• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Patreon
  • Premium Membership
  • Services

Natural History

by Scottie Westfall

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Soulful eyes
Become a Premium Member »

A Plowshare into a Sword

June 19, 2020 by SWestfall3

Sagan

It is unusual to find professional historians who have published research on dog breed histories.  I have written about Edmund Russell’s Greyhound Nation: A Coevolutionary History of England, 1200–1900, which is an environmental history of the greyhound and the British sighthound cultures. But I have found very few other researchers who have looked carefully at other breeds.

I did discover that a very good scholarly article has been published about German shepherds. Edward Tenner has published his remarkable piece in Raritan. It is entitled “Constructing the German Shepherd Dog,” and it follows the story of how the breed was developed and then promoted internationally.

Tenner posits his work on this thesis: 

Dog breeding has been largely the province of enthusiasts rather than geneticists or animal behaviorists, and therefore motivated less by animal health and fitness. Dogs are often unwitting bearers of cultural meaning; they can serve democratic, aristocratic, and fascistic purposes. The values of breeders, the ambitions of organizational entrepreneurs, the strategies of military and police officials, the whims of socialites, and even the genres of media producers play a part. One of the most striking results of these interactions is the German Shepherd Dog, whose early career as a breed was entangled with German nationalism and biological racism but who has since become, both as a working and a household dog, one of the world’s most popular and ironically cosmopolitan companion animals.

The story begins with the German Empire in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.  The German nation is new, constructed from ancient regions that had maintained a certain amount of autonomy for centuries. Germany was at the cusp of becoming a major player on the world stage.  At the time, the British Empire was the main power, but the Germans were interested in taking British ideas and making them work in Germany.

The new German nationalism adopted the memes of breed improvement the British, but then turned them onto the native breeds of Germany. The collie had been renowned for  its service as a sheepdog and then utilitarian working animal and family pet.

Sheep husbandry in Germany had a very different history from the British Isles.  In German culture, shepherds had been seen as the itinerant vagabonds of agriculture. They were landless and mobile, always moving their flocks to better grazing. This status changed a bit, when various German prince imported merinos to improve their wool-stock, and for much of the nineteenth century, shepherds achieved higher status in the society. 

However, the newly unified German Empire saw a great decline in wool production in the final decades of the nineteenth century.  Germany had produced many good sheepdogs, but if they were to be preserved in the way the collie had been, drastic measures were going to be taken.

Tenner posits that the German dog fancy had three basic contingents:  one that was focused on promoting Great Danes and hunting dogs, another that was interested in promoting English style urban show dogs, and one that was a “socially mixed experiment” that was about improving working breeds for the police and for the pet market. German shepherds obviously derive from the final faction.

Great Danes were considered the first dogs of new German Empire. Bismarck kept at least one with him at all times, and virtually all aristocrats were either keeping them or breeding them.  The breed had its origins in the hunting boar and brown bear, but by that late date, they were mostly being promoted as estate guardians in much the same way mastiffs were in England. In the early days of the German dog fancy, the native sheepdogs were an after thought.  Eyes were strongly drawn to the Doggen.

However, by those final decades of the nineteenth century, the German nation had gone crazy with collies, and it had also found itself in a naval cold war-style competition with the British Empire.  Airedales started to become seen as useful police and military working dogs, and the nation began to feel that it could best the British with its native dogs.  And these nationalist fanciers looked towards the sheepdogs for that answer.

The beginnings of the standardization of German sheepdogs focused heavily upon those that possessed a wolf-like phenotype.  The various regional German sheepdogs have traits that point to some ancestry with poodles, schnauzers, and even Australian shepherds. However, prick-eared dogs were found in several areas of the country, and because the ancient German culture had historically held wolves as totemic animals, there was a desire to focus on this type of dog.

Initially, two basic strains came to the fore. 

One was the Thuringian sheepdog. Thuringia, in east-central Germany, had a declining wool industry, and out of work sheepdogs were easily procured.  These dogs were most often sable, but occasionally, they came in white.  These dogs were mostly bred for their looks, and it was not unusual for these dogs to be bred with wolves.

Tenner writes of one dog named Phylax that was a wolfdog:

In an 1895 contest, a judge described the society’s prize animal, Phylax von Eulau, as a ‘seductively beautiful, purely wolf-colored, high-stepping, short-backed, very large wolf mix (Wolfsbastard), which would do ten times more credit to a menagerie with its wild facial expression, hard movement, and wild behavior, than it could ever perform working behind a herd of sheep.’

The fact that many Thuringian sheepdog breeders were crossing these dogs with wolves suggests that a large portion were not really all that interested in producing a sheepdog. They were into producing a late nineteenth century version of the German wolf totem.

Phylax the wolfdog had been exhibited as part of an organization called the Phylax Society. It was founded to turn the German sheepdogs into a useful working dog. This society, founded in 1891, was full of internecine conflicts that it eventually dissipated by 1897.   

In 1898, a German cavalry captain named Max von Stephanitz retired his post and devoted the rest of his life to dog breeding.  He had seen what happened to the Phylax society, and he decided to create another organization that would eventually go on to standardize the German shepherd dog. His organization, the Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde (SV), still exists today.

Stephanitz was a German nationalist. He was an anti-Semite. He was a scientific racist.  He was all the things you would imagine a former German military officer from the nineteenth century to be like. 

He also knew a lot about scientific animal breeding. He had been stationed at the Veterinary College in Berlin, and because horses were such a vital part of military operations, it would make sense that units of cavalry would be stationed at veterinary schools.  Veterinary medicine was mostly concerned with horses in those days, because horses were the main form of transport for a huge part of society. 

So when Stephanitz retired and bought an estate near Grafrath in Bavaria, he had ideas about what selective breeding could produce.

He also settled in area with active sheep production, and there were still plenty of working sheepdogs in Bavaria and Württemberg. It was here that another variety of wolf-like sheepdog could be found. It was larger and longer-haired. It possessed a more docile nature, and it came in the black-and-tan variants and recessive black. 

The origin of the German shepherd dog as we know it today came from breeding a few Thuringian sheepdogs, most notably Hektor Linksrhein/Horand von Grafrath, to the Württemberg dogs. There was extensive inbreeding to refine the type. However, the SV was open to people of all economic stations, and the registry would take in any dog that was useful.  So unlike other breed societies, which generally included only the most wealthy in society,  the development of the German shepherd dog as a bred became a popular activity rather than an elite one.

Stephanitz was of the view that this sheepdog should be promoted as a working dog, but with sheepdog work declining all over Germany, he began to promote it to police departments as working police dog. His constant promotion eventually succeeded, but he had a very hard time getting the German army to forsake its Airedales, which they eventually did. 

By 1914, the Kriminalpolizei line had been established in Wiesbaden, and the dog began to be thought of as a police dog. Though some experts thought the Doberman pinscher was going to be the police dog of the future, the SV just had more people that were dedicated to the task. 

And when World War I began, the Germans saw how useful military dogs were for the British that they began to use German shepherds as their sentry and patrol dogs.  So they went from being a type of dog that was only known in a few German regions 1899 to becoming celebrated war dogs by 1915.

During the war, Americans and the British came to know these dogs, as did the Russians. The advent of silent film created the American film stars known as Strongheart and Rin-Tin-Tin.

Demand for these dogs became feverish in America in the 1920s, and the poverty-stricken Germans sold thousands of these dogs to willing American buyers. Geraldine Dodge became a major promoter of the breed, and she even had Stephanitz come to judge the breed at her Morris and Essex show in 1930.

Stephanitz believed Jews had an inherent aversion to dogs, unlike the Germanic man, who has an inherited affinity for them. He didn’t forbid Jews from owning his dogs, but he thought the only reason a Jew would ever be in purebred dogs is to make money. The Nazi didn’t much care for his leadership of the SV, and they drove him from the organization. They merged it with a National Socialist animal breeding organization, and the SV itself was given over to a chicken breeder.

He had done so much to promote his dogs, though, that when the Second World War came, they fought on all sides of the conflict. The British Empire, the Americans, and the Soviets all fought with German shepherds against the Axis Powers and their dogs.

The irony of all this entire story is that this breed was created with nationalist aims, but it wound up becoming the most important working breed of dog for the twentieth century. 

Tenner writes:

The Shepherd’s success is paradoxical. It was, as the wildlife biologist Glenn Radde has pointed out, the embodiment of modernity vis-à-vis the Great Danes of the landed nobility, yet it soon became a hallowed tradition. Originally bred for working qualities, it attracted some enthusiasts more concerned about appearance than health and soundness. Inspired in part by ethnocentrism and racism, it appealed across borders and ethnic lines as few other breeds have. Volunteered by their owners for German victory, Shepherds were spread by the stunning defeat of the Treaty of Versailles. Most of all, the triumph of the German Shepherd Dog shows how much of our everyday world depends on unpredictable interactions between the unforeseen and the unintentional. We can only speculate about what genetic modifications, if adopted widely, will bring.

This is the story of a plowshare being turned into a sword, but Tenner points out that the sword is being refashioned into a plowshare:

In an age of mass customization, the attraction of standards has faded, or, rather, there are many more to choose from. For example, law enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States prefer Belgian Malinois to Shepherds for their allegedly keener sense of smell and sharper temperament. Some Shepherd owners and trainers pay premiums for dogs bred to the more traditional standards of the former German Democratic Republic and pre-1989 Czechoslovakia. Yet friendliness toward strangers and other dogs, a taboo for von Stephanitz and the Nazi regime, is now seen more positively by many owners with families. And this trend in turn has encouraged so-called designer dogs with parents from what the buyers hope are two complementary purebred lines — the Golden Shepherd, the Shepadoodle, the Shug, and the Shollie.

So yes, law enforcement and the military still use the German shepherd, but it is now being brought more and more into civilian life as a family dog. This will still be a working breed, but it will be more adaptable, as it always has been, to the various new tasks that lie before it.

The Malinois and the Dutch shepherd might be the more impressive police and military dog, but the German shepherd will have the edge when it comes to adaptability for new tasks. The task of family guard dog and general homestead dog are ones that it will serve with the highest distinction.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Posted in German shepherd dog | Tagged Constructing the German Shepherd Dog, Edward Tenner, German shepherd dog | 9 Comments

9 Responses

  1. on June 19, 2020 at 5:48 pm dtermijn

    Thank you for sharing the publication Raritan it was new for me. Did not read it all yet but noticed the Dobermann is mentioned in it also. Maybe I will learn something new also.


    • on June 19, 2020 at 9:04 pm SWestfall3

      Very similar history. The Phylax Society was in Apolda, and the Thuringian sheepdogs were used in the Dobermann breed too.


  2. on June 20, 2020 at 1:32 am L.

    Fascinating piece. I hope we get to see more of this type of work, especially for the breeds that aren’t so clear-cut in origin; I’m a bit tired of attempting to research breed histories and finding little more than fanciers’ conjecture in many cases.

    I wanted to add some detail about why Mals and Dutchies have seemingly overtaken GSDs as police and military dogs (not entirely true, depends on the specific area and many are a mix of the breeds). I’ve heard the question posed to K9 handlers and trainers a few times and purportedly it boils down more to supply and demand than anything else.

    Working line GSDs are now in such high demand as companion and sport dogs that their breeders will seldom sell in bulk to departments the way they once would, and the contemporary pricing having risen to the standard ~$2,000 per pup (thousands more for the green/started dogs these folks prefer to buy) found in most any “pet breed” makes buying GSDs impractical when bulk working-bred Mals can be had for far less. Of course, their parents probably don’t have their health certs, but Mals don’t have to be bred quite so carefully – they lack the unusually high sensitivity to hip laxity that all lines and builds of GSD exhibit, and degenerative myleopathy isn’t seen, among other conditions. You also can get a few years’ longer working life out of a Mal, they’re easier to lift, eat less and are less prone to heat stroke in the Middle East and what have you, but supposedly these are not as relevant as the initial cost aspect, and supposedly too, every dog in a trailer full of Mals will have the drive and hardness needed for the work while only some of the WL GSDs will.

    Never get a K9 handler or KNPV type started on “real working lines” vs “sporting lines” in GSDs, being bred for pet traits, watering down of IPO, improved training methods masking weak dogs, and on and on…

    There seems to be a general consensus that GSDs are smarter, even though the typical Mal is faster to train (to those specific tasks, by an experienced trainer) because of their extreme drive. A GSD will look for a route around it before diving through a pane of glass after a suspect, whereas a Mal will jump without another thought. Some handlers like that the Mal doesn’t “think”, he just does as commanded. Others obviously dislike the downsides of this as well as the generally frenetic nature of a good portion of Mals. Dutchies are supposed to be somewhere between the GSD and the Mal and are sought after but difficult to come by. There are enthusiastic converts sworn to the new ‘pocket rocket’ and there are staunch supporters of the old dog, saying a good GSD beats a Mal as a partner at work and at home any day of the week, but they have to work with whatever is easily available.


    • on June 20, 2020 at 7:21 am SWestfall3

      My experience with Malinois and GSD pretty much matches. GSD are bigger dogs and take a lot of time to mature. You really don’t have a dog until it’s about 2 or even 3.

      I have show lines. I have the American show lines, which haven’t been selected for the police work in generations but still have good stock dog instincts, and I have one West German show line that seems to have the best of both types.

      For me, as someone who likes dogs just as dogs, I greatly prefer the German shepherd temperament to the Malinois/Dutch shepherd.


      • on July 10, 2020 at 2:30 am L.

        Mals are absolute machines, supposedly the protection folks get Mal puppies doing things at 16 weeks (!) that a WL GSD won’t do until 8 or 12 months old. And if we needed another example of just how quickly “extreme” temperamental traits are lost when not selected for – looking at the anti-pit bull corner – the show-line Mals, though separated from the working lines even more recently than the GSD, are said to typically have the weak nerves and “all prey, no defensive drive” issue of the Groenendal, Tervuren, and most any other sheepdog put to protection work when not intensely bred for it.

        Anyway, I agree with your comment on ASLs and WGSLs. I like WGSLs quite a bit even if their structure sometimes makes me grit my teeth. They’re my go-to recommendation for suburban families wanting a GSD as I find them to have a higher propensity towards a firm constitution than ASLs (not that every ASL ends up with Sheltie nerves, but too many for my liking. They’ve become an in-joke in pet-dog trainer circles, which is a shame.)

        Now, a useful little tidbit about WGSLs. There is money in these dogs overseas, especially in countries with a new middle class looking for status. Following the German show world’s lead in respects to aesthetics, the more extreme and cookie-cutter the dog, the better. This has led to widespread Photoshopping of dogs in those green-grass professional shots since “the service” first became available in the 90s. I don’t believe this is being done in US photos, but if you see that style of image with any one of a handful of European photographer’s logos in the corner, well… https://web.archive.org/web/20161127171303/https://www.louisdonald.com/blog/photoshopping-an-illusion-that-impedes-a-necessary-correction-in-the-german-shpeherd-show-dogs-development
        http://web.archive.org/web/20170519210806/https://www.louisdonald.com/blog/photoshopping-cookie-cutting-clones-of-someones-idea-of-what-the-ideal-german-shepherd-dog-should-look-like-illusion-and-delusion-2016-german-and-italian-youth-siegers-and-people-actually-buy-it-actually-believe-it-i

        A fun game is to poke around Pedigree Database and look at home photos of Sieger progeny that are somehow much more moderate than their parents. Googling a dog’s name can also bring up candid shots & videos from shows.
        http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=596624-chacco-von-der-freiheit-westerholt&p=progeny-pictures

        As for the dramatic “goose stepping” of WGSLs being gaited at Sieger-style shows, it is partly that the fore often doesn’t match the rear, but the dogs are also trained to pull very hard against the lead, the backwards force driving the front up and, likewise, the rear into the ground. Unnaturally heavy development of shoulder muscles from being exercised this way restricts forward extension even further. You’ll often hear comments about a “powerful gait”. I have seen plenty of WGSLs which look reasonable trotting on a loose lead but like some kind of PDE nightmare during this action. Combined with the frequent excessively deep 3-point stack in all lines, this is just another way we GSD fanciers are shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to public relations, if you ask me. You can’t put on such a strange display and expect that Average Joe on Facebook is going to know that’s not actually how the dogs look or move, or that he’ll go out and pursue obscure lectures on the topic.


        • on July 10, 2020 at 7:38 am SWestfall3

          We have long discussions at our house about the problems with their structure. but if you show them “American” they look so much better when at a trot.

          Are you familiar with Louis Donald’s page? I think it would take some work to fix some of those back shape issue. It looks like the Americans get the sloping back mostly from increasing the turn of stifle, while the SV show dogs get if from making the back look weird. American dogs throw hock-walkers quite a bit, so you have to be careful how much selection you’re doing with with that turn of stifle. The dogs often have good brains and even good hips and elbows, but you do get some that are a little too extreme.


          • on July 12, 2020 at 12:13 am L.

            Yes, some time ago I pored over Louis’ articles almost like they were religious texts, lol. We definitely have one of the more structurally complex breeds. Louis posts some interesting stuff on his Facebook too. Anxiously awaiting his upcoming book; it’s going to have illustrations by the late Linda Shaw, bittersweet but surely invaluable contributions. If you haven’t read her book, it’s an absolute must. Should be required reading for all fanciers and judges. https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Standard-German-Shepherd-Dog/dp/1986532496

            Regarding the slope – a while ago I came across a photo of a Euro-type Boxer –

            (http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/boxer/dog.html?id=1592590-megan-vd-burg-singidunum)
            – and was dumbfounded as to why his topline was so steeply sloping when he had perfectly average rear angulation and wasn’t in a 3-point or extra-stretched stack. It hit me suddenly that he had extremely high withers. You can see the same in Euro Dobes. High withers are desirable and, for purposes of engineering the most efficient possible movement in a long-bodied, low-stationed, endurance-trotting dog, correct in the GSD. It’s rare that a dog of the breed doesn’t have them, though height will vary.

            Notably high withers in a WL GSD with a moderate rear and in a more or less correct stack:

            (http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=479878-fanja-vom-salztalblick)

            Low withers in a WL x WGSL cross with a deeply angulated rear and similar stack:

            (http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=130153-heiko-vom-odenwalder-land)

            So the more moderate dog ends up with the public fury-inducing slope, and the more dramatic dog ends up with a virtually level back simply on account of the withers. In line with the (honestly understandable although, as you and I know, entirely false) assertion that a sloping back causes HD in GSDs, I’ve seen outraged comments on photos of high-withered but moderately-angulated Euro Dobermans and stretched-pose Rottweilers talking about the dog’s poor hips and the square 1940s dogs looked so much healthier etc etc. I do feel as though this point of conformation needs more attention when trying to educate others about the breed.


          • on July 12, 2020 at 4:44 am L

            On WGSL backs… the variety of crazy shapes they display is so wide it’s unbelievable. I don’t think there’s any other breed with such variance in conformation, especially in one line alone. Every possible combination of length, height, angle, and degree of curvature in the withers, true back, lumbar back (thanks LD for the terms), and croup. The evident genetic limits present in most other breeds have gone out the window with the pieces going convex. I don’t think they’re crippled or unhealthy, just that it’s gone off the rails, and it’s frankly impressive that they’re still able to be quite athletic. I think it certainly helps that they’re not too often extreme in rear angulation (although this is unfortunately increasing in frequency, nothing like what you see in ASLs though) and they tend to have good firm muscling and ligamentation. The softness and looseness you see in so many ASLs today is embarrassing.

            In any event, we’re looking at a serious problem when a breed that’s supposed to be famed for its suspended (“flying”) trot is so often shown being *unable to achieve a period of suspension* – that is, all toes front and rear have liftoff – because the rear feet travel so close to the ground! This is in both lines for the differing reasons you described.

            Relatively moderate top-rated WGSL at a fast trot off-leash, unable to achieve a period of suspension due to steep curvature of lower spine, nice equal distances aside:

            Champion ASL at a very fast trot on loose lead, unable to achieve period of suspension due to extreme rear angulation:

            More here: https://www.pinterest.com/velizarapetraki/american-showline-gsds/gaiting/, https://www.pinterest.com/velizarapetraki/german-showline-gsds/gaiting/

            Westminster BIS Lockenhaus Rumor Has It could just barely manage a period of suspension which was nice to see relative to the norm, but still pales in comparison to what we should be shooting for –

            Dingo wasn’t “the best of all time” as some claim, there are a few things to nitpick, but he was a solid mover and could keep this up at a more moderate working pace for hours upon hours, as would be expected of the shepherd’s “living fence”.

            An excellent medium speed working trot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woHVmzVdCMI


            • on July 13, 2020 at 1:16 pm SWestfall3

              I love all of those!



Comments are closed.

  • Like on Facebook

    The Retriever, Dog, and Wildlife Blog

    Promote Your Page Too
  • Blog Stats

    • 9,552,310 hits
  • Retrieverman’s Twitter

    • RT @dhruvfranklin: I think it's often hard to comprehend the scale of biodiversity loss in North America without proper visuals. Left: A wo… 2 hours ago
    • one person followed me // automatically checked by fllwrs.com 3 hours ago
    • retrievermanii.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-la… https://t.co/su6REHh0jV 2 days ago
    • @Fiorella_im Seder = Democrats' George Costanza. The Jerk Store called. They don't want him returned. 3 days ago
    • one person unfollowed me // automatically checked by fllwrs.com 3 days ago
  • Google rank

    Check Google Page Rank
  • Archives

    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
  • Recent Comments

    markgelbart on Retiring this Space
    oneforestfragment on Retiring this Space
    The Evolving Natural… on So does the maned wolf break t…
    SWestfall3 on So does the maned wolf break t…
    Ole Possum on So does the maned wolf break t…
  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.com
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,701 other followers

  • Pages

    • About
    • Contact
    • Patreon
    • Premium Membership
    • Services
  • Subscribe to Retrieverman's Weblog by Email
  • Revolver map

    Map

  • Top Posts

    • Coyote tracks in the snow
  • SiteCounter

    wordpress analytics
    View My Stats
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,701 other followers

  • Donate to this blog

  • Top 50 Northwest Dog Blogs

    top 50 dog blogs

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: