THE WORKING GUNDOG Ghyllbeck Ferro, an excellent working dog with a long line of equally good gundogs in his breeding. The Large Munsterlander comes from a long line of German working dogs and the breed owes its very existence to its remarkable hunting and retrieving qualities. Derived from the Deutsche Langhaar, the Large Munsterlander was originally produced by selective breeding of "wrong" coloured Langhaar pups who were much valued as working dogs by sportmen who didn't CARE what colour their dog was, as long as it could do its job. The present-day Large Munsterlander is an excellent all-round gundog who will work all sorts of terrain - whether rough ground, thickets, woodland or open moorland, and is particularly good in water. He has a very good nose and will search out game and adopt a classical "point" to indicate its position to the hunters, and will retrieve fur or feather across any obstacle. Munsterlanders have a very soft mouth and will not damage even small game birds, yet are big and strong enough to bring back deer their own size. The Large Munsterlander working on all kinds of terrain : (top left) an unidentified dog jumping happily into water, (top right) "Jupp" hunting for game in rough grassland and (bottom left) Jagermatts Edelweiss on point in deep snow. Large Munsterlanders with their trophies : (left) a German LM with owner and deer, and (right) Sunnynooks Ibis with a partridge, retrieved and presented to the hunter. And just to prove that it really DOES come naturally, below is a photo of Beamer (Hansmic Whitebeam) who has never been trained to the gun, following her natural instincts and tracking game in the woods near our home. She regularly flushes out pheasants and rabbits, and partridges in the fields - the only difference is, nobody shoots them for her to retrieve. (She does catch rabbits and on one occasion, a low-flying pigeon, and can't quite understand when she brings them to me that I don't really want them!) OK, so it's a cut-and-paste, but doesn't she look pretty?? (If it was for real, she'd be in that water already!) Home Page Breed Standard Showing My Own Dogs Breed History Gallery Rings & Links The LM as a pet