CREATING A NEW DOG BREED Most of today’s dog breeds are the result of nat-ural selection or man-made selection. Human inter-vention in dog breeding is not new; by the MiddleAges, specific dogs were bred for a specific type ofwork like guarding, herding or hunting. The desireof men to create their own breed dates from more re-cent times. The first breed standards were written inthe second half of the 19th century and at the sametime there seems to have been a need for some peopleto create their own breeds based on several types orby mixing two or three already existing breeds. In al-

most every case, the new breed had to gratify the per-sonal wishes of its creator. Sometimes the influenceof the creator was so important that the name of thecreator was fixed on the breed forever. That’s the casewith the Schillerstövare or Schiller Hound.

GUN DOG – STÖVARE – HOUND To create a new breed you need the base mate-rial. The Swedish farmer/hunter/painter Per Schillerused several types of hounds that were present inSweden at that time. Maybe farmer is not entirelyright, because the Swedish Kennel Club writes ‘god-sågare’, a large landowner. Per Schiller (1858-1892)was born in Stenungsund, part of the Bohuslän areain the south of the country. Being a real outdoorsmanand a passionate hunter, he needed a useful workingdog, versatile and a specialist for hunting fox andsnow hare. It is assumed that most of the hounds in Swedenin the middle of the 19th century originated fromAustria. Probably soldiers took them back to Sweden,

when they returned home after fighting on Europeanbattlefields. Other countries that contributed to thedevelopment of Per Schiller’s breed were Germany- especially the southern part - Switzerland and theUnited Kingdom According to the Swedish dictionary, the trans-lation of the word Stövare is ‘gun dog’, but taking acloser look at the many Scandinavian Stövares, it isobvious that these type of dogs belong to the scenthound family that consists of more than 80 membersin different European countries.

ENGLISH HARRIERS AND VARIOUS HOUNDS Although it’s been only 100 years ago sinceSchiller created his breed, it’s not easy to find outwhich bloodlines he used for his first litters. Most au-thors assume that the bloodlines were 7/16 Swedish-German, 7/16 English (Harriers) and 2/16 Swiss. Itis remarkable that Austria is not mentioned as one ofthe countries of origin. In the same period, Mr. O.B. Rydholm importedan English Harrier called ‘Crossy’. This dog mated aHarrier bitch imported by an English civil engineerwho also lived in Sweden. Schiller used their off-spring to create his Stövare. The hounds that origi-nated from southern Germany were mostly brownand black with white markings and rather small, butin 1870 Mr. H. Carbonnier imported hounds fromSwitzerland that were a completely different typefrom the German hounds. All these various types of hounds from Germanyand Switzerland, and English Harriers, form the basisof the Schillerstövare and it’s obvious that Schiller

H I S T O R Y

Most dogs were developed after hundreds of years of evolution and lengthy selection by breeders. However, some breeds owe

their existence to just one person. 190 - September, 2011

S C H I L L E R S T Ö V A R EPER SCHILLER and his

MASTERMIND

text and illustrations by RIA HÖRTER

started his breedingwith rather differentdogs of differentheights. It wasn’t theeasiest way to create asound type, but asound and uniformtype was Schiller’sfirst aim. He neverwanted to create acompletely new typeof dog, but only a use-ful variety of Stövare.His ambition was tocreate an aristocratic

dog with a lively temperament, strongfeet and excellent nose - a versatile dogthat could easily work in heavy ground. The founder of the Swedish KennelClub, Dr. Adolf Patrick Hamilton, hadthe same aspiration and therefore he andPer Schiller cooperated. Hamilton’sname is connected with the Hamilton-Stövare, also developed thanks to anEnglish breed, the Foxhound. The maindifference between the Schillerstövareand the Hamiltonstövare is the color: theSchiller is black and tan with saddle andthe Hamilton is tri-color with saddle.

UNIQUE ACHIEVEMENT In 1886, Sweden’s first national dog show was held inStockholm. Per Schiller entered two of his homebred dogs,‘Tamburini 1’ and ‘Ralla 1’. They are considered to be the an-cestors of the present Schillerstövares. Their grandchildren,‘Polka 1’ and ‘Vals 1’, were entered at the 1891 show in Göte-borg. They were portrayed in a painting by Schiller. In the first generations inbreeding was a must and thanksto inbreeding and strong line breeding Schiller was able to breeda uniform type in a relatively short time. Not only that, the Stö-vares bred by Schiller were very good working dogs. It was aunique achievement, but was it luck, knowledge or simply thatthe genetic differences among the various dogs he used were notthat great? The famous Swiss dog writer Dr. Hans Räber writes, “Prob-ably Schiller used German hounds and black-and-red houndsfrom Switzerland, for example the old ‘Aargauer Hound’.” Per Schiller died in 1894. He was only 34 years old. Hisbrother Karl inherited a balanced breed, not only in temperamentbut in appearance. In honor of its creator, the breed was namedSchillerstövare in 1907, 15 years after Schiller’s death.

IMPRESSIVE SHOW In 1903, the Stövare Club of Västergötland organized a dogshow. About 50 dogs from the ‘Schiller line’ were present and

therefore it became possible totalk about an official breed stan-dard. People at the show wereamazed and impressed by thefact that the dogs from the‘Schiller line’ were of a very uni-form type. Unfortunately, PerSchiller did not experience thesuccess of his dogs’ officialrecognition. In the beginning, the breedwas entered in a provisional stud-book, but the Schillerstövare hasbeen a fully recognized Swedish breed since 1913. At the 1910 Stockholm show, a Schillerstövare called ‘Ray’

was entered. The dog was bred by KarlSchiller, owned by J. Svedenborg and hadextremely good working qualities. The dogwas used intensively by hunters and Ray’sname appears in a lot of Schillerstövarepedigrees.

RARE BREEDThe Schillerstövare is still a rare

breed - not in Sweden, but certainly in therest of Europe. In general, Swedish breedersdo not want to sell their dogs abroad and ifthey do, they want to be sure the puppy willbe used for hunting.

The Schiller loves to drive foxes andis an excellent dog for hare hunting. He

works alone with his master not in a pack like the other Stövares.Overall his temperament is good which makes him suitable as acompanion dog as well. He needs a firm hand and a lot of exer-cise. Training is a must, as for any strong-willed hound. It is not too difficult to recognize the Schiller in a group ofStövares. The coat is always rich brown with a solid black sad-dle. Being a relatively young breed, they are very uniform. Thepresent breed standard dates from 1997. The Swedish breed club can be found at http://www.sto-vare.se/rasklubbar/schiller/start.asp (in Swedish).

H I S T O R Y

continued from page 190

192 - September, 2011

A ‘modern’ Hamilton-Stövare bitch, exhibited at a Dutch dog show in 2005.

(Photo by Ria Hörter.)

The hunter and his dog with their catch.

(Photo by Per Klaesson in Stövare och Stövarejakt.)

A self-portrait of Per Schiller (1858-1892),the creator of the Schillerstövare

(watercolor)

People at the 1903 show in Västergötland were amazed and impressed. Pictured are ‘Hej’, ‘Kej’ and ‘Nippa’.

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