General Information about NAVHDA
The North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA) is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to foster, promote, and improve the versatile hunting dog breeds in North America; to conserve game by using well trained reliable hunting dogs before and after the shot; and to aid in the prevention of cruelty to animals by discouraging nonselective and uncontrolled breeding, which produces unwanted and uncared for dogs. Click Here to watch a video describing what NAVHDA is all about.
About Us
The Merrimack Valley Chapter of NAVHDA is part of over 70+ chapters of the International NAVHDA organization. NAVHDA stands for North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association. The Merrimack Valley Chapter covers the NH, VT, MA areas and we have members from CT and ME also. Our training and test sites are at Sharpe's Farm in Hopkinton, NH. Our Chapter Motto is "We help train you so that you can train your dog."
The Chapter specializes in Versatile Pointing Dogs. We help train you so you can train your dog, and make it fun while doing so. The level you want to take your dog to is completely up to you. Some of the things our dogs are working towards:
- Obedience
- Pointing birds
- Searching/Tracking downed birds
- Steadiness to wing, shot, fall
- Retreiving to hand on land or in water
What are the Benefits of joining the chapter?
- Chapter hosted formal training sessions to help you train your dog April through September
- Non-competitive Hunting tests which are designed to evaluate your dog's abilities and level of training.
- Chapter Newsletter to keep you up dated on all events of the chapter
- The chance to meet others who can:
- Help you with formal and informal training
- Share hunts
- Become friends