What is it that makes the difference between a Quarter Horse and a Tennessee Walking Horse? What is it that makes the difference between a Holstein and a Black Angus? What is it that makes the difference between a German Shorthair Pointer and an English Pointer?

Genetics.....

Genetics are characteristics that are developed by selective breeding over a period of many generations.  A Quarter Horse is a cow horse because horses that didn't like cows were bred to horses that didn't like cows. A breed type was developed that naturally tends to have the desire to dominate cows. Same thing with a Holstein and Black Angus, one was bred for milk production and one was bred for meat.Over many generations the English Pointer has been a working dog only. Not a companion dog.  In other words there are not many English Pointers that are pets. They have been kennel dogs for many generations. In this process a genetic trait has been developed in the English Pointer. The trait being that in general an English Pointer (or just Pointer) does not care whether you pet them or not. They don't have an inherent genetic tendency to want to please. Overall and typically you train an English Pointer by punishing them for doing the wrong thing to teach them to do the right thing. They do not do what they do because they want to please you. They tend to be self employed....
I say all this to say that the main genetic difference in the German Shorthair Pointer is the desire to please. The Shorthair was selectively bred for certain characteristics, one being companion and/or guard dog qualities. Should you be interested, a good book detailing the development of the Shorthair breed is "The New German Shorthair Pointer", by C. Bede Maxwell. In my opinion what makes the German Shorthair Pointer a better or best selection of the pointing dog breeds is mainly this train ability and desire to please that is inherent in them. They want to be liked and they want to please.....
Not all, but a lot of them actually train themselves. They just kind of figure out what makes you happy and figure it out on their own. I had one German Shorthair that did whatever I did. He would ride to town in the bed of the pickup and stay there no matter how long I was inside someplace. He just did it without being trained to do it. I have one now that is whoa broke but was never trained to whoa. I had one years ago that I gave away as a puppy [SMOKEY] with the stipulation that he be hunted and if not be returned to me. At 6 months he was returned to me right in the middle of bird season. I put a rope on him one day and turned him loose with the old dogs. When they went on point, he went on point too. I hunted him that day, shot birds he pointed on his own and hunted him for years with no official training of any kind.....
A Shorthair can roll in the mud and be clean as a whistle in an hour. They can run through a cockle burr (porcupine eggs) patch and not get a one. They can hunt anything, anywhere. They have outstanding noses and some of them are really pretty ( the dogs,not their noses). They can be the family pet and the brag dog when they go hunting. I went hunting with a man I sold a dog to a few years ago who taught his German Shorthair to go get his wife when the doorbell rang. She is deaf.
Genetically if a dog doesn't care whether you pet it or not.... it also won't care whether it keeps track of you or not. Turn it loose and it will go no telling where. It won't check back in. My dad raised Walker Beagles years ago to run deer. When you turned them loose it might be days and miles before you saw them again. Genetically they had one thing on their mind. Chase deer. I had one that was mine. "Duke". He would hunt rabbits and tree squirrels. I tried my best to train the little rascal and I even "whoa" broke him. But....at any given time he could jump a deer and be gone for days. He did check back in though....He would get someone to call us saying they had this dog at their house with our name on his collar....Come and get him!
One time we were Quail hunting some wide open prairie over in Kansas and here comes this Pointer. She was wearing a shock collar and where she was headed who could say. She was definitely headed somewhere and it wasn't to check back in. The shock collar needed to be a tracking collar if anyone was ever going to see her again. GENETICS....
My friend Skip Bond had this story.....Skip and his friend Jeff Williams, of Catfish R Us renown (catfishrus.com), were just fixing to start into a large uncut milo field hunting Pheasant out in Kansas, when along came a truck of hunters. They offered to join in to hunt this big milo field with Skip and Jeff. They said sure, why not. Skip said they let out four English Pointers with all kinds of gadgets around their necks. When they started out across the field Skip said it went like this..... BEEP, BEEP, TWEET, TWEET, YIPE, YIPE, and "SPOT GET BACK IN HERE". He said he must have heard "Spot get back in here" twenty-five times. When they got to the other end of the field the dogs had ran all the birds out without a shot. Skip said the fellows were all excited and wanted to know where they were going next. Skip said he thought him and Jeff were headed to town for lunch,( 10:00 AM ). Skip said he just couldn't resist....he looked at the one fellow and said..."what did you say your dogs name was?" GENETICS....
To end up this short course on Genetics and inherent traits....I must finish with this note. Mr. Robert Wehle, of English Pointer breeding fame, also recognized the need to genetically improve the mind set of the English Pointer ( or just Pointer) and utilizing the German Shorthair Pointer in his breeding efforts certainly made great strides in turning the tide for the whole of the Pointer breed....or so it has been rumored. Wehle spelled backward being Elhew of course.  Like Paul Harvey says....and now you know the rest of the story.

                                                                                                

   MUDDY CREEK KENNELS
     Jasper, Missouri
 Craig, Elizabeth and Daniel Burns

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