Youth on a river inspires 'Dog Points' a working setter book
Enjoying a play on the wind. Experiencing that working a setter warms your heart. Discovering a dogs natural talents as your best trainer. Becoming “as happy as a dog can be” by practising. And maybe best moments of your life together in the fields with a setter. All inspired by an adventurous youth near Holland’s most beautiful river, the IJssel.
That’s how the first chapter of ‘Hond Staat’ meaning Dog Points, a book published spring 2007, leads readers into pages of experiencing working birddogs, especially Irish setters. It is written by the Dutch expert Rembrandt Kersten. Beautiful drawings of Ton Bavelaar accompany his words in the first book ever written on the original Irish setters in Dutch.
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| On the first two pictures, on the right, is the author of the book Hond Staat, Rembrandt Kersten (also last photo), during the presentation of the Dutch team for the European Championschip for the Working Irish Setter in France. Then, from right to left: Els Kersten with Revolution (Red), Gerard Mirck with its brother Harry, Joop Harms with his brother Rhu and Henk ten Klooster with Echlin O'Conloch. |
Although in the Netherlands, one of worlds most densely populated areas, working a birddog on feathers becomes more and more rare, in last years books and articles on the use of birddogs for birdcounts, saving animals, hunting and trialling are increasing.
Fly on Rembrandts wings
So you could say Hond Staat is more of the same. But the strength of this book is that it is totally different from others. It is the personal story of a boy growing old with the ideal of bringing back the Irish setter to it’s former days as the Arab of biddogs. Readers can fly on the wings of the author experiencing how this brings rivers deep, mountains high. That’s why the book is suited for readers of all ages.
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| For a long time, the original purpose of the Irish Setter had been lost. Because of Rembrandt Kersten's book "Hond Staat", the first dutch version is mainly dedicated to working with an Irish Setter. |
With a bit of fantasy readers can feel like that boy growing up in an adventurous surrounding of the river the IJssel, in a village called Velp. A boy that is forced to move with his family to the town of The Hague. Some day while walking a parc he sees a red flash of a racing Irish setter. It brings back his youth, it’s a red dog like those used for hunting in his youth.
The grown town boy want parts of his youth back, so an Irish setter. But when visiting a barber he is shocked reading a ladies magazine telling the red setter was once a a great hunting dog, but nowadays a pet only kept for its beauty. In those days –the sixties and seventies- Irish setters were in the Netherlands the main advertising for ladies clothing.
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| Advertising campaigns for Setter Set nylons (left, no longer on the market) and Setterlaine (right, still on the market). |
Gone youthdream?
Gone youthdream? No, Hond Staat tells how a guy tries to get his youth hero back on the fields where it once belonged.
A thrilling enterprise, making a lesson for the hardheaded author: the ladies-magazines are right. There is a lot missing in most of the Irish setters bred in the Netherlands. Especially their original roots. Readers get a glimpse of all tries to prove the opposite in a club for hunters in The Hague.
Turning point
When the reader expects a dream becomes a nightmare, there is a turning point. During a visit of Irelands most legendary breeder John Nash (Moanruad-kennels) young Kersten learns a lot on the original Irish setter. That breeder later died during hunting while storms were raging Europe in the nineties.
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| The big inspirator for Rembrandt Kersten's book: de legendary Irish breeder John Nash (Moanruad-kennels). |
After that visit followed by many more, Moanruad Harriet came to Holland. As the first Irish setter she wins the first trial held by the Irish Setter Club of the Netherlands. On fields near Lathum, that is a village near the place where young Rembrandt grew up in Velp. It is the place where the title of the book is apparently born, because the public shouts Hond Staat when Harriet is pointing partridge.
Hond Staat makes readers enjoy how to bond with your dog. How you teach a setter to take giant fields as a swallow on four legs. And how much pleasure it brings when the Irishman after a long search gives you as leader of the pack the honour of “harvesting” feathers.
Warning
Lots of facts and experiences in the book document what you lose while breeding Irish setters on the basis of looks only, like showbreeders do. All of it underlines what captain G.J. Verweij already warns in his work in 1947: breeders should never lose the roots of their breed because it’s their essence.
Funny is, that the story ends in a farm not far from a river, the Ems in Germany, just a few hundred meters from the Dutch border. In that farm a youth dream of an old Kersten, suffering the disease of Parkinson, has come true by providing a new future for a centuries old heritage for younger generations.
Hond Staat is autobiographic, counts 185 pages with many drawings
of Dutch artist Ton Bavelaar, costst 35 euro, still only available in Dutch
language, published by Van Wijland bv in Laren, internet: www.uitgeverijvanwijland.nl
Henk ten Klooster, 14th of May 2007