Some Impressions of Belgian Ring Sport

Jim Engel, April 2004

Belgian Ring Sport is a century old trial system for protective heritage canine breeds where the dog is tested for courage, trainability and working willingness, primarily by a decoy or agitator wearing a full protective body suit.  While French Ring has been well publicized for two decades,  the Belgian variety has had very little notice in America.  Although the two sports are similar, in that the agitator or decoy wears a full body bite suit rather than the padded arm of Schutzhund, the differences in philosophy, practice, and as a result the dogs, are fundamental. 

My first personal experience was at a club near the ancient city of Liege in far eastern Belgium in the middle nineteen eighties.. Like it was yesterday I remember standing by the ring watching a marvelous Malinois perform in perhaps the most fascinating ritual of the working dog world, the Belgian Ring trial.  Schutzhund is precise, demanding and dramatic.  KNPV is practical, down to earth and powerful.  French ring is spectacular, athletic and impressive.  But Belgian ring is a chess game between the handler and the dog on one side and the judge and the helper on the other.  The rules and traditions are subtle and elusive, and I am sure to the novice it would seem that not much is going on.  But for those of us with even a little experience it is an intricate drama, almost a trial field morality play.

The dog on the field, called Clip, was the current Belgian champion, so we had the pleasure of seeing the sport at a very high level.  Later I was to learn from Malinois friends that this Clip is quite famous, having been Belgian champion several years.  Perhaps there was a tiny edge of envy in their voice, but for me he was just an excellent dog enjoying his work on a warm, sunny afternoon on the tiny Belgian trial field.

But what I carried forward from that day was a few words exchanged with a little old man standing with us by the ring.  I don't remember all of the details, I suppose one of my friends translated a few words, but what he said was that he remembered when there were Bouviers in Belgium, remembered Edmund Moreaux and Francoeur de Liege.  This would have been half a century in the past, but it seemed like we were talking about the previous week.  And of course, in this context, for this man, if a dog was not in the ring, did not work, it did not exist.  I am sure that old man, if he is still alive, has no recollection of a strange American, but for me it is one of those moments locked in time, like the days when Kennedy or King were shot.  The Bouvier is gone but the Belgian ring carries on.

On reflection, after all of these years, one of the attractions of the Belgian ring is that it is, or at least to an American who wants to believe so seems to be, a truly amateur sport where the advancement of the breed, sportsmanship and camaraderie are still fundamental.  Schutzhund and KNPV today are today largely driven by money and greed, to the detriment of  sportsmanship, the breeds and too often the welfare of individual dogs.  Dogs have been killed on KNPV training fields, no doubt in pursuit money. 

Belgian Ring Organizations:

Union Kennel Club Belge  (K.C.B)                                         First Championship in 1913

Union Royale Cynologique  Saint-Hubert (U.R.C.S.H)          First Championship in 1926

Nationaal Verbond der Belgische Kynologen (N.V.B.K)       First Championship in 1964

Belgian Organization Background:

The Societe Saint-Hubert was founded on Feb. 18, 1882.  King Leopold II gave the title Societe Royale Saint-Hubert in 1886.  This society was principally concerned with the dogs of the nobility and the hunting dogs.  Indeed, as it was in the beginning primarily an organization by and for hunters, it is not surprising that the official weekly magazine of the Societe was "Chase et Peche", that is, "Hunting and Fishing."  St. Hubert is in fact the patron saint of the hunters, not the canine race.

St. Hubert became a founding member of the International Cynological Federation ( FCI) when it came into existence in 1912.

 It was a relatively long time before the Belgian Shepherd Dogs were first registered in the stud book of Saint-Hubert, LOSH. This delay was resented by some of the Malinois people involved.  There was apparently an existing "establishment"  attitude that "working dogs" were not nearly noble enough to be taken notice of by a royal society, and that registration of working dogs quite naturally led to an association with working class men, something that many of the upper class were no doubt not really ready for.

Club Belge was the kennel club for the common or working man, founded about 1910 and powerful and popular for many years.  The fact that St.Hubert was the FCI member in Belgium, and thus had “papers” recognized world wide, is probably among the reasons for the decline of this organization.  Judging from it’s web site, Club Belge would seem to be a very small, unimportant organization today, a mere shadow of it’s former self.

From the Club Belge web site:

There are today 13 Ring clubs listed, with typically three to five members each.

There are today seven Club Belge Ring judges.

Their web site does not list a ring champion for the year 2001, which means that they either did not have an event that year, or that they are so disorganized tha nobody bothers to keep their web site up to date.

Notes on NVBK, the Independent Belgian Ring Organization

NVBK (Nationaal Verbond der Belgische Kynologen) is the most important and significant of today’s Belgian Ring national organizations.  Approximately 100 dogs receive level III certification each year, compared, for instance, to 800 to 1000 KNPV titles per year, as a comparison.  While numerically a relatively small organization this is clearly enough for a viable breeding and training program.  There are approximately 50  NVBK ring judges.

NVBK was founded in the province of Antwerp 1963 and began competition in 1964.  This new organization clearly arose because the serious trainers and Malinois breeders chaffed under the restrictions, control and manipulations of the conformation orientated, FCI affiliated St. Hubert organization.

This represented a complete break from the canine establishment, for the NVBK began it’s own registration system for the Malinois, was literally their declaration of independence.

Today, all dogs participating in NVBK ring trials are Malinois.  Other breeds are permitted but do not participate.  Malinois from other registries must obtain NVBK papers in order to enter an NVBK trial.  This is relatively easy to do.

NVBK is primarily a Flemish organization, which in Belgium, deeply divided between the Flemish and culturally French regions, is a very important fact.

Although generalizations can be treacherous, my personal observations are as follows:

Belgian Ring tends to the larger, more powerful dog, French Ring favors the quicker more agile dog.  The Belgian Ring trial area is in general smaller than that used in the French Ring. ( I have visited a Belgian Ring training club on a small city lot in Antwerp, perhap35 or 40 meters by  90 meters.)

The Belgians believe that their emphasis on the “full bite” is a fundamental verification of the dog, while the French would believe that the dog’s effort to overcome the evasive efforts of the decoy are more important, and that a less full grip is of secondary importance. 

The Belgian Ring helpers are much less mobile than the French, and use bulkier equipment. The French Ring helper evades the dog while the Belgian Ring helper utilizes variations in the trial procedures and unexpected obstacles and distractions to test the dog.

 

Return to the AWDF Free Press