NOTE: The following article originally appeared in Gun Dog Magazine as a 2 part series, part 1 in March/April '89, part 2 in the May/June '89 issue. Many thanks to Jim McCue for sending it, and for his help in adding new features to this page.

THIS IS THE GERMAN SHORTHAIR

Part II

by Jim McCue

From old studio photographs and dog-eared, family-album snap shots of German immigrants, we see the shorthair pictured as a family member in this country within 20 years of the registration of Hector I IVol. I, No. 1, 1872 German Stud Bookl. But the real beginning of the breed in the United States came with the importation's by Charles R. Thornton, a physician, of Missoula, Montana, starting in 1925. He brought in only the best-all top German-Austrian bloodlines were represented. By that time the versatile characteristics had become fixed in the breed. For the first time the hunting qualities of a number of different hunting breeds had been successfully fused together, melded into a single all-purpose hunting dog-the German shorthair.

Champion Hi Abe's Merry Rebecca. Merry R., as she is called by her owner, Sue Hansen of Las Cruces, New Mexico, is only a few points shy of being a DC/AFC. She comes from a long line of field trial champions and excellent hunters.

In a 1926 issue of the American Field, Dr. Thornton discussed the new breed in some detail: "The coat is longer than our English pointer and very closely knit, resembling the coat of the hair seal.... They stand on strong legs and good feet, are short coupled, well muscled, deep barrel-shaped chest, characteristically expressive eyes and intelligent head; long, broad ears, regulation cropped tail; extremely elegant and smart in carriage and movement. On point they are strikingly beautiful. They begin retrieving as early as six weeks of age.... They are naturally staunch (on point) and require little or no training. On game they can give one a real thrill. They will point any kind of game that will lie to cover and tree those that flush and take to the trees, where, as a rule, they hark 'treed'. I've used them in packs on coons just that way. After once they start pointing they will invariably hack any other dog they see pointing, sometimes honoring from a distance of 150-200 yards, remaining absolutely steady until the bird is flushed. This backing instinct comes naturally and puppies need not be trained to honor.... As to speed and range they compare favorably with our English pointers and setters of the shooting-dog class. They seldom range farther than a quarter of a mile from the gunner. I have hunted them side by side with some of my fast Llewellins and they invariably located more birds.... They hunt heavy cover with ease and eagerness, naturally adapting their range to suit conditions. As retrievers they are at home on land or in water and they will locate dead or wounded game in the heaviest brush or briar...." So spoke Dr. Charles Thornton, back when the shorthair was the new kid on the block.

Whatever you want to hunt on land or water, the German shorthair will accommodate. This shorthair is pointing sora rail.

In 1931 in a Nebraska brimming with pheasant and sharptail, quail and prairie chickens, a couple of hunting buddies, Ernest Rojem and Walter Mangold, imported a good pair of shorthairs with the help of Rojem's brother, Peter, in Germany. Six-month-old Claus v SchleswigKonigsweg and Jane v grunen Alder who was two years old and trained. Both were royally bred.

Walter Mangold was the postmaster at Bennington, Nebraska and Claus went to work with him every day. The dog's job was to ride the children around piggyback. Although he was a gentle dog, he was a good watch dog and no stray ever bothered him twice. In a Nebraska where summers were often over 100 degrees and winters to 30 below with 12-foot drifts, it took a rugged dog just to survive, but Claus met the challenge at every level. Walt said that he was a fireball on land and didn't even let sand burrs stop him and that they many times sent him through drifting ice for duck and he never failed to get the job done.

This is Kings' Lady of the Abby, a registered pet therapy dog owned by Jim and Bobbi Applegate of Arlington Heights, Illinois. The versatile NAVHDA tested shorthair makes her rounds at the Americana Nursing Home in Arlington Heights.

A year later a former German gamekeeper, Joseph Burkhart, of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, brought in three outstanding specimens which will be found in most early U.S. pedigrees: Bob v Schwarenberg, Arta v Honreusch and Feldjager's Grisette. All of them proved their worth. From the second mating of Bob & Arta, Jack Shattuck got a pup he named Fritz v Schwarenberg, widely and successfully campaigned, he became the foundation of the Schwarenberg strain in the USA. Arta was sold to New York and there bred to Hallo Mannheimia, a KS Frei Sudwest son, recently imported. From that mating Joe Burkhart picked Treu v Waldwinkel who became one of the top all-time producers in the USA. Most of the early imports proved to be top quality-and generally related. This meant that with only a handful of mates to choose from, every breeding-in the beginning and for several generations- just about had to be good linebreeding. For pedigree details, consult The New German Shorthaired Pointer by C. Bede Maxwell, published by Howell Books. Much of the data presented here comes from that source.

The action took place on a beautiful Maine lake in October in the late 1930's. The faint babble of ducks came to my ears while I was still in the woods. When I peeked out I could see them. There was a nice raft of ducks, more than 60 yards from shore and a good 200 yards down the beach from me. In that area there was a brown dog trotting by the water's edge coming toward me. I took my eyes from the dog to the ducks and when I looked back at the dog he was going away from me. While I watched he turned and came back toward me and then he suddenly disappeared. It was baffling.

Cutting back around through the woods until close to where the dog, now trotting back and forth again, and the ducks, now closer to the shore were, I saw the blind and recognized the hunter hiding there. I stayed hidden to watch. It was fascinating. This nice, dark brown ticked dog with a long cropped tail (no breed I had ever seen before) continued to trot back and forth several times-never apparently paying the slightest attention to the ducks- then return to the blind momentarily, then out again he would trot, each time a little further from the water. All the while the curiosity of the ducks, like a magnet, drew them closer and closer to shore, as antelope come to a waving flag-and they do! It wasn't long before the mallards were right along the shore. I couldn't believe my eyes.

At this point the hunter jumped up. The raft rose as a single duck, quacking loudly and clawing the air for altitude. Three shots rang out and four ducks, one a cripple, dropped out of the flock. "Fetch, Duke," the man hollered. The big brown dog raced for the water, leaped high and hit the water a full 10 feet from the shore and ignoring the dead ducks swam directly for the cripple which was very much alive. The duck dove and headed for the deep water with the dog close behind. The dog swam well (I later learned that he has webbed feet} but it took a good 15 minutes before the dog worked the exhausted duck back into the shallows and ran him down. Duke brought the cripple to hand, then headed out for the three birds which hit the water dead. On one retrieve the dog brought in two of the ducks at once. Only after bringing in the last duck did he shake the water from his fur.

"That's one hell of a dog, Lawrie, what is it?" I asked.

"It's a German shorthaired pointer. It's new to this country and I can tell you it does a lot more than point. It does everything. Smartest dog I ever owned and you know I've owned a few. This morning on our way to the lake we picked up two partridge and a late woodcock. All pointed and all delivered quickly and tenderly to hand. I use him on everything."

"Well, what's this thing with the ducks? I've never seen that before."

"Oh, that. It started back before the shotgun, in the 'netting' days. It's called tolling. The dogs were taught to lure the ducks into a funnel-shaped net trap. This shorthair picked up tolling so fast it scared me. They're very intelligent animals."

"How do they stand your rugged Maine winters-the short hair, I mean."

"No problem. 'Short' doesn't mean thin. This is no sparse English pointer coat. Feel that coat-it's heavy, dense, closely knit. Feel it, go ahead."

"It feels stiff, harsh to the touch-coarse."

"It is. It's tough-it's not the length of the coat that's important anyway, it's the texture and density that make the difference-arctic seals, for example, have short hair. Easier swimming-quicker drying. A long soft coat or a long wiry coat doesn't make the water a single degree warmer, they only mean more drag while swimming-ask the seal."

That was my introduction to the shorthair. But it was almost 15 years before I got my own-there was high school to finish, college, grad school, war, marriage, kids, apartments, et al. But I've made up for it in the last 35 years and although I enjoy watching all dogs work in the field, I never met a shorthair I didn't love.

The first National Amateur stake was held in Denver in 1966 but the championship title was withheld. Fld. Ch. Moesgaards Coco was declared the winner and the stake was considered as a regular amateur stake. The following year the National Amateur Championship was held in California and Coco put on a truly national caliber race and was awarded the Championship. Coco was owned, trained, and handled by Lloyd Sanders of Woodlake, California.

The breed caught on quickly. Less than 15 years after Thornton's first importation, there were sufficient numbers to apply to AKC for recognition. The center of activity was in the MinnesotaWisconsin area, another indication the shorthair thrives in rugged country. The group had difficulty with the name. They wanted German Shorthaired Pointer-Retriever Club of America, Inc. AKC said, "No way." Pointers are pointers, retrievers are retrievers and never the twain shall meet. But the shorthair is more than a pointer and restricting him has not been helpful. Even many shorthair owners themselves, after calling the dog a pointer for so long, are unaware of the total versatility of their shorthairs. Because there was no other choice, the "German Shorthaired Pointer Club of America" became the name of the AKC Parent Club. The National German Shorthaired Pointer Association is the name of the Parent Club to the American Field. The word pointer, in both instances-as Vorstehhund had been in Germany-was the culprit. It is too restrictive; it has hampered the growth and development of the shorthair in this country.

BACKING

Most shorthairs take to backing or honoring naturally. Duke II, a shorthair owned by Fred Singer of Abilene, Kansas, points while Heidi honors some distance away.

At about the time I met my first shorthair in Maine the breed was moving into northern California too. In the San Francisco area at Saratoga, Don Miner, a professor of Banking & Finance at San Jose State, started looking for a shorthair because, as he said, "I heard they had a 'choke bore' nose, and I heard you could use them on everything and since I hunted everything that's what I wanted. My first shorthair, Faustina v Schwarenberg, I got out of a local bitch, Sox v Ammertal owned by a guy named Abbott who had sent her to Jack Shattuck's Rusty in Minneapolis to be bred. That was before Rusty had gained his Dual title. Anyway, Faustina was a nice solid liver bitch and she did have a 'choke bore' nose and she did hunt everything.

"In 1946 three of us went up north of Tahoe in Carpenter Valley [in the Sierras] to hunt deer and I took Faustina [dogs were legal]. I wanted to see what she would do. I didn't know what to expect. We arrived the afternoon before opening day and after setting up camp headed out to get the lay of the land and stretch our legs. We left the guns in camp but we took Faustina. In just a few minutes we could hear her giving voice. She sounded like she was over a canyon or two. As we listened we could tell she was coming closer and closer. I figured she was running a deer. Was I surprised when a big black bear went flying by us with her in hot pursuit! I was able to call her off the bear-she was pretty well trained for only a year old. Anyway, we went on a little further and she slammed into a classy point. We kicked around in the brush and flushed a covey of Mountain Quail. Not more than ten minutes later she put two deer right in front of us. We could have taken both of them easily.

"The next morning we hunted the rim rock around Carpenter Valley. By noon she had pushed four bear- two of them cinnamon's- right to us. Later in the afternoon I heard her baying again and coming down the mountain closer and closer. I thought she was on another bear when out of the woods right in front of us appeared a beautiful big buck not more than 50 yards away. I shot it through the neck and it dropped dead. Moments later she ran up and jumped right on top of the deer and mauled it a little before I called her off. We dressed out the deer and took it back into camp and under similar circumstances filled out other tags that evening. I don' t know to this day if that's the way shorthairs are supposed to handle big game but it was great for us.

"Since we filled our tags early we moved down to Grimes in the Sacramento Valley to hunt pheasant around the old Goodwin Ranch- much in rice paddies. It was tough hunting, the dogs would be in water sometimes up to their bellies. Her coat shed the water well-dried quickly-and the long, sharp briars in that area didn't bother her a bit. It was great not to spend hours picking burrs too. We got a few ducks that day. She brought them in right to hand. I had never trained her; it just came naturally.

"Nothing is sharper than rice stubble; it cuts. It would literally shave the hair right off her face- her nose would be raw, her teats bleeding, but she never let up. This was tough hunting but she was tougher.

"I dropped an old cock pheasant that fell into a big brush pile. I sent her for the retrieve. She went right through the brush pile. I called her back and put her into the pile; she went right through again. I got disgusted and went into the pile myself-on my hands and knees. When I finally crawled out, there was Faustina sitting there with that big cock bird in her face. That's when I realized that even a year-old pup knows more about hunting than any human. That's when I realized that we had finally found the perfect dog for our way of hunting.

"Each year she learned more and did better. We developed a real bond between us. She was a part of our family. Only the Lord knows how much game, furred and feathered, I shot over her. She provided me with some great pups too. I enjoyed her friendship for almost four years till someone poisoned her. I found her limp body by our stream and buried it. The grave is still kept and marked. That was 40 years and many shorthairs ago-but there is still a very warm spot in my heart for my first and only Faustina."

The first National Championship for Shorthairs was held in 1953 and Dandy Jim v Feldstrom owned by Dr. Clark Lemley of Detroit was the winner. Dandy Jim was also a Dual Champion, that is, he held both a Field Championship and a Bench Championship--he was built right to work right.

The shorthair is a versatile hunting dog, developed by the practical Teutonic mind for the foot hunter whose way of life is the "mixed bag." The upland specialist is the pointer; in the duck blind it's the retriever; and on the trail, the scent hound. How incongruous the sight of a Lab searching the broad, open expanse of Saskatchewan prairie for sharptail, or an orange and white pointer shivering in a sleet drenched Maine duck blind. Yet the shorthair is a natural in both areas-and, indeed, in the woods and on the trail as well, if we chose to use him there. One of the great charms of the shorthair lies in his practical, utilitarian inheritance which permits him to join his master and family in all their hunting adventures. You need not hunt every species the shorthair can handle but it's nice to know you have that option.