THE WEIMARANER STANDARD FROM THE BLUE PERSPECTIVE
Blue Weimaraners as we know them today in the United States can be
traced back to one dog, Cäsar von Gaiberg (“Tell”), imported from
Germany in 1949. His arrival sparked immediate controversy over his
dark coat color even though the 1944 Standard, obviously written
prior to Tell’s arrival to America, specifically includes the Blue
color in the “General Appearance” description: “Color Gray (Silver,
Bright, Dark, Yellow); the Dark Gray may be either ash or blue.” The
fact that in the following year the Weimaraner Club of America
conducted a fairly intensive interview regarding Tell indicates that
there was some serious concern and major controversy over this dog
that Jack Denton Scott called the “black menace” (131). This
interview is documented in the Minutes of Meeting of Board of
Governors of the Weimaraner Club of America, March 8, 1950 - PDF,
where the WCA attempted to address the accusation that Tell was not
a purebred Weimaraner.
In this interview, Captain Harry J. Holt, the American who purchased
and imported Tell to the United States, claimed that Tell’s coat
color was not viewed as aberrant and was referred to by the Germans
as “mouse gray.” (Please see for more information.) The minutes documented in
192 pages ended with no formal conclusions. Later the same year,
after an AKC investigation of his German papers, and after getting
the 10 show points necessary, Tell was registered in the AKC
studbook in September 1950 and as such was acknowledged as a
purebred Weimaraner by the AKC.
By 1951 the WCA was distracted by another coat variety controversy,
whether to accept the Longhaired Weimaraner. Emphasis was placed on
the recessive inheritance as being the major reason for seeking
disqualification ().
Attempts to change the standard to disqualify the Longhair were made
in the early 50’s, with the Blue Weimaraner riding on the coat
strings of the Longhair issue. The reason offered for seeking
disqualification of the Blues was that the gray shade was preferred
and that the acceptable Weimaraner color should be of a narrow range
and not to include Blue ().
Though the WCA’s reasoning for disqualifying the Blues had nothing
to do with the mode of inheritance (dominant), somehow around this
time, perhaps solely to do with timing, blue was erroneously
characterized as a recessive trait. And even though the AKC rejected
the WCA’s attempt to disqualify the Longhairs and Blues (See
), both
were subsequently classified as a very serious fault in the
. The 1953 standard reads, “Any long-haired coat or
coat darker than mouse-gray to silver-gray is considered a most
undesirable recessive trait."
Homer Carr, a prominent and respected Weimaraner breeder informed
the AKC prior to 1953 and again in 1957 that the statement in the
Standard that blue was recessive was incorrect ().
Yet the minor 1959 standard revision
continued to insist that the blue was recessive. The recessive
statement was dropped from the Standard in 1965 when once again an
attempt was made to disqualify the Blue with a membership vote. AKC rejected the proposed
standard which included the Blue disqualification. In
, she quotes an AKC "Memorandum" of January 1965, where
the AKC acknowledges that there is “considerable sentiment against
the [Standard] change.” Consequently, in the 1965 Standard “a color
darker than mouse gray” remained a very serious fault.
This action left what the WCA later called “an unsettled condition.”
There had been two unsuccessful attempts to disqualify the Blues,
and in 1970 once again the issue of what to do about the Blues was
formally addressed. The WCA took the position that “the continuous
breeding of such Blue Weimaraners is detrimental to the breed” () and continued to handicap the
Blues by doing such things as banning advertising of Blues in the
Weimaraner Magazine - PDF, the official publication of the Weimaraner
Club of America as well as by preventing publication of letters
which complained of the WCA's bias. (See paid advertisement in
the Graymatter publishing the
omissions from the Board
Meeting minutes - PDF.) In January of 1970, the WCA membership received
official notice - PDF of a plan for a membership vote on whether to
disqualify the Blues. Of note, the WCA did not present the club
members with the opportunity to vote to classify Blue as a separate
variety. WCA President Ted Jarmie in a letter dated January 27, 1970
to the Southland Weimaraner Club's Graymatter newsletter
(February 1970) states that "The Board could see no reason for...
recommending a contrary course [from the 1965 membership vote] such
as accepting the blue dog or forming a variety for it."
In this official notice, the WCA Board "recommended
disqualification" to the membership and presented a timetable of how
the arguments would be presented before vote.
The first few months of the Weimaraner Magazines in 1970
published pro and con arguments for the disqualification, all the
while the WCA Board took a strong stance of being for
disqualification. (See
in the March 1970 Weimaraner
Magazine.) Despite the fact that the WCA continued to
limit pro-Blue sentiment in the magazine, in the May 1970 Weimaraner Magazine
- PDF, there is
a small note in the Membership Meeting Minutes that “The referendum
ballot was 588 to work with AKC to revise the existing standard
disqualifying blue and black coats, while 422 voted to leave the
standard as is,” and “President Jarmie said that the standard would
stay as it presently is worded since there were not sufficient votes
to constitute two-thirds of the membership voting.”
The WCA Board re-doubled its efforts. In the New Board Meeting
Minutes published in the May 1970 Weimaraner Magazine
- PDF, the
Board took the position that they would “work toward
disqualification of the blue.” The Board refused to
document pro-Blue sentiment discussed in Board
meetings in their minutes and also refused to publish letters to the editor that pointed out the WCA's
bias. (See paid advertisement in the Graymatter publishing the
omissions from the Board
Meeting minutes - PDF.) In reaction to complaints, the Board put
a moratorium on the subject. Many felt that the WCA was forcing
its will on the membership.
Perhaps most damning to the Blue cause was a copy of a letter from
the German Klub discussing Weimaraner coat color variations and its
accompanying English translation which appeared in the April 1971
issue of the Weimaraner Magazine. The translation of the
German letter is slanted towards the Board’s stance on the issue.
The letter and translation are
.
According to Elizabeth Wood, “after two rounds of voting, and in
spite of more than a hundred letters written to AKC protesting the
change, the Standard was revised once again.”
as certified by the Jack Aulik Law Offices showed 711 votes for the
disqualification of “a distinctly blue or black coat” and 245 votes
against disqualification of “a distinctly blue or black coat.” On
this basis, the Blue Weimaraner was disqualified. There have however
been allegations that the WCA's ballot was deliberately unfair and
inaccurate due to lumping black coats along with blue coats since
many felt that Blue Weimaraners were purebred but black coated
Weimaraners were products of cross-breedings. There have been
further allegations that the “against” votes that had the “black coat”
crossed out on the ballot (so that the ballot read “against
disqualification of a distinctly blue coat
or black coat”) were considered
tampered and not counted.
In December 1971 the AKC approved this change effective December
1972. approving the
revision of the standard acknowledges that “a number of letters”
were received from fanciers who favored Blues. The letter explains
that one of the main reasons for approval of disqualification was to
clarify for judges what “darker than mouse-gray” meant (which up
until then was categorized as a “very serious fault”). While
acknowledging that “the silver gray color of the Weimaraner coat is
a distinctive feature of the breed,” the AKC never implies that the
Blue coat color is aberrant nor incorrect – no value judgment is
made. Indeed, the letter specifically mentions that Blues will still
be registerable, and that there would be “no reason to fear that the
outstandingly good qualities of any blue dog or bitch could not be
passed on to future generations of the breed without retaining the
darker color.”
The 1972 standard reads “Disqualifications - A distinctly long coat.
A distinctly blue or black coat.” The 1972 Standard is our current
standard.
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