2015 American Brittany Club Central Futurity 2015 | Page 34

Picking a Winner - Revisited
by Kevin Remmers
Several people asked me to take another look at and update this article. Originally written
for the American Brittany Club Magazine August, 2006 issue. My first thoughts were that the story
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was 1/3 complete. Without butchering the original article I will finish the story. As Brittany
fanciers and breeders, I think all of us in the American Brittany network are striving to breed the
perfect dog or litter. We all owe a great deal to those who have bred Brittany’s before us, who have
been focused enough to create and maintain a breed that has produced more Dual Champions than
all of the other sporting breeds combined. But, if we are honest with ourselves, there is no perfect
dog. We need to continuously improve our breeding programs, to get close to perfection as possible.
Careful study of pedigrees and getting the right dogs together is part of what makes a good breeder
and, as a result, a good litter. Also needed is a forum in which one can measure a litter and
individual puppy success. What better way to showcase our hard work of studying pedigrees,
breeding to good stock and proper training, than to compete in the ABC Futurities.
We would describe our breeding program as hobbyist breeders. We have a great network
of other breeders that we seek insight from, and also breed seriously. Even with this support, our
first, and almost last, Futurity quest started at the 1996 running of the 1994 litters. This was our
first competitive Brittany (a gun dog), that with coaxing by the breeders, Billie and Harold Heather
had some success as a puppy/derby. In past Futurities a gundog juvenile would at best place on 3rd or
4th. We hoped that such would not be the case in the 1996 Central Futurity at Killdeer Plaines in
Ohio. The trip to Ohio was long and it looked as if the weather was not going to cooperate. As our
time neared to run the weather started to turn for the worse, the gray sky turned to rain and then the
rain changed to snow. Everyone but the dogs was miserable. Our young charge was no exception.
He loved the inclement weather, and would have three finds in a downpour. However, the end result
was frustrating. Because of the forum at that time, the dogs that placed were all age potential dogs,
but none would turn out to be gundogs as adults. Disgruntled that no gun dogs appeared in the final
4, cold and soaked to the bone, we headed home to Illinois, convinced never again spend hard earned
money to nominate a futurity dog, or be subjected to a standard that we did not understand. We
registered our first two litters with the AKC and FDSB, but did not nominate any of those puppies
for the ABC Futurity.
Our young dog’s derby days were over and after wrestling with the idea to leave the
sport, we decided to try our luck running him as an adult gun dog; these results would be much
different. He would become a very competitive Dual Champion, siring several litters and capping
his career by placing 4th at the 2002 National Amateur Gun Dog Championship. That same year in
Ionia, MI we debuted another young prospect in the ABC National Futurity Run-Off. This youngster
was our reintroduction to the ABC Futurity and this is his story of how we regained our faith in this
event.
Along the line the AKC noticed the increased popularity of walking stakes, allowing
clubs to promote the sport to newcomers through the pure and innocent roots of walking gun dogs.
In 1997, the ABC Futurity Committee and the ABC Board of Directors also noticed the popular
phenomena of the walking gun dog stakes, and chose to separate the ABC Futurity into two groups,
one for all age and one for gundog potential litters. In 2000, the ABC put the Gun Dog Futurity into
action, which would again catch our attention as owners, breeders, trainers and handlers. We
nominated our third litter, which would compete in the ABC’s 2002 running of the 2000 born litters.
“Dubb” came from this third breeding out of DC/AFC B and H Clyde’s Revenge JH and
Clyde’s Hazelnut of Fairfax JH. He was the fourth puppy born in a litter of seven. He demonstrated
his keen senses at 6 weeks of age, so we knew we would have to find a nice “field trial home” for
him. Several field trial folks had expressed interest, but none stepped up to take him. We started to
run “Dubb” in juvenile stakes ourselves. In his puppy years, we were having a hard time harnessing
his talents, with most of his problems being attributed to hand \