American Pointer Club, Inc. Established 1938
Early Pointer fanciers formed the Pointer Club of America and joined the fledgling American Kennel Club in 1888. Some noted members were the Westminster Kennel Club, Hempstead Farm Co., James Anthony, Charles Heath and dog artists J. M. Tracy and Gustav Muss-Arnolt.
They adopted the physical standard for Pointers as written by Stonehenge (Henry Walsh) in his “Dogs of Great Britain, America and Other Countries” in 1879, later amending the format and some terminology by the time it was published in the 1929 AKC Pure-Bred Dogs. They left the AKC in 1931 for lack of input for field trial judges’ selection and carried on exclusively as a field trial club for several decades. Pointers were without formal representation at AKC until the American Pointer Club, Inc. was established in 1938. In 2013 its members celebrated their 75th anniversary.
It was during the early mid-part of the 20th Century in the U. S. that the diversion in field and bench types became apparent. With our wide open spaces, many Americans wanted a wider ranging and faster running dog with the tail held high. It is here the bench people came to agree with William Arkwright as he states, “There is nothing for a pointer more necessary than a tail of the right shape, of the right length, of the right carriage and of the right covering. Today we acknowledge both by holding our National Specialty and National Field Trial Championship. We now see Pointers that are able to compete in both competitions.
