With its bushy eyebrows, bushy moustache, and distinctive chin hair, the Giant Schnauzer may look like a huge terrier, but this is a true droving dog, and one made to order, so to speak. The medium sized Schnauzer that Bavarian cattlemen saw in Stuttgart was all well and good, but its size was, while adequate for sheep, would never suffice for bovines. What these men needed was a far larger dog to manage cattle.

Now would be a good time to mention that many of our breeds were shaped by what people did for a living. When a new breed was developed, it was most often for a specific type of work, and then it was “tweaked” by the terrain and climate in which the dog had to work.

Some breed historians believe that the first stabs at creating the larger drover dog that cattlemen needed was done by tapping into wiry haired terriers, then crossed with Schnauzers, as well as some of the dairyman’s dogs around at the time.  After that, it’s open to conjecture. Some insist there were crossings with black Great Danes, others throw in the Bouvier Des Flandres as part of the mix. When all was said and done, the new breed was known as the Wirehaired Pinscher, the Bear Schnauzer, the Oberlander, or the Munchener, but when a dog named, “Schnauzer” won big at a 1879 dog show in Hanover, Germany, the buzz among people was that a Riesenschnauzer – or “Schnauzer” – had won (probably because of the dog’s beard).

The Giant was the last of the Schnauzers to be standardized, but it rises to the top as a performance dog. In fact, it is one of the most, if not the second most after the German Shepherd Dog, highly regarded Schutzhund competitors.

Image: Giant Schnauzer by Maxine Bochnia is available here: