50 Fun Facts About Doberman

Louis Dobermann, who created the Doberman, is best known for which day job?

Tax collector. As the story goes, the cash he carried on his rounds made him a target, so he bred a fearless dog to walk beside him.

In which present-day German state was the Doberman first bred?

Thuringia. Dobermann caught stray dogs for his home town there, which let him pick the sharpest ones to breed from.

Which 1980s detective series features Zeus and Apollo, two Dobermans who guard the estate where the hero lives?

Magnum, P.I. The estate's stern caretaker, Higgins, patrols the grounds with the pair and fondly calls them 'the lads'.

Early Doberman breeders are documented crossing their dogs with the Manchester Terrier and which sighthound?

Greyhound. The cross was made to give the rough-hewn guard dog a slimmer, more elegant outline.

The 'butcher's dogs' that went into the first Dobermans were an early type of which breed?

Rottweiler. Butchers used such dogs to drive their cattle, and the Doberman's breed standard credits them with a most important part in its making.

Why was 'Pinscher' eventually dropped from the Dobermann's name in its homeland?

The German for 'terrier' no longer fitted. The breed had grown into a large guard dog that looked nothing like one, so the old label was retired.

Which countries call the breed the 'Doberman Pinscher' rather than simply the Dobermann?

The US and Canada. North America kept the old word but lost a letter instead: the second 'n' of Louis Dobermann's surname.

In which Disney animated film do two Dobermans, Roscoe and DeSoto, do the dirty work for a loan shark?

Oliver & Company. In the Dickens novel it retells, the villain Sikes has a single dog named Bull's-eye; Disney swapped him for a pair of Dobermans.

What is the Doberman statue atop the Marines' war dog memorial called?

Always Faithful. It echoes the Marine motto Semper Fidelis and depicts Kurt, a Doberman credited with saving 250 Marines in 1944 by warning them of troops hidden ahead.

Penny, a Doberman, was named Best in Show in 2026 at the 150th edition of which dog show?

Westminster. Penny's handler, Andy Linton, had last won the top prize there 37 years earlier, in 1989, and that winner was a Doberman too.

A mutated gene found in Dobermans in 1999 unlocked the cause of which sleep disorder?

Narcolepsy. Stanford researchers traced the dogs' sudden collapses to a faulty receptor for a brain chemical, and the same chemical turned out to be missing in human patients.

At American Kennel Club shows, the Doberman Pinscher competes in which group?

Working. The group gathers breeds developed for jobs such as guarding property and pulling sleds, and the Doberman made its name as a guard, police and military dog.

The AKC allows four Doberman colours, but the FCI accepts only black and which other?

Brown. Americans call the same coat red, and the blue and fawn Dobermans that can win in a US show ring have no place in the international standard.

The fawn Doberman colour is also known by what name?

Isabella. Legend says a Spanish royal vowed not to change her shift until a siege ended, but the colour word is older than that story and nobody knows which Isabella it honours.

A blue Doberman is genetically what?

A diluted black. The dilution gene is recessive, so a puppy needs a copy from each parent, which is how two black Dobermans can produce a blue one.

Blue and fawn Dobermans are prone to an inherited condition that causes which problem?

Patchy hair loss. The condition, colour dilution alopecia, thins the coat and can leave flaky skin, but the dog stays otherwise healthy, so vets treat only the skin.

The cream coat of so-called white Dobermans is a form of what?

Albinism. The first white puppy was born to two normally coloured parents, and breeders mated her and her offspring to keep the look, spreading the gene through thousands of dogs.

Which problem did researchers find in every white Doberman they examined?

Light sensitivity. The dogs squint in bright sunshine, and the same study found far more skin tumours on them than on standard-coloured Dobermans.

Since 2016, the FCI standard has required Dobermans' ears and tails to be what?

Left natural. The rewrite dropped ear cropping and tail docking from the standard, years after Germany itself had outlawed both.

Which toy breed, often taken for a scaled-down Doberman, is actually the older of the two?

Miniature Pinscher. The Min Pin was catching rats in German barnyards long before Louis Dobermann bred his guard dog, and the two are separate breeds that merely share a look.

The American breed standard describes a Doberman's ears as normally being what?

Cropped and carried erect. Left alone, a Doberman's ears fold over and hang beside the head, and America's main veterinary body wants cropping taken out of breed standards.

Which breed tops Stanley Coren's intelligence ranking, with the Doberman fifth?

Border Collie. Coren ranked breeds by polling about 200 obedience-trial judges, and nearly all of them put the Border Collie in their top ten.

Under the AKC standard, a judge must dismiss a Doberman from the ring for viciousness or which other trait?

Shyness. A dog that shrinks from the judge or startles badly at sudden noises is sent out, while belligerence toward other dogs is explicitly not counted as viciousness.

What happened to most of the Marine Corps' Dobermans and other war dogs after World War II?

Returned to family homes. The dogs had been donated by American families, and after the war nearly all were judged fit to go back to civilian life.

Which Hollywood dance legend played a dog owner in the 1976 comedy sequel The Amazing Dobermans?

Fred Astaire. The star of Top Hat was 77 when it opened, playing a reformed crook whose five trained Dobermans help bring down a mobster.

Von Willebrand disease, unusually common in Dobermans, impairs the body's ability to do what?

Clot blood. Affected dogs lack a protein that makes platelets stick together, so many vets test a Doberman before any planned surgery, even a routine spay.

Like other deep-chested breeds, Dobermans run a raised risk of which sudden stomach emergency?

Bloat. The stomach swells with gas and can twist shut, so some owners have it surgically tacked in place while the dog is being spayed or neutered.

Which heart condition is the Doberman's most notorious health problem?

Dilated cardiomyopathy. A European study found more than half of Dobermans develop it in their lifetime, which is why breed clubs want heart scans and 24-hour ECGs on breeding dogs.

Which Disney comedy has a Doberman villain named El Diablo, voiced by Edward James Olmos?

Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The pampered heroine is thrown into a Mexico City dog-fighting pit against El Diablo, and a street-smart German Shepherd helps her escape.

Which other breed shares a form of heart disease otherwise seen only in the Doberman?

Boxer. Under the microscope both breeds show heart muscle being replaced by fat, a pattern pathologists have not found in the other large breeds prone to the disease.

Both the American and the international standard require a Doberman's teeth to meet in which kind of bite?

Scissors bite. The upper incisors must close just in front of the lower ones, and both standards disqualify a dog whose jaw is clearly overshot or undershot.

Which compulsive habit have vets studied in Dobermans specifically?

Flank sucking. Affected Dobermans suck on their own flank or a blanket, and the breed's compulsive disorders often ease with the treatments used for human OCD.

Dobermans are among the breeds most prone to which hormone disorder, marked by weight gain and lethargy?

Hypothyroidism. An underactive thyroid slows the metabolism, and it is managed with a hormone-replacement tablet that the dog must take for the rest of its life.

Breed standards compare a Doberman's compact, tightly arched feet to those of which animal?

A cat. Judges want short toes bunched high and tight, so splayed or soft paws and crooked toes are marked down as faults.

Dobermans and Great Danes are especially prone to which spinal condition?

Wobbler syndrome. The spinal cord is squeezed in the neck, yet the unsteady gait it causes is usually most obvious in the hind legs.

The 'Choking Doberman' urban legend has the dog gagging on what?

Human fingers. In the usual telling, the vet rings the owner and tells her to get out of the house, where police find a burglar hiding in a closet, passed out from losing them.

Jan Harold Brunvand, who made the Choking Doberman the title tale of a 1984 book, is a scholar of what?

Folklore. The University of Utah professor is credited with popularising the very idea of the urban legend, through a string of books collecting such too-good-to-be-true tales.

In the 1972 film The Doberman Gang, six trained dogs commit what crime?

A bank robbery. The film's first-time composer, Alan Silvestri, bought a how-to book on scoring to get through the job; he went on to score Back to the Future.

The National War Dog Cemetery, honouring mostly Doberman Marine dogs, is at which naval base?

Guam. The 25 dogs killed retaking the island in 1944 lay in a forgotten, overgrown plot until a veteran of the war dog platoons campaigned for the cemetery dedicated in 1994.

A pack of Dobermans turns on Nazi doctor Josef Mengele at the climax of which 1978 thriller?

The Boys from Brazil. Gregory Peck plays Mengele, who is wary of the dogs from the start; they corner him, and the son of the man he has just murdered orders them to kill.

Breed standards describe a Doberman's head as resembling which shape?

A wedge. The standards say a blunt wedge: the head should widen in one clean line from nose to ears, so heavy cheeks or bulging sides are marked down.

Which German gundog do the American and British kennel clubs both name among the Doberman's ancestors?

Weimaraner. Nobody recorded Dobermann's own recipe, so the grey gundog, like most breeds on the clubs' lists, is an educated guess.

Zombie Dobermans leap through a mansion's windows in which 1996 horror video game?

Resident Evil. The dogs are Dobermans infected with the same virus as the mansion's zombies, but they stay fast and agile while the human undead only shuffle.

When did the breed Louis Dobermann created come to carry his name?

After his death. He died in 1894, and a neighbour from his home town founded the first breed club five years later and went on refining the dogs under his name.

In which German town did Louis Dobermann run the dog pound where he developed the breed?

Apolda. The town still honours him with a monument showing a family of Dobermans, and the first club for the breed was founded there in 1899.

Cosmetic tail docking, long routine for Dobermans, is now banned across which country?

Australia. Vets there may dock a tail only for the dog's own health, while the American breed standard still describes a tail docked near the second joint.

The AKC standard opens by describing the Doberman as a medium-sized dog with a body of which shape?

Square. A dog should be about as long as it is tall, though the international standard lets bitches run slightly longer to leave room for nursing a litter.

Which breed topped America's registrations in the 1970s, when the Doberman reached the top three?

Poodle. It was the AKC's most registered breed from 1960 to 1982, while the Doberman's numbers had been climbing since the First World War as its police and military work won admirers.

What colour are the sharply defined markings on every standard Doberman, whatever the colour of its coat?

Rust. The markings sit above each eye and on the muzzle, chest, legs and under the tail, and a dog showing white spots is disqualified under the international standard.

Many Dobermans train in Schutzhund, a German sport that tests obedience, tracking and which third skill?

Protection. Schutzhund means 'protection dog', and the sport began in the early 1900s as a breeding test for German Shepherds before it became the model for the Doberman too.