New dog club hosts first Kusa trial

GEORGE NEWS - Major strides have been made within the working dog community in George.

The South Cape Internationale Prüfungs-Ordnung (IPO) club hosted their first Kennel Union of South Africa (Kusa) Begleithundprüfung (BH) trial at the Van Kervel school grounds on 9 and 10 November.

This was a first for IPO dog sport in the area.

"The newly founded South Cape IPO is working hard to promote and develop the sport in the Garden Route. IPO is a three-phase dog sport, comprised of tracking, obedience and protection. It is a point-based sport with each phase equally weighted, and only the dogs who achieve in the highest percentile of each phase may qualify. For this reason, it is a challenging and demanding sport but one that is also incredibly rewarding. The handlers and their dogs share a deep bond and the members of South Cape IPO enjoy the challenge and camaraderie that IPO entails," said Kate van Zyl, South Cape IPO's club secretary.

According to Van Zyl, hosting a Kusa trial is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the hours of training and work that has gone into preparing for an IPO title. It's also open to other clubs across the country and members of the public who wish to compete.

"We were fortunate to have the Matrix IPO club from Cape Town come and support. A total of nine dogs entered into the events," she said.

Three dogs achieved their BH titles (an obedience and temperament test) and two dogs qualified for their IPO level 1 titles.

Van Zyl said the trial was a great success, and that the club is looking forward to hosting another trial in 2019 with the goal of encouraging more dog lovers to join the sport.

If you have a working-breed dog and would like to get involved or would like to find out more, contact Van Zyl at kathryn.vanzyl@gmail.com or find the club on Facebook @southcapeigp.

Judge John Rautenbach (left), with Lukas Wehrli and his dog Jade of Membury.

*Internationale Prüfungs-Ordnung (IPO) is German for "international trial rules". The name is changing in 2019 to IGP, (Internationale Gebrauchshunde Prüfungsordnung), which translates to "international working dog trial".

*Begleithundprüfung (BH) is German for "companion dog test."

Judge John Rautenbach congratulates Candice de Jongh with her dog Blossom vom Maurelundthof.