Uncover how a one-night cross between a Pudel and a Pointer in Nineteenth-century Germany sparked a revolution in canine breeding.
On this episode of Looking Canine Confidential, host and canine historian Craig Koshyk unravels the unlikely origins of the Pudelpointer—the world’s first true “designer canine” that really labored. From the ambition of German hunters looking for the right versatile gun canine to the barons, breeders, and area trials that outlined a technology, Craig traces how this daring experiment challenged custom and reshaped the very thought of what a flexible searching canine might be. Alongside the best way, he explores the breed’s enduring success, its distinction with trendy designer canines, and why the Pudelpointer stays an emblem of purpose-driven breeding achieved proper.
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Podcast Episode Transcript
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Looking Canine Confidential podcast. My title is Craig Koshyk. I’m your host and resident gun canine nerd. On this episode, we’re gonna discover out what occurs when a pointer and a poodle have a one-night stand and find yourself setting off a revolution within the gun canine breeding world—a revolution that reverberates throughout fields around the globe to this very day.
And as at all times, for those who wanna know when these episodes are gonna drop, hit the subscribe button. And in order for you extra particulars than what I’m giving on this podcast, take a look at my books Pointing Canines Quantity One and Pointing Canines Quantity Two, out there from Undertaking Upland and from me at dogwilling.ca.
After I first began writing my first ebook, Pointing Canines Quantity One, I had a heck of a time attempting to determine precisely how all the varied rough-haired breeds truly developed.
Then someday at an area off-leash canine park, I noticed one thing that helped me a bit to know one of many central truths about the entire rough-haired breeds. It was a medium-sized black canine with a particular mustache, beard, and a tough coat. Judging from its general form and its thick, uncropped tail, I knew it wasn’t a Drahthaar or a Pudelpointer, and it was black, so I knew it couldn’t be a Griffon, a Český Fousek, or a Slovak Pointer.
To my eye, it seemed to be a combined breed—most likely some type of Labrador cross—and I used to be proper. After I requested the man what sort of canine it was, he mentioned, “Effectively, it’s a Labradoodle.”
That canine represented the outcomes of an intentional crossing of Labradors and Poodles that started within the Eighties in Australia. This system caught on in a short time and kicked off the designer canine development that has given rise to a complete vary of breeds with catchy names like Schnoodle, Goldendoodle, and Puggle.
Naturally, these new hybrids, as they’re known as, have created a storm of controversy in purebred canine circles, and so they’ve attracted loads of fast-buck operators hoping to money in on the most recent fad. Nonetheless, regardless of the cries of “heretic” or “disgrace” from some purebred canine circles, there’s nothing inherently immoral or unethical about creating designer breeds—neither is it something new.
Crossing two current canine breeds to create a brand new one is a time-tested approach. It’s been used over the centuries to develop many breeds, and mixing their names is nothing new both. Approach again in 1881, German hunters started the systematic crossing of Poodles and Pointers, and what they ended up with was the world’s first designer canine with the primary designer title: the Pudelpointer.
Okay, let me make a fast facet be aware right here as a result of I can perceive why Pudelpointer homeowners may be upset with me at this level. I imply, Labradoodles are actually everyone’s punching bag for what’s unsuitable with the designer canine breeds. However there are some legitimate parallels to be made between the 2. I imply, each breeds are a mixture of a smooth-haired breed and a curly-haired breed, and each typically produce rough-haired or wire-haired pups.
And each breeds’ names are additionally a mixture of the names of the 2 breeds that they have been created from. However most significantly, each began off as an excellent thought, and that’s the place the parallels finish, as a result of the Pudelpointer succeeded in gaining purebred standing and a hardcore following of devoted, targeted breeders in Europe and North America.
The Labradoodle didn’t. Even the person who created the Labradoodle ultimately disowned it. His program to develop hypoallergenic information canines for the blind—effectively, it ended up falling sufferer to our trendy canine breeding tradition, which is, let’s face it, dominated by the almighty greenback.
The Pudelpointer, then again, was developed in the course of the golden age of dog-breed creation, when there was nonetheless a way of honor and goal amongst most of the main canine breeders. And it thrives in the present day as a incredible pointing breed, bred by and for hunters.
Okay, let’s get again to the historical past of the Pudelpointer particularly, as a result of if we actually wanna perceive it, we want to check out the zeitgeist—or the spirit of the occasions—wherein it was created. We have to return to the Eighties, throughout a interval of speedy progress in nearly each sector of the newly unified German Empire.
Trade, economic system, and inhabitants have been booming in Germany, and there have been enhancements in journey, communication, science, and schooling. Germany was turning into a rival to England as Europe’s main industrial nation. Spurred on by a heady combination of romantic nationalism and conservatism, Germany started to maneuver nearer to the middle of the world stage.
One of many areas that greatest mirrored the brand new Germany was the place the newly liberated sport of searching intersected with the rising curiosity in canine breeding. Just like the Industrial Revolution, the game of purebred canines truly got here to Germany a bit later than it did in lots of different international locations. However when it did—boy, oh boy—progress was made at an incredible tempo.
By the Eighties, the frenzy to standardize and stabilize the German-developed canines was in full swing, and by the Eighteen Nineties it was a free-for-all bordering on chaotic. Throughout this time of nationwide awakening, an influential sporting press promoted the rising German searching tradition and inspired hunters to develop their very own breeds of canines for their very own methods of searching.
Some of the influential writers of the time was a German baron who used the pen title Hegewald. In lots of revealed histories of the Pudelpointer, Hegewald is credited with the breed’s creation, however that’s truly deceptive. Hegewald didn’t create the breed, however he was instrumental in convincing others to cross Poodles with Tips to create a brand new one.
He wrote, “We want the Pointer’s glorious nostril and fiery temperament paired with its huge drive and velocity. We want, nevertheless, to lose its single-mindedness of goal. There is just one strategy to obtain this—by the admixture of Poodle.”
However Hegewald wasn’t the primary individual to give you that concept, and he freely admitted as a lot.
n 1897, he wrote, *“The thought of utilizing the clever, eager-to-learn, simply educated, precocious, good-retrieving Poodle for functions of breeding searching canines not at all got here from me. In Italy, lengthy earlier than me, the Italians efficiently bred the Spinone. In France, the French bred their varied Barbets and Griffons.
In our personal homeland, our German masters of the stag hunt, of which we should cite in first place the classics Fleming and D. Ba, these authorities and their contemporaries alone deserve the credit score for having first created, through the use of Poodle blood, the well-known Polish Water Canine.”*
In Hegewald’s time, Pointers have been having fun with large reputation throughout Europe.
However what precisely have been the water canines? What the heck was a Polish Water Canine that Hegewald was writing about? Effectively, in the present day, Poodles and Schicks, Poodles and Polish Water Canines, Hessian Tough Beards, and all these obscure kinds of canines that folks wrote about within the day—effectively, they’ve all disappeared, and nobody appears to know a lot about them.
However in Hegewald’s time, everyone knew what they have been. The truth is, way back to 1621, Gervase Markham wrote that, “The water canine is a creature of such normal use that it’s unnecessary to make any giant description of him, since not any amongst us is so easy that he can’t say when he sees him, ‘That could be a water canine,’ or, ‘There’s a canine bred for water.’”
Effectively, come on, Markham. Give us a little bit bit extra! That doesn’t actually assist us whenever you simply say everyone is aware of it when he sees it. What if we don’t see it? What in the event that they’re not round? Happily, Markham then goes on to truly describe the water canine. He wrote, *“It might be of any coloration and but glorious, and his hair typically can be lengthy and curled, not unfastened and shaggy. His head can be spherical and curled, his ears broad and hanging, his eyes full, vigorous, and fast. He’s rough-bearded, his chops with a full set of sturdy tooth, and the final options of his entire countenance being united collectively can be as lion-like as may be, for that reveals fierceness and goodness.
His pasterns are sturdy and dewclawed, and all his 4 toes are spacious to the claw like a water duck. In different phrases, they’re webbed, for they, being his oars, can row him within the water. Having that form, they may carry his physique away all of the sooner.”*
The canines Markham described have been most likely descendants of canines used for herding. They’d an extended, thick coat to guard them from the weather, and so they had the energy and agility to work within the hardest circumstances, together with chilly water. In all places these water canines have been discovered, they crossed to different breeds—both deliberately or by chance—and a number of the kinds of canines they crossed to would have been short-haired.
Hans Friedrich von Fleming provides us additional particulars in a ebook known as The Full German Hunter, revealed in 1719. He wrote, *“The shepherds have small or medium driving canines which have shaggy hair. Such Poodles are actually lined with a hound, so the offspring fall with lengthy ears and shaggy hair so that they swim higher.
Their thick hair is taken off; an excellent beard and eyebrows stay, and the tail is docked. These water canines, from the grey coloration of the shepherd and the crimson hair of the hound, are principally brown, although typically white with brown spots or generally even black. They’re brisk and trustworthy. They hunt gladly and like by nature to swim. They retrieve effectively in reeds and quick rivers. In addition they hunt foxes, otters, and wildcats from the reeds. Such a water Poodle is of nice service to the fowler.”*
The rough-coated water canines Fleming described glided by completely different names in several areas. They have been typically mentioned to come back from Russia or Poland or Bohemia—mainly wherever “out east” someplace. In all probability, they didn’t develop in only one area; they have been discovered throughout a lot of the continent, and a number of the names they got have been primarily based extra on stereotypes than their precise origins.
Jean Castaing, in his ebook, prompt that the English known as them Russian for a similar causes the Germans known as them Polish—as a result of that they had a tough, unkempt look that was thought-about typical of Jap European individuals on the time.
Till the mid-1800s, nobody intentionally got down to create rough-haired breeds systematically by crossing various kinds of canines. More often than not, they merely occurred naturally as canines and their homeowners let nature take its course. It wasn’t till in regards to the Eighties that folks began actually enthusiastic about a scientific program of crossing varied kinds of canines to give you a steady, rough-haired breed or kind of canine.
In 1825, one other baron—a man named Borsch—wrote within the Yearbook for Foresters, Hunters, and Pals of Hunters: “It’s noteworthy that crossing the Poodle and the Pointing Canine would unite and keep the superb drive by the virtues of each varieties.” That appears to be the earliest point out of any person truly stating the Pointer and the Poodle as an excellent cross.
In 1848, a Frenchman, the Marquis of Guerlain, may need been the primary to truly undertake such a scientific strategy to breeding rough-haired canines. He crossed rough-haired Griffons that he already had with Pointers. Then a person named Guerlain in Thiry continued the Marquis’s work after him by choosing solely white and orange canines from the Ville line. He then crossed them again to Pointers and ultimately established his personal breed known as the Guerlain Griffon, which was kind of like a Pudelpointer, besides it was white and orange.
Facet be aware: the subsequent time you’re in a division retailer, go to the make-up and fragrance part and see if there are any Guerlain merchandise. Guerlain is spelled G-U-E-R-L-A-I-N. It’s pronounced “Glan” in French, however “Guer-lain,” I assume, in English. My spouse’s favourite fragrance is made by Guerlain, and that fragrance was truly created by the identical Mr. Guerlain who created his personal line of Griffons within the late 1800s in France.
At any time when she places a little bit spray of that fragrance on, I like it as a result of, initially, it smells nice, but in addition it simply form of jogs my memory of the good outdated occasions within the golden age of canine breeding, when a wealthy fragrance dude may set about creating his personal breed of canine. Sadly, the Guerlain Griffon died out, and we’d check out it in a future episode—however the fragrance nonetheless lives on to today.
Anyway, let’s get again to the story. As Guerlain was creating his personal breed up in Thiry, there was one other French man, a person named Emmanuel Boulet. He tried a barely completely different strategy. As a substitute of beginning with these tough, shaggy-coated canines referred to as Griffons on the time, he crossed to different kinds of canines—a water canine known as a Barbet, which had a smooth, curly coat. Even Korthals was energetic at the moment, attempting to develop his personal breed of Griffons.
So by the 1870s and Eighties, the entire varied German authorities on gun canines would have identified about these breeding applications. Hegewald was certainly conscious of them. Hegewald additionally knew that there had been a mating between a Poodle and a Pointer that had already occurred in Germany by chance. He truly wrote about that unintentional breeding, saying that the mom of the litter was a closely ticked brown Pointer, and the daddy was a strongly constructed Poodle.
Apparently, the mating came about close to Magdeburg whereas a military unit was on maneuvers within the space. It’s mentioned that an officer with one of many battalions owned the Poodle and that the canine in some way ran off and managed to get it on with a Pointer bitch owned by an area landowner. That one-night stand produced a bitch named Juno, who should have been a formidable performer. She in the end impressed Hegewald to induce different breeders to repeat that very same cross of a Pointer and a Poodle.
The primary official litter of Pudelpointers was whelped in 1881. A forester by the title of Walter Waldorf is claimed to have bred one canine named Molly. She was a Poodle–Pointer cross already. Effectively, Molly was bred to a white Pointer named Inform, who was owned by Emperor Frederick III, the King of Prussia. That litter produced at the very least one pup—a canine named Cora von Waldorf—that possessed the entire skills of the Poodle and the Pointer that breeders have been in search of, and it had the form of rough-haired coat Hegewald advocated for the breed.
Inspired by the success of the primary litter, breeders started to provide extra litters of Poodle and Pointer crosses. Nonetheless, they quickly realized that canines from that first technology shouldn’t be bred amongst themselves, since they tended to provide offspring that have been both Pointer or Poodle, and never the mix of the 2.
So, a program of what they known as back-breeding was established. Canines from the primary and second generations of crosses have been bred to white and brown Pointers. It’s mentioned {that a} complete of eighty-seven of those crosses to Pointers have been achieved round this time, however there have been no extra crosses to Poodles—effectively, none that have been reported, anyway.
The back-breeding program actually labored. It helped to stabilize the look and the character of the breed, and it will definitely allowed breeders to breed Pudelpointer to Pudelpointer in subsequent generations. A breed ebook was created in 1892, and in 1897 a full-fledged membership—the Verein Pudelpointer—was established underneath the course of Hegewald and one other well-known authority named Oberländer.
The membership’s breeding program was primarily based on a system of area, forest, and water assessments—the forerunners of the testing system nonetheless utilized in Germany in the present day. Within the early years of the Pudelpointer Membership, a lot of distinguished members and their canines have been misplaced to the breed as they and different renegade Stichelhaar and Griffon breeders moved to create yet one more new breed, the Drahthaar, which we’ll check out later.
Those that remained within the Pudelpointer Membership held agency to the conviction that by breeding solely inside Pudelpointer traces, they might develop and keep a rough-haired breed of gun canine that had glorious all-around searching skills.
In 1924, they joined with different purists from the Griffon and Stichelhaar golf equipment to kind a brand new membership, the Tough-Haired Pure Breeding Membership, and so they started to carry efficiency assessments for simply these three breeds.
As with most of the German breeds, Pudelpointers ultimately made their means out of Germany. H.D. Hume and Bodo Winterhelt—one of many founders of NAVHDA—are credited with introducing the breed into North America within the Nineteen Fifties.
Right this moment, the Pudelpointer enjoys an excellent fame as a stable, reliable searching canine amongst German and European hunters. Nevertheless it stays a reasonably uncommon breed, even in its homeland. With simply over 150 pups a 12 months, it’s extra well-liked than the Griffon or the Stichelhaar in Germany, nevertheless it’s a really distant third to the Drahthaar.
In North America, then again, the breed has turn into one of many prime performers in NAVHDA, and it has efficiently managed to keep away from the ravages of the present ring and pet market. Its reputation has been rising steadily, and its future within the U.S. and Canada seems to be actually, actually shiny.
In comparison with different breeds of gun canines, Pudelpointers are comparatively uncommon, but Lisa and I’ve seen them in Germany, France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the U.S., and Canada—and we’ve even hunted over them proper right here in our personal province of Manitoba.
However there’s a straightforward clarification for that. Our frequent contact with the breed is solely as a consequence of the truth that after we journey to {photograph} canines or to hunt, we meet up with people who find themselves simply as keen about searching as we’re. And for the reason that breed is—and at all times has been—within the palms of hunters, effectively, it stands to motive that we’d see extra Pudelpointers in a few seasons than the typical canine walker at an area park would see in a lifetime.
And in all of those encounters, I’ve by no means felt in the slightest degree intimidated by any of the canines. Each Pudelpointer I’ve ever met has been an easygoing, pleasant canine—whether or not it was in the home, in a camper, or staked out beside a truck someplace within the Dakotas. Within the area, each single one in all them hunted onerous.
Yeah, some have been sooner or perhaps bigger-running than others, and a few had higher coats than others, however not a single a type of canines left me with any doubt about their searching want. Pudelpointers are, on common, hardcore searching canines for hardcore hunters.
It’s straightforward to discover a Pudelpointer that can hunt. Discover a pup from virtually any litter of Pudelpointers being bred in the present day in Europe or in North America, and you’ve got an impressive likelihood to get a canine with all of the requisite want you require as a hunter within the area.
There are solely two points with the Pudelpointer proper now by way of discovering and getting a pup. One—you’re most likely gonna be on a ready listing. Each breeder I’ve ever spoken to in Pudelpointer America has a ready listing, or most years may have a ready listing.
The opposite is only a phrase of warning to anybody who solely hunts a number of days a 12 months. Let’s say you get out two or three weekends a 12 months and also you desire a searching companion that’s gonna be good for that little covert within the again forty that takes you half an hour or an hour to hunt. Effectively, a Pudelpointer may not be one of the best canine for you.
Pudelpointers may be a variety of canine. Breeders choose for the form of hunt-all-day, every-day canine with a variety of hearth within the stomach. Positive, Pudelpointers can chill at residence with the children—they’re tremendous pleasant and good canines. I’ve beloved each one I’ve ever met—however within the area, within the water, and within the forest, they could be a lot of canine.
So for some of us on the market, they may be an excessive amount of canine, and also you may be greatest taking a look at one other breed.
In any case, the underside line for me in regards to the Pudelpointer is that this: they’re the true deal. They’re dynamic searching canines, bred by and for hardcore hunters.
Hey, everyone—that wraps up the episode on the Pudelpointer. I hope you loved it. I actually appreciated placing it collectively as a result of the Pudelpointer’s historical past is mainly the start of the historical past of the entire German wire-haired breeds. It’s an enchanting journey into some obscure locations in Germany and a few actually cool and revolutionary concepts.
And, oh, by the best way, that’s not a inexperienced display. I’m truly on the Canadian prairies. We’re out right here chasing roosters, and we’re having a good time—we’re having some luck. I hope you’re on the market as effectively. I hope you’re on the market chasing birds. And for those who’re on a long-distance journey like we simply took, effectively, hearken to a podcast at Looking Canine Confidential.
We’ve obtained you lined. Our subsequent episode, coming very quickly, is a couple of breed you’ve most likely by no means heard of. It’s a German breed with a wire-haired coat—however most individuals have by no means heard about it due to what we name the “Warfare of the Wirehairs” in Germany. That occurred within the Eighteen Nineties and 1900s.
It mainly ended up placing this breed within the obscure pile—or the type of forgotten pile—of wire-haired breeds. Hey, it’s nonetheless round in the present day, however very obscure. Most individuals have by no means heard of it, so we’ll examine that out within the subsequent episode.
After that, it’s the German Wirehaired Pointer, i.e., or a.okay.a., the Deutsch-Drahthaar. After which, after that, we’re going east—we’re gonna go to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and additional south to Italy to take a look at their wire-haired breeds.
We’ll be dropping episodes frequently, so test it out on Looking Canine Confidential.
And completely satisfied searching, everyone—might you shoot straight and infrequently.
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