Patricia: Klaus, congratulations! Judging by the cheers from the BSP audience, you and Jim from Messina are the people's champions. Why is that?
Klaus: Hi! I believe Jim is the first show-bred dog since the early 1990s to be shown at both the Siegerschau (German Shepherd Dog Show) and the BSP (German Shepherd Dog Championship). He's already made a name for himself, having performed a fantastic protection phase at the Siegerschau in 2022. He's also shown quite respectable performances at two LG (Regional Group) events.
Patricia: Is it really that rare for a dog from purebred lines to achieve something like that?
Klaus: There are also highly talented dogs among the show lines. And especially in protection work, there are dogs with a lot of potential. However, in almost 40 years, I've never had a dog like Jim.
He's extremely eager to work in all three disciplines and is incredibly quick to learn. Since my girlfriend had already trained several dogs from the Messina kennel, and they had similar instincts to Jim, we were hoping that we might be able to go further than just an obedience trial.
Patricia: Many people know Jim by his nickname... what do you call him?
Klaus: We just call Jim Psycho or Psych. The name comes from the fact that from day one, all he ever wanted to do was play and work... like a little madman. At first, lots of people laughed when I called him that. Now most of them think the name suits him.
Patricia: When things are going well, it's usually not a completely solo effort. You're part of several teams...?
Klaus: I've been working with Nathalie Prachensky in the show ring for many years now, and we've had some success there. Of course, there's a difference in preparation, but if you want to be consistently successful, it always means a lot of work, whether it's performance or showing. You only progress if you constantly strive to improve and learn. At the BSP, we were fortunate to be included in Wolfgang Russ's team, and they provided us with excellent support.
What we're quite proud of is our obedience training . My friend Astrid and I managed that entirely on our own. And when you know that I've only ever shown show dogs for ages, you can imagine that I practically had body language ingrained in me. Getting that out of my system again was actually the main challenge, and Astrid and I needed a lot of patience for that.
Tobias Wunderlich was a tremendous help to me in the protection training phase , especially at the beginning. After the first LGA (Landesverband der Zuchtprüfung – State Association of Breeders), I had the opportunity to work with Florian Knabl and Andi Kreis. Together with Martin Lanzinger and Steffi Ollmann, this is really the ultimate setup for us. It doesn't get any better.
Patricia: We hope to see you at many more sporting events. What are your next goals?
Klaus: Our next goals... difficult to say. In any case, we will aim for another goal next year to represent our breeding program well. But we will discuss that together as a team and then decide.
