When Vibeke and I imported our first dogs to the United States there was no registry of the breed. I paid a visit to the AKC headquarters in New York where I spoke with the senior executive vice president and he told me that they would only keep a registry if the breed had a large (at least 600 specimens) and geographically diverse following.

Vibeke and I didn’t know of any other owners of the breed in 1975 so we decided that if anybody was going to keep records of this "new" breed in North America the task had fallen on us. I bought a book sold by the American Kennel Club: Dealer’s Record of Transactions in Dogs, and entered our first imports in it. The first dog recorded was our female Bliss with the Danish Kennel Klub registration number DKK 12951 born on December 26, 1974, and our first male dog Chris with the Danish Kennel Klub registration number DKK 34263 born on July 21, 1975.

We bred these two imports and in anticipation of all the females that we expected we decided that it would be great to have a different male dog so we imported Peto’s Alpha with registration number DKK 09526, born on January 16, 1977. Bliss and Chris’s litter was born on April 12, 1977 and great was our disappointment when the puppies, all five of them, were male! We now knew of eight Small Munsterlanders in North America and seven of them were males and five of them had been born by the only known female!

The next breeding was of Peto’s Alpha and Bliss. On September 15, 1979 we got another five males and two females. We ended up spaying both females! The reason being was that we found that even though Chris had a good nose he didn’t seem that interested in hunting and we had at that time decided that if we were going to promulgate the Small Munsterlanders in North America, it had to be for the natural abilities that they had been admired for in their native country, Germany. Peto’s Alpha and Bliss both showed keen interest in hunting and they became the first two Small Munsterlanders that qualified in a Natural Ability Test in NAVHDA and later Peto’s Alpha became the first Small Munsterlander to qualify in a NAVHDA Utility Test. This mating became the first "recommended" breeding in that both had qualified in NAVHDA tests and they both had the hips cleared by OFA. Bliss gave birth to only two pups, one male and one female and they were both pre-sold to two people in Edmonton, Canada. They were never bred. The next breeding of Bliss and Peto’s Alpha resulted in puppies that arrived on February 5, 1984 and there were two males and two females. We kept one of the females, Jaegerbakkens Fantasia, and the other was sold to a family in a neighboring town. It got run over by a car before it was three months of age!

At about the same time Goetz Schurholz in Vancouver had bred two imported dogs and they had several litters and we ended up getting one of them, Cowichan Bay’s Dromas or Breezy as I called her. She became my very good hunting companion after Peto’s Alpha started slowing down. Breezy was born June 11, 1986. Jaegerbakkens Fantasia was bred to Fero vom Lohebeeke that was imported from Germany by Ned Sengpiel in 1986. Her puppies arrived on April 21, 1987, Vibeke’s and my wedding anniversary! Again we got mostly males, 5 males and 1 female. The female was never used for breeding but one male was. It was Jaegerbakkens Gremlin, or better known as Turk, owned by Ray DeJong. Ray DeJong bred Turk to JoJo that he had bought from Tom McDonald.

Over these past many years we have used the same principles in registering dogs. We have required that breeding animals had qualified in a NAVHDA or similar hunting test and had their hip proven free of hip dysplasia, that the dogs were true to standard, without any hereditary defects, and not being gun shy. The registry started as a completely private matter. We later joined up with Joe and Sheila Schmutz, who are the proud owners of Large Munsterlanders in the Munsterlander Club of North America. We later split up and today we have the Large Munsterlander Club and the Small Munsterlander Club of North America, Inc. The registry was adopted by the clubs as the official recording in the promulgation of the breeds.

Registration is easy, just fill out a litter or single dog registration form available from the Club’s web site.