Page 51 - K9 News - Issue 15 - March2021

Come the 17th century, for some reason, the “Chien opposition to this request mainly claiming that the
Gris” or Grey Dog, lost their popularity in favour Weimaraner was simply a German Short Haired
of white dogs although it is in 1632 at the Hague, Pointer in a different colour. However, despite
Netherlands and shown in the Kunsthistorisches these claims, official recognition was awarded in
Museum, Vienna, Austria that Van Dyck painted 1896. Even before this award, a Standard had
a portrait of Prinz Rupprecht von der Pfalz with been published in 1894 with ‘The Club for Pure
a Weimaraner-coloured “Huehnerhund” sitting at Breeding of Silver Grey Weimaraner Pointers’
his feet. While the stop is much more exaggerated being formed in 1987, later renamed ‘The Club
than in modern Weimaraners, the long ears and for the Breeding of the Weimaraner Pointer’ and
distinctive fold are clearly visible. again renamed The German Weimaraner Club’.

Although popularity had waned, there is evidence After all the dedicated breeding, World War I
in the paintings of Jean Baptiste Oudry that the more or less wiped out Weimaraners in Germany
“Chien Gris de Saint Louis” still existed in France leaving less than a dozen. Recovery was slow but,
come the 18th Century. With the introduction with the dedication of breeders such as Pitschke
of firearms in the mid 1800s, there developed a (Sandersleben), Wittekop (Rudemanns) and
need for the lighter built ‘pointer’ type dog keener Lindblohm (Lindblohm), the breed quickly spread
on birds than on large game. While in the UK, throughout Europe. The President of the German
breeding lines followed this path, the Europeans Weimaraner Club from 1921 to 1946 was Major
maintained breeding lines of a more versatile Robert aus der Herber and the Club’s motto stated
nature and this continued through to the 19th ‘It is not the breed, but the breeder’s selection
Century. that guarantees highest quality of conformation
and best performance.’ This conjoined the dog’s
It is during the turn of the 19th Century, we hear structure with its ability to perform and can still
of Grand Duke Karl August’s involvement with hold true today. These post-war breeders bred
the Weimaraner. Both Strebel and Friess, prolific true to the motto ensuring that the quality was
authors of dog books at the time, mentioned the retained.
versatile Weimaraner, its hunting prowess and the
extensive numbers in Thuringia. Were the dogs Having persevered to re-establish the breed,
Grand Duke Karl August owned descendants of World War II, with the country’s division into
the original “Chien Gris de Saint Louis”? Had Karl East and West Germany, the occupation and the
August succeeded in maintaining a pure strain in ban on firearms preventing hunting tests, many
order to retain their hunting characteristics? Weimaraners were exported.

It is the oil painting by Joseph Kidd, one of Breed Development
the founding members of the Royal Scottish
Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th Century
in 1850 which resembles most our modern day that theories of the breed’s origins became
Weimaraner, complete with docked tail. Some rife – one being that Grand Duke Karl August
32 years later, the Thuringia Club for Breeding had decided to create the breed himself. Other
Purebred Dogs is reported as having a ‘strong theories attempted to prove that the breed was
representation’ of Weimaraners. developed through specific cross-breeding with
the Pointer, the Spanish Pointer, The German
Short Haired Pointer, the Great Dane, The Saint
Recognition
Hubertus Bracke, the Leithund/Schweisshund
Established in 1880, the German Delegate and the Bloodhound all being included. Once the
Commission received a request for the official geneticists could identify how coat colour was
recognition of Weimaraners as a breed in its own inherited, the majority of these theories could be
right. Though there was significant dismissed.

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K9 NEWS DIGITAL / MARCH 2021