Have a look at this!
And here’s one fetching a gray fox!
The Germans love to use their Drahthaars for other purposes.
We Anglophones prefer to have division of labor among hunting dogs.
On the European continent, this is not the case.
In Germany and other German-speaking countries, there are a few national HPR’s that are meant to do it all. Even dachshunds and jadgterriers are often expected to do things that we wouldn’t expect, like retrieve shot game. Believe it or not, but fox terriers and Jack Russells are used on boar in those countries.
The French have the same system, but they are very much into regional varieties, many of which occur in a basset (short-legged), griffon (wire-haired), grand (big), and petit (small) varieties.
It was only foppish British gentlemen who believed that there should be retrievers that only retrieve game, flushing spaniels that only flush game, and index dog that point game. And scent hounds are entirely out of the picture. A forester or game-keeper would never keep a few hounds or scenting dogs just for the purpose of finding wounded game, but in German-speaking countries, that’s still very much the custom.
But in most Europe, a working hunting dog is supposed to play the role of a jack of all trades.
***
Now, I’m going to have to do a post in a few days on what the difference is between a Drahthaar and what we call a German wire-haired pointer. It gets confusing, and of course, it gets controversial. Let’s just say that if those are two separate breeds, I hereby suggest that the working form of golden retriever secede from the show version.
The Germans have generally been smarter dog breeders than we have. If it has a function, it must be able to prove itself at that function. Now, that system has detiorated over the years, but it’s better than what we have over in the English-speaking countries and light years ahead of what we have in the US.
It’s got them to this point: a show quality Weimaraner can still do its work.
Imagine that!
A friend of mine once told me that it was once required in Germany that a German Shorthaired Pointer had to kill a fox in order to earn a title. Is this true?
Yes.
In fact, I have a photo of Kurzhaar doing that very thing during a test.
Check this out: http://www.whc.net/gsp/thisis.html
BTW, I don’t call any of those breeds “pointers,” except the show GWP. They are not merely pointers.
My friend had a Kurzhaar that was bred by a local gentleman whose foundation stock came from Germany. He hunted his dog in the following way–it would point birds and then on command would flush the bird so he could get a shot. Then of course the dog would retrieve. I have to add that these dogs were excellent water retrievers.
I also believe in Germany these dogs were trained to locate large game and then return to the handler holding a stick indicating that game had been located. I think that the dog would then bring the handler to the game.
I believe that these dogs were also used in Germany to track wounded large game.
They do all of that, but they also can bay big game, just like a plott hound (which is most likely a relative).
The Germans were really successful in developing these dogs, and there are at least a half-dozen or more breeds.
However, they missed the mark when they tried to create a terrier called the jagdterrier. They are good working varmint dogs and will retrieve game, but they are too large to do dachshund earth work.
Germany has historically been the most crowded region/country in Europe, so they couldn’t keep huge packs of dogs that did different things. They needed versatile dogs so that they could save on kennel space.