Family Tree

While I don't know anybody who has known the dogs in Elka's pedigree, I still find her pedigree very interesting. Granted, I met her sire (deceased as of December, apparently. Rest in peace, Gabriel; you seemed like an awesome guy) and dam, but I don't know them. I knew that Elka's dam loved babies, and her sire would "Smile" on command. Precious little information, when you get fixated on things in the way that I do.

However, I'm lucky in that there are some very good online resources for Dobermans, including Dobermann-Review.com and Dobequest.org. There, provided the information was uploaded, I can find birth dates, titles, health testing, and dates of death. Elka is spayed, and I never intended on breeding her, but it's interesting to see what's "in her woodpile".

The Doberman: American and European

There's apparently a hot debate in the Doberman world, American Dobermans versus European Dobermans. It's a strange debate, muddled even further by this: there are American show line Dobermans, and American working line Dobermans. There are also European working line Dobermans and European show line Dobermans.

I also bring this up because on Monday, some lady thought I had a Greyhound mix and not a Doberman at all, because her historic Doberman wasn't "like that".

So. Uh. What?