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THE WEIMARANER
The Weimaraner, one of Germany's top sporting dogs, dates
back less that two hundred years. It was meticulously developed
by noble sporting patrons at the court of Weimar. It was
a snob sporting dog developed and jealously guarded by one
of the biggest collections of snobs the dog world has ever
seen. You were right or you couldn't get your hands on one.
Bloodhound stock clearly played a large role at the beginning,
as did a German breed not known in this country, the red
schweisshund. The Weimaraner is a first cousin to the German
shorthaired pointer.
The Weimaraner is a perfect example of a highly refined
breeding experiment that paid off, but it did produce a
breed that is exactly right for some kinds of people and
perfectly dreadful for others. The snobs of the Weimar weren't
exactly wrong in the degree to which they protected their
creation.
The solid mouse to silver-gray Weimaraner with its short,
dense coat is a dog that simply must have early obedience
training or it is capable of being a first-class pest. It
is headstrong, willful, adoring, incredibly intelligent,
and responsive to praise. When a Weimaraner doesn't know
what it is supposed to do it can be counted on to do all
the wrong things. I have known Weimaraners whose owners
have not bothered to train them or teach them manners to
go through a plate-glass picture window because they had
been left home alone to long and were bored, bless them.
I knew one who dragged a charred log from a fireplace and
pulled it from room to room pulling charcoal off as it went.
It took a professional cleaning firm to repair the damage.
It could have burnt the house down.
That kind of flaky behavior must be seen in contrast to
the well-managed dog, however, or it gives a distorted picture.
A well-trained Weimaraner is a regal accomplishment of canine
genetic art, and as intolerably ill-behaved as a mismanaged
specimen can be, that is how extremely good, solid, and
reliable a properly raised example will be. It is one of
those dogs, and this is so often true of the sporting dogs,
that is what you want it to be. Few dogs can be more of
a nuisance than an Irish Setter, a Visla, or a Weimaraner,
that has had its vital energy levels, its need to perform,
and its exuberant love affair with life ignored. They need
exercise, they need training, and they need opportunities
to participate in vigorous, ongoing events. You ignore those
facts at considerable risk to your property. I have know
very few sporting dogs that had anything wrong at all with
them except their owners.
- ROGER CARAS -
A celebration of Dogs
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