Schloß Bückeburg (Germany)
Judges:
John Birkett (UK)
Tess Lawrence (UK)
Sam Seal (UK)
Alan Thornton (UK)

Winner: Denmark
NORD JCH Middlegate Tinker, Henrik Vilendal
DK FTCH Newgrange Dance of Muninn, Steen Poulin Nielsen
Muninn Ziggy, Thorbjørn Heinze Pedersen

“The very first IWT was in 1991 at Bückeburg Castle. My husband and I had seen working tests in England – the ‘Shooting Times Gundog Weekend’ and the ‘CLA Gamefair’. There was always an international there – consisting of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (this idea of ​​international is currently gaining a lot of traction in Great Britain). So we decided to organize a similar event on our own and at our own risk. This was a time when working or even testing with dummies was still unknown in Germany.

In fact, quite a few people in the German Retriever Club saw this form of work as ‘revolutionary’, if not ‘the work of the devil’. It was almost as if the serious usefulness of the retriever as a hunting dog was lost forever. In fact, this question also led to a change in the DRC board a few years later, which then led the fortunes of the club for 18 years.

Added to this was the fact that dogs from field trial lines were almost non-existent in Germany and even fewer were bred. This was also the case in most European countries with the exception of a few Scandinavian countries. So almost all participants in the first IWT were dogs from show lines. This remained the case for several years.

The idea of ​​the IWT was to bring retriever people from different countries together for competition, but also to exchange ideas about working with retrievers. In retrospect, it is still astonishing how well this worked. Teams from different countries actually came together. The judges were English field trial judges (panel judges), also to prevent national bias.

As far as I remember, there were teams from Holland, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark. The atmosphere was excellent and everything worked, even if it was sometimes improvised. The gala dinner was a communal barbecue in the open air, but the prizes were awarded by the huntsman.

In this case it was the now deceased Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe. A charming, completely unpretentious older gentleman with – of course – a Golden Retriever. He was well known in Bückeburg because he regularly made trips into the city – without his owner. Incidentally, a team from Denmark won that time.

The success of this event gave rise to the desire for the IWT to take place every year on the continent, in different countries.”

Source

(Tess Lawrence, Henrik Vilendal, Gereon Ting)