Roger Caras on Weimaraners
Excerpt from A Celebration of
Dogs by Roger Caras
"The Weimaraner is a perfect example of a highly
refined breeding experiment that paid off, but it did produce a breed
that is exactly right for some kinds of people and perfectly dreadful
for others. The snobs of Weimar weren't entirely wrong in the degree
to which they protected their creation.
The solid mouse to silver-gray Weimaraner with its short, dense coat
is a dog that simply must have early obedience training or it is capable
of being a first-class pest. It is headstrong, willful, adoring, incredibly
intelligent, and responsive to praise. When a Weimaraner doesn't know
what it is supposed to do it can be counted on to do all the wrong things.
I have known Weimaraners whose owners had not bothered to train them
or teach them manners to go through a plate-glass picture window because
they had been left home alone too long and were bored, bless them. I
knew of one that dragged a charred log from a fireplace and pulled it
from room to room chewing charcoal off as it went. It took a professional
cleaning firm to repair the damage. It could have burned the house down.
That kind of flaky behavior must be seen in contrast to the well-managed
dog, however, or it gives a distorted picture. A well-trained Weimaraner
is a regal accomplishment of canine genetic art, and as intolerably
ill-behaved as a mis-managed specimen can be, that is how extremely
good, solid, and reliable a properly raised example will be. It is one
of those dogs, and this is so often true of the sporting dogs, that
it is what you want it to be. Few dogs can be more of a nuisance than
an Irish setter, a Vizsla, or a Weimaraner that has had its vital energy
levels, its need to perform, and its exuberant love affair with life
ignored. They need exercise, they need training, and they need opportunities
to participate in vigorous, ongoing events. You ignore those facts at
considerable risk to your property. I have known very few sporting dogs
that had anything at all wrong with them except their owners."
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