breed, right? So the Spinaudi breed standard is different than the German Wirehead pointer breed standard, which is different from the Wirehead Pointing Reform standard, all different. Each standard includes important points of history. There's going to be a general description, sort of an overall picture of what this dog looks like, its job, and specific description of important points in the dog's structure. And those are always going to be points that made it able to do its job better. Okay, head, fore forearms, body, rear assembly, movement, coat, and temperament are pretty common parts of any breed standard. This is the breed standard for the German Wirehead pointer part of it. Okay, so that shows you this is a format. All of the breed standards, typically for the American Count Club at any rate, are going to be in this basic format. And they're going to talk about the general appearance and the size of the dog, all of those pieces, right? And why do we care? There's what? What is there? Like 150 off? A couple under y'all? What do you care? You care because you're selling hunting dogs to people who want to hunt with them for a very long time. Or you're buying a hunting dog that you want to hunt with for a very long time. And you want that dog to be healthy the whole time that you're hunting with it. Every one of us that's breeding bird dogs, breeding any dog, should be working to adhere to the ideal vision that's in the standard. There are no perfect dogs. You might think that Nacho or Toro or whichever one of those is the most perfect dog, right? I might think Bing is the most perfect dog, but none of them are perfect by the breed standard. But all dogs, whether they're going to a pet home and lay on the couch and watch Netflix, or they're going to run for the VC, or they're going to be a sugar. Every single one of them should be structurally sound, as described in the standard, so that they can live that long healthy life that we should be seeking for all of our dogs. The standard also gives folks who are buying a dog an important description of the size of the dog. Am I getting a St. Bernard or a Chihuahua? Well, how do you know? You read the breed standard. That's how we give people information. And so if we're not breeding to the standard, they think they're getting a Chihuahua, and all of a sudden it's a St. Bernard. What the hell? Right? Okay. This is absolutely imperative, and I will tap dance on this one a little bit. Purebred dogs are living history. Every single one of the recognized breeds is a living, breathing conduit. To a specific people, place, and time. Germany, the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution, finally the regular guy gets to have a dog, not just the special, important, loyalty people. But he can't afford to have four flippin' dogs to get one tiny quail. So he makes the German wear of your quater, because he wants a dog that can do everything. That is history. And our job, as responsible preservation breeders, is to serve as curators of the purebred dog. And what does that have to do with anything about bird dogs? Okay. Breedy is, as Breedy does, and that's a fact. Just because a dog will literally kill itself, because it has so much heart, and so much desire, and so much drive, because that's what you bred it for. Just because it will kill itself doesn't mean it should have to. Dogs bred to the standard for structure, size, coat, temperament. These are dogs that are going to have the physical strength and the endurance to match the mental toughness, the bitability, the bird finding ability, and the desire that you guys are here testing all year long in every chapter across the country. This is a blueprint. Y'all build your house according to a blueprint, at least I hope you do. You should be building your dog according to a blueprint, and that's what the standard is. Everybody that was there yesterday, you saw the state foot book, right? Bob Wheelie's book on elking pointers. Bob Wheelie, one of the top American field trial guys of all time, had an entire breed standard just for his dogs. And he adhered to it. And the dogs, those elking pointers that you see today, still follow that standard. It mattered to him. If it mattered to one of the most successful field people in the country ever, then I think maybe we ought to listen up. So the big things that you're going to find in your breed standard, head, forequarters, body, rear assembly, all these pieces. I'm going to go through those a little bit. Just kind of scratch the surface. I don't want to get too carried away here. Heads. I tell the dog show judges, I educate judges about my breeds, right? So I educate other dog show judges about what a wirehead pointer or plumber spaniel or whatever. They don't run on their heads. I get that. Like having the most beautiful head according to the standard maybe isn't the most important thing. But it's also how we tell the difference. It's how I know I have a wirehead pointer, not a wirehead pointing response or a spinon. Because the head shape is different as described in the standard to do different things for different reasons in different terrain under different circumstances. Head shape, length, grip, muscle length, and depth. If you've got a cocker spaniel whose job it was to pick up a woodcock that's about the size of this clicker, it's supposed to have a tiny little muzzle. It shouldn't have a muzzle like a Weimarunner. It was used on big game. And that Weimarunner had definitely better not have a muzzle like this. So here's some bones. I have a clicker but not a pointer and I'm out of hand. So you guys are going to have to work with me here. Scapula, humerus, all the radius. If you ever took a fizz in high school, it's the same thing. I aced a fizz because I had learned all of this when I was in forage. So I was like a star in anatomy, physiology, pelvis, femur, fibia, tibula. Tibia, fibula, sorry. These are important bones that we're going to talk about and how they apply to the dog's structure when we're making a sound dog. The four quarters, the front part of your dog is the shock absorber. I don't know anybody that wants to ride around in a super stiff, suspension, old, showy, pick up walk. Okay? Your dog doesn't want to do that either. If you build the dog with the structure as described in the standard, it is going to enable him to work comfortably long into his older years. If that dog's front end is stick straight up and down like this and its toes are in front of its ears, it's going to break down faster. It's not going to run till it's 15 or 13 or 12 or, I don't know, eight. Feet, feet, feet. All hunting dogs have got to have feet. It's part of the brain standard. Having good feet, tall feet, not splayed out, not all broken down. You want to know where your dog just blew its pads, running across the gravel. Okay? Breeding, good feet, counts. Angulation of the shoulder blade. We showed those, we showed those bones out there, right? That angle is the shock absorber that helps them go over the log, go over the ditch, climb up the mountain, run down the chapter hill, whatever it is. Okay, pictures, more pictures we all like, pictures. So this is going to talk about some of the pieces that we're going to discuss next in the body of the dog that are described in the standard. Remember when these guys wrote these breed standards, most of them were written in the 1800s. These were all horse guys. They were horse guys because they didn't have cars. So they had horse terms for things, withers, hawks, crook, all of those things are horse terms. So when we talk about the body of our hunting dogs, generically, across the breeds of the hunting dogs, the personal hunting dogs particularly, the neck should be strong to carry a goose or dispatch a large predator up to and including a fox. I'm going to wear her pointer today. Top line, that tail on point, that's a locator, but you have to make sure that the crook structure is correct because the rear propulsion comes from those angles in the crook. You also want a short, strong loin that's keeping as much of the body that is unprotected, that small space, right? Because the brisket and the rib cage contain all the important stuff. You want that ribs to be as long as it can be and the loin to be as short as it can be so that the power in the loin, the protections in the rib cage and in the brisket. Okay, more pictures because who doesn't want pretty pictures of dogs? So you see the purple up there, that's the shoulder blade, the red line down below, that's the upper arm, the humerus. You look at the elbow and where it falls beneath the withers. That's how you identify the angle of the front assembly. That angle should match, go back here to the crook, point of the buttocks, the stifle and the hawk. All those angles should be pretty close to the same. That's balance. Balance is what keeps our dogs going efficiently for an extended period of time. The rear assembly is your engine. That's what drives the dog across the land, through the water, doesn't matter. The rear's doing the driving. Balance again, back to the balance piece, balance is everything. So here's another pretty picture. Look at the angulation, front angulation, that triangle, rear angulation, that triangle. Point of order, this particular dog was the breed's first best in show-winning dual champion. Anyone, all of his spiel trial points on horseback trials in all logistics in Utah. So when I say this dog could move, I mean he could move. And that's what he looked like trotting. And you see those arrows, those triangles, the angle of those triangles matches the angle of the triangles that we just looked at. Okay, see those? Look at those. Boom. It's important. Movement is what we think of as the proof in the pudding. In purebred dogs, that's how we tell. Basic geometry, see those triangles? That tells you how far those bones can rotate. They simply cannot rotate farther than that. No matter how much drive that dog's got, no matter how willing it is to kill itself, it can't. The bones don't go past that place. Balance dog covers the ground efficiently. If you've got a short upper arm, if you've got straight shoulders, if you've got mismatched angles, that is going to restrict how efficiently the dog can move. Now, I hear this all the time, well, bird dogs don't trot. Really? Really? Y'all been hunting? Because I have. You're out there for eight hours. I promise you, that dog is not galloping for eight hours. It's trotting. And then it gallops, and then it gallops, and then it trots. And then sometimes it walks, and sometimes it lays down in mud puddle. Right? The dog's structural balance is what allows it to move at any speed efficiently. Hold the gallop and a trot. These people that talk about, oh, that dog's, that dog's snappy. Oh, I like that dog. He's running real snappy. Right? You hear that field trot one? Snappy. You know what that sounds like? Looks like, when you see a trot, it looks like a spider on speed. Because that dog's angles are real straight, which is why it can't rotate its legs far enough to actually cover the grounds, but has to run really, really fast. Because that's all it can do. The entire goal of our exercise here in this building this evening, and all the people around the world that are involved within the North American Personal Hunting Dog Association is to produce great hunting dogs that are going to live long, healthy, productive lives afield. How they are built, their structure, their form impacts all of that. A word about soft tissue. I have lots of soft tissue. Muscles, tenons, and ligaments are the soft tissue that connect the bones and work those joints. Whether they're the straight or the straight, it's the soft tissue that holds everything together and makes it work. And just like I am still suffering and sort of quivering a little bit about the stair climbing I did before I came here, our dogs need exercise. They need conditioning, they need warm-ups, they need stretches, but those tendons and those ligaments and those muscles impact the positioning of the bones. And I think that's a really important thing for people to understand is that a dog that is out of condition may very well have a different structure than a one that is very, very muscled. Okay? Thing to know. As my job as a professional handler, much of what I did was finish dual champions. And so the field child guys would get me a dog that was a field champion and I'd sit it in a crate for about two months. And after about two months of sitting and doing nothing and getting fed, then I could take it and show it because all of the muscular development that they had developed to create a fabulous trial dog, that was too much. And it hid some of the structure of the dog. So that's how I did that. And we could have a whole topic about muscle and conditioning and all those things, but it's important to consider when we're talking about the structure. So harsh and dense. Y'all are judges, right? How many judges we got here tonight? A bunch of judges? A bunch of judges? All right. How many y'all said not harsh, not dense, medium harsh, medium dense? Harsh and dense is our goal for a reason. So the standard describes the coat texture for every one of our breeds. The German warrior pointer standard says that the coat is harsh, dense, and flat line from one to two inches in length. That the hair on the head and the ears is naturally, naturally, naturally short and flat line. That the hair on the beer and the legs is of the same texture as the hair on the body. That's what my standard says. What is your standard? You know? Anybody read it? Yeah. Coat is protection from the elements. A warrior pointer with good hair will run through a blackberry thicket and come out the other side without a scratch. It will go in the water in January in September. And it will come out alive. Okay? Yeah. After they broke the ice and, you know, there's chopping and all those other things. I was thinking of the ocean by meat that I don't carry away. Sorry. It's also a locator, right? So a white dog or an orange dog. It is camouflage if you're talking about a warrior pointer. Each of those things is described in your breed standard. Temperament. We're just having this conversation at this table right here. A warrior pointer is not, definitely not a warrior pointer graphon. A vishla is really not a warrior. Temperament is how you tell the difference in many of these cases between these breeds. And the standard describes the temperament the breed should have. And every hunter, man, woman, or child has a preference for what they want to hunt with. If they want a graphon, they are definitely not going to be happy with a warrior pointer, I promise. And vice versa. So our responsibility is to ensure that the people buying our dogs, or if you're out there looking for a dog, that these dogs have the temperament that we expect from the breed, which is, wait for it, wait for it, described in the standard. Details can make or break a dog in the show right. Facts. But aesthetics aside, structure and soundness as described in the breed standard are what add to the inherited natural ability to make a healthy powerhouse of a bird dog that will make all of your hunting buddies jealous. So thank you very much. If you have any questions, speak now or forever. Hold your peace. Conversation is always one of my favorite things. So speak up guys. How are we doing on time? 630. Okay, sir. I've heard you said that the proper conservation of dogs, if you could take about a hand's width from the end of the ribcage to the top of the hips, but that's about proper for the dog. Yeah, that's it. He's discussing having the space between the end of the ribcage at the start of the hippos. And that is what I was talking about earlier, a short loin. Most breeds, three fingers, maybe four. Once you get up to, I've got to have a hand's breadth. You're starting to weaken the dog. And any, as you know, if any of you have ever built anything, unsupported space is weak. As soon as you move past exactly what you're saying, as soon as you get to a longer loin, that is unsupported space, it is a weak space in the dog. So do you see a dog that has a locking horse movement when it's running in the field? Right. What would you ascribe that to? Okay, so he's asking about if the dog has what you think of as a locking horse movement. It goes like this. It's going to be very similar to what I was just talking about with the snappy. It can't go anywhere unless it goes really, really fast. Because that's all it's got, right? That cruiser dog that I showed you, that big dog that was trotting, that dog was huge for our standard. The breed standard calls for the top of the standard to be 26 inches tall. He was pushing 27. And so all the field child guys laugh at him. I mean literally laugh when he came to the line. And they keep laughing right up until he was gone. And they found him standing a couple of hills over. And then they quit laughing. So structure matters. And running snappy doesn't mean you're running efficient. It almost is guaranteed to mean you're running inefficiently. Anybody else? Here you go. That's the highlighted thing for the mates.