THE LARGE MUNSTERLANDER Breed History The Large Munsterlander originated in Germany, in the region of Munster, around the end of the nineteenth century. The German Longhaired Pointer (Deutsche Langhaar) was a popular working breed and the huntsmen were not too particular as to what colour they were, as long as they could do their job properly, but when dog breeds began to be registered and standardised the pedigree Longhaired Pointer was established as a brown-and-white dog. However, black-and-white pups still occurred in litters and although these could not be registered as pure-bred dogs, they were much valued by sportsmen because of their qualities as a general purpose gundog and gradually a new breed was established from these "rejected" pups. The Large Munsterlander was registered as a separate breed in 1919 and enthusiasts continued to strengthen the bloodlines. With the advent of World War 2, however, the breeding programme was naturally abandoned and the breed was almost lost. Fortunately, after the war was over and the turmoil in Europe subsided, the breed was rescued almost single-handedly by Herr Egon Vornholt who conducted a programme of carefully-planned breeding to restore the Large Munsterlander to its pre-war status. A small amount of Deutsche Langhaar blood was reintroduced to strengthen the gene pool and the Large Munsterlander was saved from extinction. In 1971 a group of enthusiasts in Great Britain made plans to introduce the breed to the UK and contacted German breeders with a view to buying and importing some dogs to form the core of their breeding stock. British anti-rabies laws meant that these dogs had to spend six months in quarantine; as some of the dogs were bitches in whelp, at the end of the quarantine period the six dogs originally imported had multipled somewhat! After their introduction in 1972 all the early Munsterlanders in the UK were directly descended from these six dogs, but further dogs were imported at later dates to improve the breed quality and prevent inbreeding. British Large Munsterlanders are now of such good quality that they are being exported BACK into mainland Europe as breeding stock, and also to the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Although the Large Munsterlander was imported into North America earlier than to the UK (1966) it has yet to gain the official recognition that the breed has on this side of the Atlantic and up to 1999, 51 dogs had been imported from Europe and 691 pups registered throughout those 33 years. Home Page Breed Standard Showing Gundogs My Own Dogs Gallery Rings & Links Email me! I have recently had this account of the origins of the Large Munsterlander (gleaned from several different but reputable sources) questioned; since, however, my correspondent did not come up with an alternative, this is the history of the breed as I understand it. If you KNOW differently, and can let me know all the details, please email me and I will happily amend this page.