Vom Seymour Kennel helps owners ‘see more’ in their dogs

BY VALORIE BRECHT

TRIBUNE RECORD GLEANER

There’s a special bond between man and “man’s best friend,” one that is showcased when they work together as a team to hunt game. Joe Aumann of Loyal has found training hunting dogs to be an enjoyable and worthwhile pursuit.

“I love the dogs. They don’t talk back to me,” he joked.

Through his business, Vom Seymour Kennel, Aumann trains dogs for upland hunting, which involves pursuing upland birds — mainly woodcock and sharp-tailed grouse, but also quail, pheasant, Hungarian partridge and chukars. He also trains dogs for duck and goose hunting, shed hunting and blood tracking.

The business started with Aumann’s own passion for hunting.

“I used to be involved pretty heavily in bicycle racing, riding 200 to 300 miles weekly. As I was riding along, I was always thinking about fall and the hunting season. I had a passion for bow hunting and did some upland hunting. I kept thinking, ‘I wish it were fall all the time,’” Aumann wrote in an article for Versatile Hunting Dog.

Although it’s not hunting season year round, Aumann has gotten his wish in that he’s constantly training dogs for hunting.

Aumann has had dogs all his life, but only started training hunting dogs in the early 1990s. He hunted with a Labrador retriever for a year or so. One fall, a buddy came from Chicago to visit him and brought his German wirehaired pointer (GWP) to hunt with. Watching the two interact and how skilled the dog was, Aumann decided he had to have one.

“My first dog, a GWP, was a very nice female with no beard, but we loved her anyway. I knew nothing about training a bird dog. I did the best I could by myself,” wrote Aumann.

After a few years of hunting and getting to know more dog people, Aumann decided to purchase a Deutsch Drathhaar and go all in on training.

According to Project Upland Magazine, “The Deutsch Drahthaar was developed by hunters in Germany during the late 1800s in an effort to produce a versatile, wire-coated hunting dog that was well-suited for hunting large and small game in the field, forest, and water.”

Deutsch Drahthaars are tested for performance, evaluated against the German breed standard and screened for breed-specific health conditions before they can be bred. They are issued papers by the parent club in Germany and are held to more rigorous standards than the American Kennel Club’s German wirehaired pointer.

Aumann bought his first Deutsch-Drahthaar (“Huskar vom Wiredhaus”) in 2003 and it proved to be an “awesome” dog, said Aumann. Huskar passed all of the Deutsch-Drahthaar tests and also the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA) tests. Huskar went on to earn the title of Versatile Champion through NAVHDA in 2006, becoming one of only a handful of Deutsch-Drahthaars to do so.

“I knew I was hooked after that,” said Aumann. “We now train and/or hunt dogs year round in central Wisconsin. I’m also a field judge in the VDD (Verein Deutsch-Drahthaar) which helps me evaluate young dogs and train them in the right ways.”

In the early 2000s, Aumann started helping other hunters train their dogs. In the last 15 years, he’s been doing so professionally. When Aumann made the decision to be a Drahthaar breeder, he had to come up with a kennel name.

“Since I only wanted to breed dogs with a lot of talent, great coats and conformation, I decided ‘Seymour’ was a good name. The name ‘Seymour’ represents the ability to ‘see more’ in your dogs. It took a while to find the right female but when I did, I knew that I had found a keeper. Bibbi v.b. Westmark. She had a ton of talent with an awesome 11 coat and 11 conformation. She also had a very good temperament and was very cooperative, which makes for a very trainable dog,” Aumann wrote on his website.

Bibbi went on to earn her Versatile Champion title as well, in 2012. She and Aumann’s other Deutsch Drahthaars have given birth to 12 litters over the years, with the last litter being two years ago. His current Deutsch Drathhaar, Callie, will be 11 years old Dec. 3. He mostly trains Deutsch Drathhaars, al-