Small Munsterlander

About the Small Munsterlander

The Small Munsterlander was rediscovered rather than invented, when German enthusiasts in the early twentieth century tracked down surviving long-coated bird dogs on farms around Munster and Hanover and rebuilt a breed from them. It hunts, points, retrieves and tracks, and it does all of it in a package small enough for an ordinary house.

Dogs stand 52 to 56 cm, brown and white or brown roan, with feathering on legs and tail and a solid brown head, often with a blaze. The coat is medium in length and easy to keep. Character is affectionate and cooperative, but the hunting drive is real and undiminished, and a stud that has proved itself in the field counts for more in this breed than one that has only been shown.

Ask for hip scores and a current eye certificate, and for elbow scores where they have been done. German registers require working qualifications before a dog may be bred from, so ask whether the stud holds any and what they involved. Beyond that, put questions about epilepsy, about heart murmurs, and about the age and health of the parents, since the British population is small enough that individual families matter.

Health & breeding

We check every hip, elbow, eye and DNA result you give us against the Royal Kennel Club’s public records by hand, and we record who checked it and when. The Royal Kennel Club’s public records may not include all the screening a dog has had, so a dog with no Royal Kennel Club record showing is not necessarily untested.