A personal look back at an unforgettable competition with Morpheus – and the road to the FCI World Championship.
A Dream Comes True
Winning the German Championship across all breeds had always been one of my biggest dreams. Last weekend, in Petersaurach, that dream became reality.
At a German Championship, however, the moment of victory is rather different from many other sports. The three phases are held over several days, and the final placings are often not settled until almost every team has competed. Naturally you are pleased about every good performance and every strong individual score. Whether it is actually enough for the overall win, though, you only find out very late in the competition.
When it finally became clear that no remaining team could overtake us, cautious hope turned into certainty. Even now, it is difficult to find the right words for it. Above all, I feel great gratitude – for this remarkable dog, for the way we have developed together, and for all the people who have accompanied and supported us along the way.
A Very Special Championship
For me, the VDH German Championship is one of the finest dog sport events in Germany. It brings together the best teams from the different breed organisations. Different working breeds, different training paths and many impressive performances are what give this event its particular appeal.
Qualifying through the DMC Championship already felt like a major success. I did not travel to Petersaurach with the thought of actually winning the German Championship, though. More than anything, I was curious to see how Morpheus would handle a task of this size.
Was His Experience Already Enough for a Stage This Big?
Morpheus is only just four years old, and the VDH German Championship was only his second IGP 3 trial. It was correspondingly difficult for me to judge whether he would be able to show his training performances under the particular conditions of a German Championship as well.
An event like this brings many additional challenges with it: a distinctive atmosphere, large crowds, unfamiliar routines and, of course, your own tension as a handler. In every phase there were therefore points whose development I was particularly curious about.
Tracking – The Part I Respected Most Before the Competition
Tracking was what I respected most before the competition. The ground was arable land with straw residue and, after the long spells of heat, was already very dry. Conditions were correspondingly demanding for every team.
On top of that came temperatures well above 35 degrees. At times you could only bear a few minutes in the sun yourself. For every competitor, much of it revolved around cooling the dogs between the individual phases, letting them settle at the hotel and saving their strength for the next start.
I had drawn a track at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Given the weather forecast, that did not look like an ideal draw at first. In hindsight it turned out to be a great piece of luck, because that particular day stayed considerably cooler than expected.
What mattered most to me was whether Morpheus would stay focused on this demanding ground, work independently and calmly work out the track to the end. That he managed it so well was a particular pleasure.
Obedience Under Competition Conditions
In obedience, my main question was whether Morpheus would show under the conditions of a German Championship what he is already able to do in training.
A German Championship is not won with spectacular individual exercises. What matters is that the dog shows under competition conditions exactly what it has learned in training. That was precisely our goal.
With a young dog in particular, that is especially interesting. Morpheus had never started at an event of this size before. It was all the more pleasing to see how focused and reliably he worked under these conditions too.
Progress in Protection Work
In protection work, our focus over the past months was mainly on the blind search and on stability during the guarding phases.
At the VDH German Championship it became clear that we have taken an important step forward in both areas. It was a particularly good moment for me to see that Morpheus could put into practice exactly the things we had worked on so intensively.
For me, competitions are therefore always an honest assessment of where we stand. They show which training ideas are already working and where we still have to keep working.
Our Training Philosophy
Many of the improvements Morpheus has made over the past months are not based on individual exercises, but on systematic training made up of many small steps.
In our view, anyone who wants to be successful in the long term needs no shortcuts, but a clear training plan, patience and consistent work.
➡ Learn more about our training philosophy in our specialist books on IGP training.
A Result I Had Not Counted On
In the end, our performances were indeed enough to win the VDH German Championship. With that, a dream came true that I had held for a very long time.
Naturally this result makes me happy. But I am especially proud of Morpheus and of how reliably he handled his tasks that weekend.
Not everything is perfect, and we know exactly what we want to keep working on. For me, that is precisely where the appeal of our sport lies.
Respect for Every Team
My warm congratulations and great respect go to all the competitors. The extreme heat made conditions demanding for dogs and handlers alike.
The competition stayed close right to the end. It is exactly this sporting variety and fairness that make the VDH German Championship such a special event for me.
Thank You to Everyone Who Was With Us
A huge thank you goes to the many travelling supporters and to everyone who backed us on site or from afar.
Thank you for every crossed finger, every moment of rooting for us, every message and the many congratulations that reached us during and after the event.
My special thanks go to my teammates from Team Heuwinkl and MTM, in particular Steffi Ollmann, Peter Scherk & Connie Scherk, Horst Knoche and Martin Lanzinger.
My greatest thanks go to my wife Patricia. She has been part of our path from the very beginning, questions training ideas, develops new approaches with me and, with her thinking and her experience, contributes a great deal to Morpheus' training. This success is therefore also our shared success.
Together to the FCI World Championship
Our win has qualified us for the FCI World Championship in Poland. We are delighted about that.
For Morpheus, this event will bring several new challenges at once: a long journey, several days in a hotel, a completely new environment and the particular atmosphere of a World Championship.
It is at competitions like these that you often get to know your own dog's character from a completely new side. You discover qualities that barely show themselves in everyday training. That is exactly what makes these events so interesting for me.
Between now and the World Championship we will use the time to keep working with focus and to prepare Morpheus step by step for this new task.
On the Road to the FCI World Championship
For us, the win at the German Championship is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of a new chapter.
Over the coming weeks we will take you behind the scenes of our preparation – with insights into our training, our experiences and the small details that often make the difference in dog sport.
➡ Sign up for the newsletter now and follow our journey to the FCI World Championship.
