The German Shorthaired Pointer is, in our view, an extraordinarily beautiful dog. The breed’s elegance lies in its athleticism, and a short, thick and somewhat harsh-to-the-touch coat is not only functional, but serves to show off a fit dog’s “six pack,” if you will.
Historically, the breed has been most commonly seen as a brown and white dog, though according to the AKC standard, it may be solid liver or a combination of liver and white such as liver and white ticked, liver patched and white ticked, or liver roan. A dog with any area of black, red, orange, lemon or tan, or a dog solid white is disqualified.
The FCI standard, however, allows for black in the same nuances as brown, respectively the brown roan colors. In fact, in Europe, black (and white) coats which were once rare have been gaining favor and are now about 20% of the breed.
Where did the black in this breed come from?
Probably English Pointers. When breeders of some lines noticed that their puppies were getting lighter eyes and coats, they figured that a lack of pigment was the cause. Their solution was to breed to black Pointers, this happening in the early 1900s.
They looked to Arkwright Pointers.
William Arkwright had access to the very best Pointers of the time, and that’s where two GSP breeders, Christian Bode and Dr. Max Waechter started. Specifically, Herr Bode imported “Beechgrove Bess,” a seventh generation black colored Arkwright pointer bitch in 1907 to begin this aspect of their breeding program. She was bred to the German Shorthaired Pointer, Treu Schmarsow. From this litter, Dr. Waechter kept a solid black puppy, “Luna,” and bred her to a German Shorthair named, “Treu II v.d. Maylust.” Their litter was three quarter German Shorthair and one quarter Arkwright pointer. Eventually, they reached a point where prominent German breeders took notice of the quality of their puppies and incorporated them in their own breeding programs not because they were black, but because their conformation and performance was that good. It was these qualities that persuaded German Club members to allow the blacks into the studbook on equal footing with the brown dogs, though one source writes that these black English Pointer to German GSP breedings were kept in a separate section of the stud book called “Zuchtbuch Preussisch Kurzhaar.”
This went on until it was discontinued around 1934/1935 (one source writes that it was 1924) because the percentage of Pointer blood was so low. In essence, the dogs went back to being regarded as the same as all the other GSPs, and the studbooks were combined.
Curiously, when the AKC standard was printed, black was decidedly not held in the same regard as the Germans held it. We always defer to breed experts here, but a bit of reading offers a suggestion as to why this might have been. According to one Dr. Thornton, early GSP imports to America were crossed with assorted hunting breeds (presumably to tweak field performance), but sold as purebred GSPs. The basis for the section of the 1935 AKC standard stipulating that “black coat or tri-colored is a fault” might have been to neatly avoid registering pups that could be crossbred GSPs.
We relied on assorted references material for our information including The Black GSP-History and Origin by Patte Titus.
You can see a black German Shorthaired Pointer here.
