Gun Dog Forum

My understanding Wire=Draht must have furnishings( beards. eyebrows long coat ect.) to conform to the breed standard.Beardless wire-drahts are not that uncommon I am told. Seems to me that all a breeder would have to do is not reg. the non conforming pup. I was not aware of this trait, when I brought my pup. What concerns me, will I eventually be able to breed this pup, He is on the way to becoming an outstanding Navhda example. Maybe I should start a new breed(beardless).Will be keeping this pup no mater what.

I know a guy that bought 3 wire hair pups out of the same litter all females 2 were fuzzy and 1 looked just like your dog all three were registered german wire hairs I had one that barely had a goatty I'm not familiar with the standard but most guys like a slick dog

Nice lookin pup. I have a slick one too and I wouldn't take anything for her. If she stays the hunting machine that she is I will probably breed her based on her ability and I like slick dogs. The slick look can totally disappear the next generation anyway.
Bri

Just because the dog is slick does not mean that they will throw slick all the time. I had a Schnellburg male that did not have any furnishing. I bred him several times and he produced 63 pups. Out of that 63 pups 2 did not have any furnishing like him. I bred him to all females with good furnishings and coats. I personally like wires with beard and short tight coats.

If you have a slick that you are considering breeding, make sure you know the pedigree very well, for both dogs.
I have used a slick coated dog in the past, and we improved our coats in that litter and in future litters. However, we were careful not to breed him to anything with slick dogs close up in the background.
As far as I am aware he never produced a slick. However, I don't know about any of his progeny that I don't own. If the owners of those pups didn't pay attention.....

Once you get that gene in there doubled or tripled up, you may have trouble getting it out and getting proper coats. These dogs can be very useful, just do your homework first.

Fuzz

Draht's are supposed to be "slick coated", but they're also expected to have the beard and eyebrow's to go with it.

With the Draht, no matter how good the dog, I'd never breed it if it didn't conform to the standard. In fact, and I'm not certain about this, but I don't think a Draht can be bred and registered if it doesn't conform to the standard???

I'm not sure why you would think Drahts should be slick coated. They should have a wire body coat, not smooth, certainly not slick. You will see some short coats that are wiry, some long, some very long. Of course they do have their share of smooths and slick coats as well.


They are called German Wirehaired translated from Drahthaar for a reason.

Fuzz

I think GH is referring to having a coat that's tight and flat-lying rather than wooly or too soft.

I have been told there are some breeders who prefer the shorter coated dogs due to living in warmer areas. Having a beardless (aka, slick) draht doesn't disqualify them from the breeding program, but it does keep them from running in the Armbruster and/or Hegewald since there is a requirement for a "clearly defined beard".

You're correct Jake. I was refering to Draht's with the short, dense coat the standard calls for, not the one's that look like Griffon's.