I saw some dogs today: a rottweiler, a dachshund, a pinscher, a poodle, a schnauzer, a weimariner. And of course a German shephard. It seems to me that an awful lot of dog breed names are of German origin. Not a majority, of course, but they do seem to be disproportionately represented. Was Germany a major center for dog breeding at one time? Why so many hunde?
Yeah, I’ve often wondered myself. A lot of dog breeds originated in Germany. BTW, apparently geographical names can be inaccurate or misleading - you can add “Great Dane” to the list of breeds developed in Germany. And Pomeranians did apparently originate in Pomerania - split between present day Germany and Poland.
I didn’t know that about those two breeds, yabob, thanks. In looking at some longer lists of breeds, I noticed that German names stood out a little less, but northern European ones domintated the list. I thought dogs were universal and ancient in human cultures.
Yeah, DOGS are ancient and universal, but dog BREEDERS are a relatively new development in human history, especially fanatical dog breeders who aren’t interested in breeding a better working dog, say for sheepherding or hunting, but who are only interested in getting the tiniest one possible. Or the biggest one. Or the most hairless one. Or the one with the longest, silkiest hair that needs to be wrapped up in a pillowcase before it can go outside. Or the one that never barks. Or the one that is pictured on old Egyptian tomb paintings. Or the one with the weirdest bulging eyes that stick out the farthest, so they sometimes pop right out of the socket and have to be pushed back in. Or the one that conforms the most closely to a set of purely arbitrary and capricious standards of physical perfection.
So far, only the Northern Europeans (and the cultures derived from them) have had the leisure time to interest themselves in this sort of thing.
I definitely agree with the view that a lot of extreme dog breeds should not exist, and represent a sort of genetic torture on the part of the breeders.
However, exploiting the dog’s extreme genetic plasticity to produce freakish results is not a modern game, and not exclusive to Northern Europe. We can blame the ancient Chinese for coming up with the Shar-Pei, for example, an animal with about 3 times the amount of skin it needs, and attendent health problems as a result.
Names aside, when I’ve browsed through breed origins, it still seems to me that a large number of breeds originated specifically in Germany or provinces that later became part of Germany. For instance, the OP mentioned the poodle - either German or Russian in origin, popularized in France.
From a list of three or four hundred breeds in the Encyclopedia Americana, I find[ul]
63 that originated in the British Isles (43 in England alone)
53 from France
35 from Germany
23 From the United States[/ul]
“Put it down on the floor and step away from the encyclopedia, biblio!”
Sometimes I do get carried away. I just can’t help myself. Hi, my name is bibliophage and I’m a book addict.
I’m thinking poodles probably originated in Germany, because of the derivation from the word Pudel.