Back in the day, today’s Standard Schnauzer and German Pinscher were originally called the Wire Haired and Smooth Haired Pinscher, respectively, and both were born in the same litter. They appeared in dog books in 1884, but even earlier (1780), a Frenchman, Malers Vernets, had drawn the image of a dog identical to the German Pinscher. Over time, breeders separated the “varieties” by coat and changed them to actual “breeds.” After three generations of consistent coat type, the then Pinscher-Schnauzer Club allowed them to be registered as their respective “breeds.”

The breed was nearly lost following both world wars, and in fact, no new litters were registered in West Germany from 1949 to 1958, the last German Pinscher litter having been whelped in West Germany and entered into the studbook in 1949. Were it not for Werner Jung, the breed-supervisor of the German Pinscher-Schnauzer-Klub, the breed very likely would have been lost forever. Instead, he searched German farms for typical Pinschers. With a bitch named, “Kitty v Bodenstrand,” a black and tan bitch named, “Jutta,” whom he smuggled out of East Germany at risk to his life, and some oversized Miniature Pinschers stud dogs, he bred a small pool of German Pinschers under his kennel name, “v/d Birdenheide.” Today, most German Pinschers have those dogs somewhere in their ancestry. That said, this is considered an uncommon, if not rare breed. According to hundund.de, about 160 – 220 puppies were born each year between 1998 and 2003, and in 2003, the German Pinscher was named the Endangered Breed of the Year by the Gesellschaft zur Erhaltung alter und gefährdeter Haustierrassen, a German national association for the conservation of historic and endangered domestic animal breeds. #PreserveOurDogBreeds

Image: German Pinscher by Ron Krajewski
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