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HISTORY of
Doberman
Doberman Pinschers were first bred in the town of Apolda, in the
German state of Thuringia around 1890, following the Franco-Prussian
War by Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann. Dobermann served in the
dangerous role of local tax collector, and ran the Apolda dog pound.
With access to dogs of many breeds, he aimed to create a breed that
would be ideal for protecting him during his collections, which took
him through many bandit-infested areas. 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. 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 German Pinscher, the Beauceron, the
Rottweiler, the Thuringian Sylvan Dog, the Greyhound, the Great
Dane, the Weimaraner, the German Shorthaired Pointer, the Manchester
Terrier and the Old German Shepherd Dog. The exact ratios of mixing,
and even the exact breeds that were used, remain 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 crossing with the Greyhound and Manchester
Terrier. It is also widely believed that the old German Shepherd
gene pool was the single largest contributor to the Doberman breed.
A book entitled The Dobermann Pinscher, written by Philip Greunig
(first printing in 1939), is considered the foremost study of the
development of the breed by one of its most ardent students. It
describes the breed's early development by Otto Goeller, whose hand
allowed the Doberman to become the dog we recognize today.
After Dobermann's 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 a few years later.
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