Before 1870, Germany had no kennel club (neither did the United States, the AKC having been founded in 1884), but neither was there a uniform definition of rough-haired gun dogs, valued partners of hunters that had been around nearly everywhere in 19th-century Europe. The people working with these dogs defined them by only two types: Dogs that could work, and dogs that couldn’t.
In France, rough-haired gun dogs were called Griffons or Barbet, while in the Netherlands, they were “Smousbaarden” or “Ruigbaarden.” In Germany, they were known as “Stichelhaarige Vorstehhunden” loosely translated as rough-haired pointing dogs. The German Wirehaired Pointer was certainly among those dogs, and it was Gerd Bottler who wrote in his book “Deutsch-Drahthaar Heute” (German Wire-haired Pointer Today) that “Eduard Korthals was really the first consistent breeder of Wire-haired Pointing Dogs.” In fact, many believe that the term, “wire-haired,” was coined by Korthals who was credited as “Father of the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.”
German Wire-Haired Pointer by Michelle Wrighton
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