48 Fun Facts About Weimaraner

Which housemates do vets advise against keeping with a Weimaraner?

Cats and small pets. Bred to chase game, the Weimaraner has a strong prey drive and is likely to treat a cat or other small animal as quarry, though a well-socialised one gets on with other dogs.

Which behaviour problem, common in the breed, does the Weimaraner Club of America link to many rescue cases?

Separation anxiety. Weimaraners bond so tightly that they trail their people from room to room, and one left alone for long may bark, chew or dig its way through the house.

In which modern German state does Weimar, the city that gave the Weimaraner its name, lie?

Thuringia. The breed standard says the dogs were already kept at the Weimar court in the early 1800s, which is how a dog bred by the region's gamekeepers came to carry the city's name.

Which US president kept a Weimaraner named Heidi at the White House in the 1950s?

Dwight D. Eisenhower. Heidi, a gift from his postmaster general, roamed the grounds at will chasing squirrels, then retired to the family's Gettysburg farm, where she had puppies.

Germany's Weimaraner club places its puppies mainly with which kind of owner?

Hunters. The club insists the breed is 'not a companion dog, but a hunting dog through and through' and needs real work in the field to stay even-tempered.

Which Flemish painter of royal portraits included a silver-grey, Weimaraner-like dog in a picture of the 1600s?

Antoon van Dyck. His dog long predates the breed's accepted beginnings at the Weimar court in the early 1800s, one reason the Weimaraner's true origins are still argued over.

In which American Kennel Club group does the Weimaraner compete?

Sporting. Its forebears were leash hounds that worked by scent, but 19th-century breeders remade the breed into a pointing bird dog, so it is shown among the gundogs and not the hounds.

German registries once tried to file the grey Weimaraner as a mere variety of which other gundog?

German Shorthaired Pointer. Even after the Weimaraner got its own standard in 1896, officials tried to fold it into the Shorthair stud book, and East Germany later did exactly that.

Before it became a bird dog, the Weimaraner was bred at German courts to pursue which quarry?

Bear and deer. As big game dwindled and shotguns spread in the 19th century, breeders steered the dogs toward pointing and fetching birds, the work they still do.

Weimaraner puppies are born with which markings, which fade away within days?

Faint stripes. The tiger-like bars fade within days; the only stripe an adult may show is a darker line down the spine, which Britain's breed standard calls an eel stripe.

Germany's Weimaraner club guarded the breed so closely that the first pair it sent to America had been what?

Sterilised. Howard Knight, the American who received them, had to wait until 1938 for fertile dogs, and four years later his circle founded the Weimaraner Club of America.

The American breed standard says a Weimaraner's firm, compact feet should also be what?

Webbed. The skin between the toes helps make the breed a strong swimmer, which matters in a gundog expected to work in water as well as on land.

The American Kennel Club recognised the German-bred Weimaraner in the middle of which war?

World War II. Recognition came in 1942–43 and the dogs made their Westminster debut in 1943, while America was fighting the very country that had guarded the breed so jealously.

In German, the W that begins 'Weimaraner' is pronounced like which English letter?

V. German spells that sound with a W, so the breed's home city is 'VY-mar', and English dictionaries still list 'VY-muh-rah-ner' ahead of the anglicised 'WY-' form.

Which distinction does Germany's breed standard claim for the Weimaraner among the country's pointing dogs?

The oldest. The standard calls this likely, reasoning that the Weimaraner has been bred pure from about 1900 and kept almost free of crosses with other breeds.

What does a Weimaraner do when it goes 'on point' in the field?

Freezes, muzzle aimed at game. Often with one front paw lifted, the dog holds still to show where the quarry hides, letting the gun walk into range before it flushes.

Which nickname is the Weimaraner widely known by?

The Grey Ghost. The name is credited partly to the silver-grey coat and partly to the stealthy, almost catlike way the dog stalks game.

Weimaraner puppies' eyes change colour as they grow; which adult shade does the German standard require?

Amber. Germany's standard asks for pale to dark amber, while the American one also accepts grey shades, and every puppy's eyes start out quite another colour.

Which Weimaraner variety is bred in Germany but disqualified from American show rings?

Long-haired. The soft, feathered coat is recessive, so two short-haired parents can produce it; Germany has registered the variety since the 1930s, but America's standard still bars it.

How does the breed standard describe a Weimaraner's ears?

Pendent with rounded tips. Set high and reaching about the corner of the mouth, they swing forward when the dog is alert, and like all drop ears need regular checks for infection.

Which feeding aid did a large US study link to a higher risk of bloat in big breeds like the Weimaraner?

Raised food bowls. The Purdue study, which followed Weimaraners among eleven breeds, blamed a raised bowl for about a fifth of bloat cases in large dogs and half of those in giant ones.

Which sign of bloat, the stomach emergency Weimaraners are prone to, means a dash to the vet?

Retching that brings nothing up. Once a swollen stomach twists far enough the gullet is pinched shut, so the dog heaves and drools without relief and needs surgery at once.

Germany's Weimaraner club lets a dog breed only after which joints have been X-rayed and graded?

Hips. A sound hip score is only the start: the club also demands a passed working test, a temperament test and a yearly eye check before any mating.

Which American artist is famous for photographing his Weimaraners in costumes?

William Wegman. When his first canine model died in 1982 he went four years without a dog, then started again with a puppy whose litters became a whole cast of characters.

The first Weimaraner to star in a famous photographer's dog portraits shared his name with which Surrealist artist?

Man Ray. The puppy kept barging into the videos his owner was shooting in early-1970s Los Angeles, so the artist gave in and made the deadpan dog his collaborator for twelve years.

Which New York weekly named a Weimaraner, famous from a decade of art photographs, its 'Man of the Year' in 1982?

The Village Voice. The downtown paper's tribute marked the death of a dog whose big colour portraits had made him and his owner widely loved well beyond the galleries.

Which company built the giant 20-by-24-inch camera behind many of the best-known costumed Weimaraner portraits?

Polaroid. The firm built only a handful of the huge instant cameras in the 1970s and invited artists in to use them; the big colour Weimaraner portraits began with one such invitation.

In which children's TV show did Wegman's Weimaraners first appear in 1988?

Fay Ray starred in segments such as Old McFay Counts to 40.

When a Weimaraner's coat grows back over an injury, which colour is the new hair often?

White. Because scars so often leave pale patches, the American and British standards both tell judges not to penalise white spots that result from an injury.

The American standard wants a Weimaraner's temperament to be friendly, alert, obedient and what else?

Fearless. The breed's founders prized courage, and the same standard ranks strong fear, shyness or nervousness among its very serious faults.

Britain's Kennel Club places the all-round Weimaraner in which of its four gundog sub-groups?

HPR breeds. The letters stand for hunt, point, retrieve: Continental gundogs were bred to do all three jobs, where Britain developed a separate specialist for each.

Which writer did Karl August, the Weimar duke linked to the first Weimaraners, appoint to his privy council?

Goethe. The young author of Werther came to Weimar in 1775 at the duke's invitation and stayed until his death in 1832, helping turn a small court into a literary capital.

What does a Weimaraner's short, sleek coat almost entirely lack?

An undercoat. Germany's standard asks for a dense top coat with little or no woolly layer beneath, which is why the coat dries fast after a swim and needs so little grooming.

Which design school was founded in 1919 in Weimar, the city that gave the Weimaraner its name?

The Bauhaus. Walter Gropius created it by merging Weimar's art academy with its arts-and-crafts school; it left for Dessau in 1925, and the Nazis shut it for good in 1933.

On which American sketch-comedy show did an artist's deadpan Weimaraner videos air as short spots in the 1970s?

Saturday Night Live. The dog shorts were made as conceptual art for galleries, yet by the mid-1970s they were turning up between sketches on network television.

Besides its work in the field, the Weimaraner is noted in its German standard for doubling as what?

A watchdog. The breed's close bond with house and yard gives it a natural urge to guard them, a trait Germany's kennel club says owners must handle responsibly.

Which film star was given a Weimaraner shortly before her wedding in the 1950s?

Grace Kelly. The dog was a present before she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, at the height of an American craze that had made the long-guarded German breed the dog to own.

In a large US study of bloat published in 1994, which giant breed alone ranked above the Weimaraner for risk?

Great Dane. The study set its risk at about ten times the baseline, with the Weimaraner second, and found that roughly three in ten dogs struck by bloat died.

How does Germany's breed club say the clever Weimaraner often responds to harsh, repetitive drilling?

By refusing to work. Germany's club says the breed wants respect and loving consistency, and will not be reduced to a mere taker of orders.

Which procedure do surgeons add when treating bloat in breeds like the Weimaraner, to stop the stomach twisting again?

A gastropexy. Stitching the stomach to the body wall cuts the chance of a repeat from as high as 80 per cent to a few per cent, so many owners have it done early as a precaution.

What body shape puts a dog most at risk of gastric dilatation volvulus?

Breeds with a high chest depth-to-width ratio are significantly more likely to develop it.

Which film comedy features Beatrice, a Weimaraner driven to distraction by her highly strung yuppie owners?

Best in Show. In the dog-show mockumentary the Swans lose Beatrice's favourite toy before judging, and their panic spreads to the dog, who jumps at the judge and is disqualified.

Which Hungarian gundog shares the Weimaraner's sleek, short-coated outline but wears a golden-rust coat?

Vizsla. Hungary's gundog is the smaller, leaner of the two lookalikes, and the whole breed was once rebuilt from only about a dozen surviving dogs.

Which alteration, banned for most dogs in Germany, does the American standard still expect in a Weimaraner?

A docked tail. The American standard wants about six inches and penalises a natural tail, while Germany permits docking only for Weimaraners that work as gundogs.

How does the American Kennel Club treat a Weimaraner with a distinctly blue coat?

Registered but barred from shows. The standard disqualifies a distinctly blue coat, and Germany's club goes further: it traces the colour to a cross with another breed and will not recognise such dogs at all.

Where in Manhattan were eleven mosaic portraits of Weimaraners in street clothes unveiled in 2018?

A subway station. Flo and Topper line the platforms at 23rd Street in a raincoat or a flannel shirt because their owner wanted them to look like the people you might see standing next to you.

The artist behind the famous costumed Weimaraner portraits originally trained in which art form?

Painting. He took two degrees in it, decided around 1970 that painting was dead and turned to cameras, then quietly returned to the easel in the mid-1980s.

Which kind of training does the Weimaraner Club of America say should be part of every dog's routine?

Crate training. Guides warn that a bored Weimaraner will chew, dig and bark, so a crate keeps the dog, and the furniture, out of harm's way.