When you think of the Netherlands, a lot of things spring to mind: windmills, dikes, tulips, Hans Brinker skating down a frozen canal. What does not come to mind when considering this densely populated, low-lying country with its restrictive hunting and gun laws is a fine pointing dog breed. Yet that's what Holland has given to hunters in the form of the wirehaired pointing griffon. Although the name "griffon" is French, the WPG is pure Dutch in origin.

Griffon History
While references to "griffons" can be found in historical documents dating back to 1545, the development of the modern day WPG actually began in 1853 when a young Dutch sportsman and an avid hunter named Eduard Karel Korthals set out to create what he considered to be the perfect foot hunter's dog. The WPG, or Korthals' griffon as it was known in the early days, was developed to be a hardy, close-working dog capable of working in the polders, the marshy low-lying ground common to the Netherlands.

The WPG came equipped with a coat that was able to withstand just about anything the North Sea chose to throw at it, with colors that blended well with the natural background of the polders when the dog and his partner were hunting waterfowl or sneaking up on fur-bearing game.

The breed was introduced in the United States in the late 19th century, and it remained pretty much as Korthals developed it until the mid-1980s, when a North American group, believing the griffon needed an infusion of "outside" blood to bolster deteriorating hunting instincts, decided to cross their dogs with the Cesky Fousek, a similar-looking breed from Czechoslovakia with a hunting style similar to the German wirehaired pointer.

But WPG purists, affiliated with the American Kennel Club and/or the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA), resisted altering Korthals' vision and purpose.

They concluded that the crossbred offspring of WPGs and Fouseks were no longer true griffons and in 1991 the AKC agreed, recognizing the second group, who made up the American Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Association, as the parent club for the WPG in the U.S.

Ch. Birdfinder's Snowbird ("Sophie"), one of Hank and Sue Brandes' WPGs, has the point. Backing is another of their dogs, Ch. Mickey de Baron JH. Sophie has a UPT from NAVHDA in addition to her conformation championship from AKC. Mick also has a Prize II in natural ability from NAVHDA.

Furthermore, a whole host of organizations ranging from the three major kennel clubs in North America (American Kennel Club, United Kennel Club, Canadian Kennel Club) along with the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association, American Field and the European Griffon and Fousek organizations, refused registration and testing of the crossbred Griffon/Fousek. The basic philosophical difference between WPG purists and Griffon/Fousek people remains unresolved today.

While there is no absolute certainty about how Korthals developed the patriarchs of the breed, the ancestry of the true griffons may have been an ancient breed called the Griffon Hound. At least one reference in the breed's development is made to a "pointer" and it has been speculated that this referred to either the Braque Français or the German shorthair.

Other sources argue that the contributors to Korthals' breed included spaniels, Otterhounds, the French Barbet (a water retriever) and a setter. Adding even further to the confusion is the fact that in historical Europe, many different breeds of dogs that had facial furnishings and wire coats were simply called "griffons" and many breeds today are still known generically as "griffons," including the Spinone Italiano.

All of these breeds, like setters (Irish, English, Gordon) and retrievers (Chesapeake, golden, Labrador, flat-coat, curly-coat) are correctly called "griffons" even though, like the breeds that make up the setters and retrievers, they are separate and distinct breeds.