About Us

Our Small Munsterlander History at Wolfsburg Kennels

Welcome to WBK, my name is Tom McDonald.  I first became interested in this breed in 1971 after reading an article about them in the Championship Dogs of the World book.   After nearly a year of searching for one, I found out that not only were there no breeders in this country but most Vets hadn't even heard of the breed.  Having no luck finding a dog here, we decided to look into importing a dog.  My family owned a VW-Audi dealership so my father contacted a friend who worked for VW in Germany.  (If we hadn't had that VW relationship, we never would have owned a SM so we named our kennel Wolfsburg, where VW has it's headquarters.) 

By October of that year, we had decided to purchase a puppy out of an Aus Leistungszucht litter from the Von Der Teichbreite kennel. 

In our early experience with Small Munsterlanders, we acquired Elko, a male imported from Germany in 1972.  Elko became a wonderful first dog for me because he was a natural hunter, easy to train, and great as a housedog.  We imported another Small Munsterlander in 1978 to which we bred Elko to produce our first litter in 1980.

In the early years, puppies were difficult to sell since hardly anyone had ever heard of the breed.  Because I had to price pups at $200, I never came close to covering my expenses.  The satisfaction of knowing that I helped establish the breed in North America, however, was payment enough.

As the years went by, I made good strides in improving the dogs I was producing.  By the time I did a line breeding in my fourth generation of dogs, I was quite confident that this litter would be exceptional.  The following year, Mother Nature reasserted her role in determining outcomes.  My pride and joy male developed a genetic disease which meant the female I had kept out of his litter was a carrier.  All of my breeding plans were brought down with one shot. 

Given that I had no choice, I began to rebuild my breeding program.  Though there are some strong lines of Small Munsterlanders in North America, we at Wolfsburg Kennel believe that the gene pool needs greater diversification by importing fresh bloodlines from Germany.  To this end, we have been active in bringing pups, adult dogs, and frozen semen to the United States as the foundation of our breeding program.

Our connections with European Small Munsterlander breeders have developed over several decades by many trips to visit breeding kennels, to observe testing events, and to make friends with several key Small Munsterlander judges, breeders, and hunters.  Each of these trips has been an adventure and a learning experience as we met new people and made new friends in the Small Munsterlander community.

Locating European puppies, adult dogs, and frozen semen is only part of the job of producing improved bloodlines.  The other part is transporting dogs and semen to this country—something we have done many times and something we are happy to help fellow Small Munsterlander owners to do.  Today we have available a wide variety of resource people on the continent who can assist us with the procurement of quality Small Munsterlanders from the most reputable breeders.

Expanded Information

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