|
Doberman Pinschers were first bred in Germany around 1890
by Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann. After his death in 1894, the Germans named the breed Dobermann-pinscher in his honor, but
a half century later dropped the pinscher on the grounds that this German word for terrier was no longer appropriate. The
British did the same thing a few years later. Dobermann was a tax collector who frequently traveled through many bandit-infested
areas, and needed a protection dog to guard him in any situation that might arise. He set out to breed a new type of dog that,
in his opinion, would be the perfect combination of strength, loyalty, intelligence, and ferocity. (He also worked with dogs
in his second job as local dog-impounder, giving him access to dogs for breeding.) Later, Otto Goeller and Philip Gruening
continued to develop the breed to become the dog that is seen today.
The breed is believed to have been created from several different
breeds of dogs that had the characteristics that Dobermann was looking for, including the Pinscher, the Beauceron, the Rottweiler,
the Thuringian Shepherd Dog, the black Greyhound, the Great Dane, the Weimaraner, the German Shorthaired Pointer, the Manchester
Terrier and the old German Shepherd Dog-now extinct. The exact ratios of mixing, and even the exact breeds that were used,
remains uncertain to this day, although many experts believe that the Doberman Pinscher is a combination of at least four
of these breeds. The single exception is the documented cross with the Greyhound. It is also widely believed that the old
German Shepherd (now extinct)gene pool, was the single largest contributor to the Doberman breed. The book entiled, "The Dobermann
Pinscher," written by Philip Greunig (first printing in 1939), is considered the foremost study of the development of the
breed, by the most ardent students of the breed. It describes the early development of the breed by Otto Goeller whose hand
allowed the Doberman to become the dog we recognize today.
|
