The Verien Deutsch Drahthaar ( VDD) Group North America ( GNA) was officially formed in August of 1971. The ‘Founding Members’ of VDD-GNA resided in Iowa and Illinois during the late sixties and early seventies, and became official VDD members in 1971. This small group of VDD members were the beginning of what is now The Heartland Chapter. They were a dedicated group of hunters that also became avid DD breeders and trainers.
Many of the current bloodlines present in GNA can easily be traced back to these early beginnings. It’s hard to imagine how the VDD-GNA would have developed (if at all) without these founding members combined contributions and dedication to this great breed. We are truly blessed to have several of these members still active within the Heartland Chapter.
When VDD-GNA formed Chapters in 1996, these same dedicated members continued to be used as the core support and education within the other chapters. Today our members are still active at the chapter and national level. We continue to host test, judge across the nation and share training and breeding knowledge in hopes of improving this great breed.
The Heartland chapter is very proud to be the home of several of the founding members and are forever in-debt for their many sacrifices over the last 40 plus years. We have a very diverse membership, which is always willing to go above and beyond to help foster and promote this wonderful breed. The Heartland chapter continues to host training days monthly across the chapter, various testing opportunities each year, as well as, Breed Shows and other events to support the VDD.
Today the Heartland chapter is home to a large number of VR's (performance judges), ZR's (Breed-show judges), specialty judges (Blood-tracking), and several dedicated breeders that are consistently producing DD’s that anyone would be proud to own.