About the Club
In April 2005 good friends (the now late) Margaret Holmes and Mick Heap invited the then current SRHP owners, breeders and HPR enthusiasts to an inaugural open meeting to form a Club.
The Club objectives were set out to encourage, promote and maintain the breed in the field as a working gundog. To further pledge and safeguard its health and welfare, to maintain the breed standard as a measure of excellence and foster its acceptance by both breeders and judges.
We warmly welcome you to the now third version' of the Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer Club website where we are dedicated in sharing as much information on the breed as possible and inform you of any up and coming events. If you would like to become a member of the Club, please download an application form or contact the membership secretary. Membership is open to all with or without ownership of the breed and is available in a single, joint or associate option.
I'm afraid little has changed over the years for owners and breeders here in the UK as although the Slovak has a specific FCI breed No. and breed standard their stud book remains open in Slovakia, their country of origin. This is due to the breed wardens still introducing other breeds in an attempt to finely tune and improve it. This does however prevent UK owners from certain accolades being achieved as until such time as that stud book is closed our Slovaks must remain on the Import Register and will not be granted breed classes, in effect those in the UK must compete in Any Variety Gundog classes and cannot be made up into Breed Champions via the Kennel Club.
The KC have tried to help this situation in terms of a Show Champion of Excellence (ShCEx) title which is based on show wins but must be placed at the tail end of a dog's name. Whereas wins at shows say in Ireland or Europe which are run under FCI rules full champion titled dogs can be made.
However, as our mission statement states our aim is to promote these amazing dogs as a working gundog which is exactly what they were bred for and certainly excel at and a valid KC Stud Book No. is achievable when competing in Field Trials.