Welcome to the Chesapeake Bay Retriever Club
The Chesapeake Bay Retriever Club has been bringing British Chesapeake enthusiasts together since 1983. The Club holds two gundog working tests each year, as well as a championship show. Other events include obedience workshops, dog and gun days, training days and breed seminars. Members are kept informed of Club news via a magazine - the Chessie Chat - which is sent out three times a year.
The club show is usually held in the Midlands, while the working tests move around the UK. We have held tests in Hampshire, on the marshes of the Essex coastline, in South Wales and in the Angus Glens of Scotland - plus many locations in between! As members may be travelling a long way to take part in the working tests, we often make a weekend of it. It's good to get together with other brown dogs and their owners.
Most people who have lived with a Chesapeake will usually consider having no other breed. If you are reading this, maybe you are trying to work out whether a Chesapeake is right for you. This website will hopefully help you to decide. We will give you some basic information about the breed, and list some events where you can meet Chesapeakes and talk to their owners.
NEWS
Trophy Points
Please do not forget to send in your trophy points to Trophy Steward Cathy Broomfield. Cathy needs the points by the end of January and has only heard from a few people so far.
Even if you do not have points to send in, please remember to let Cathy know which was your favourite Chat article during 2011. The most popular article wins the Chessie Chat Trophy!
Jack
Jack has now found a new home and is doing great.
2012 Calendars
Chesapeake calendars for 2012 are available now! £8 plus postage and packing. Contact Mark Straw on 01159 533960.
Echo stars in latest BASC film
Mark Greenhough's Echo is the star of BASC's latest online video. The Long Retrieve features Echo retrieving a mallard across the Dee Estuary. It appears on the BASC homepage: www.basc.org.uk.
DNA Testing Scheme for Degenerative Myelopathy
At the Chesapeake Club's AGM in February, members discussed the DNA testing scheme for Degenerative Myelopathy in Chesapeake Bay Retrievers offered by the Orthopaedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) in America. Club members agreed to ask the Kennel Club to recognise this testing scheme so that test results can be included on pedigrees. Thanks to Professor Jeff Sampson, the scheme has recently been approved by the Kennel Club. Further details of the scheme can be obtained from the OFA.
Copies of all future test certificates issued by OFA will be sent directly to the KC, where the test result will be added to the dog's details on the registration database. This will trigger the publication of the test result in the next available Breed Records Supplement. The result will also appear on any new registration certificate issued for the dog and on the registration certificates of any future progeny of the dog. It will be available via the KC's health test result finder.
Owners who have already had their dog(s) DNA tested for this condition can send copies of the test certificate to the KC and the data will be added to the dog's registration details. In addition, if the owner includes the original registration certificate for the dog, not a copy, a new registration certificate will be issued with the DNA result on it, free of charge. DNA test certificates should be sent to the Health and Breeder Services Department, The Kennel Club, 1-5 Clarges Street, London, W1J 8AB.