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In our “Sculptors” series we ask blue breeders questions to provide some insight into the various schools of thought found around the world. In our fourth installment, we interviewed Heiko Wagner of Kennel vom Haus Wagner in Sprendlingen, Germany.

Heiko is a judge for Great Danes in Germany and President of the breed club, Kynologische Gesellschaft fur Deutsche Doggen e.V.

Now on with the questions…

BGD: How did you get started in Danes?

HW: My father was a breeder of German Shepherds but through the years and after I was born he switched his interest of the race into Great Danes. I grew up with 2 Great Danes. A black male named Bronko and after that dog our family had a black female called Elisa von Desperado. When I was 14 years old, she died thus I wanted a new one. Due to the fact that my parents did not want to give me another Great Dane I sold my motorbike and bought a fawn female which was my first dane and even bought by myself! (-:

Years later I bought my first blue female named Greta von Trautheim, which was a female from a very interesting bloodline with lots of qualities. I started with her giving birth to 2 litters; one with the male Questor v´t Buitengebeuren and the next litter with the male Barcles des Terres de la Rairie, who has entailed very many positive amenities to my dogs. Regarding his size he was about 103 cm tall and his weight was around 190 pounds.

While being active in the kennel club i became a breed warden. Therefore I visited kennels all over Germany in order to check how many dogs the breeders actually have and which kind of condition they are in. Moreover one year later I was elected as a member of the breeding-commission. Furthermore I became the kennel club's secretary then later on I became chairman for the clubshows all over Germany and last but not least I got elected as the the club's president, which I am for 10 years now.

BGD: Who has helped you the most in your time with Danes?

HW: Anything I learnt I got from old historical and legendary European Great Dane breeders. Personally the most important persons in my life as a breeder were and are Mr. Reiner Frenken who bred great champions over 10 years of all colors in his kennel "vom Klevchen". The other person who was even more important to me not only but also as a "family-member" is Madame Marie-José Labrousse, who is globally well known.

Wherever you see danes with nice heads and interesting, well shaped figure on the globe their pedigree will tell you about their heritage and ancestory, which are Great Danes from her Kennel: des Terres de la Rairie.

The persons who I could always count on are my parents and my sister. They help me whenever they've got time and they had taken care of my dogs while I was at the free university of Berlin for 6 years in order to study veterinary-medicine, which I succeeded.

Finally I came back and my work in the kennel actually has never stopped due to the whole family who were there all the time supporting our big passion!

BGD: Is there a particular dog or bitch you felt epitomized what you were striving for in your breeding program?

HW: We have a standard for getting to the standard as close as we can. Shurely there are really interesting dogs like Barcles des Terres de la Rairie and Phale des Terres de la Rairie. Also very interesting was Darinka vom Hause Wagner and Ronja de la Fontaine aux Tourterelles who did several excellent litters in my kennel and home. It is a really great work keeping the qualities within the dogs in order to keep the sepcific and wanted type of dogs.

In retrospect there are 3 different parts the general breed. Firstly health, secondly the head and thirdly the construction of the body. Yes, you have read it correctly: at first the head and then the construction. I often had very long discussions about that and I am going to explain it in a few words:

First of all we want to have a healthy dog . Then, secondly, we need to show which breed we have and when you look at a race of dogs you see the head at first and most of all. Finally we need the construction which is absolutely neccessary. Accomplishing only one of these three factors alone is definately not enough. A nice construction can be seen among any other breed but for showing what kind of breed we have the head is an important neccessity.

I will give you an example: I went to a dogshow were a friend of mine was judging and I was not of the same opinion of which one he thought would be the best dog in the ring. Therefore he explained to me, taht the female he chose had a realy nice construction and that's why she was winning in that class. Furthermore I told him that her head for me is just a head from another breed, somewhat lreminds me of a Doberman. He said yes but look at this nice angles at the back. Thus I told him,"look that very nice boxer near the ring has a very nice construction, too and he has a very nice angles at the back but if you look at his head, you see, that this is not a Great Dane!" That means that also between the judges are different opinions but all together, personally I think, we all agree that we want to have all of the three factors which I emphasized above.

BGD: Who was your first champion?

HW: My first champion was Fabienne vom Hause Wagner, which was owned by Monsieur Dieter Maudrich breeder of the kennel de la Grisonniere in France. The female with the most titles until now is Franca vom Hause Wagner who is German Champion (VDH), German Champion of Beauty, International Chamion of Beauty (FCI), Clubchampion 2005 and 2006, EuDDC Winner 2005 and a lot of regional titles.

BGD: What has been your greatest achievement to date? Greatest challenge?

HW: The biggest problem is keeping up the quality within the blue colored dogs. In my opinion it is necessary to take a realy nice fawn or black dog in about every 5th generation from a harlequin line in order to keep the head type, the size and the bones. It is in deed very remarkable that the blue great danes lose the type, the bones and the size in all lines when you don´t work hard on choosing nice amenities in your bloodlines.

BGD: What health testing, if any at all, do you think should be performed on a Dane? Why or why not?

HW: First of all I think xraying of hips and ellbows and also the heart problems need to be checked on. After all the biggest problem is that so many breeders just don´t tell the truth about their dogs. That´s why it is absolutely nessesary to find a genetic test for having at least a kind of re-assurance before you begin breeding any kind of dog. The next big problem is the stomach which in my opinion occured through n a high rate of feeding industrial food. Well, I know in the USA it is not that easy to get fresh meat for the dogs.

Nowadays I feed my 4th generation of dogs without any industrial food and I never had any problems with stomach-turns at all.

I am aware of the fact that a lot of people in the world fix the stomach so that it can not move anymore. Personally I doubt that it might be a solution. If wejust always need to do operations for having an animal in our house the animal can be also easily substituted by a tamagotchi.

Generally I think we are of the same opinion if we say that we want to have a healthy great dane with a lot of nature instincts in it, don't we!? That also means we shouldn't treat them like a machine. As a matter of fact in nature those individuals which are not made for being alive are dying and nobody can change that. My advice and solution is observing the dogs and let them have their own nature in a lot of parts of their life.

BGD: Do you have any advice for someone getting started in the Dane world?

HW: Don´t care about the people and look for a breeder who has done very nice dogs in the breed. Ask that one and a different one but don´t care about what hundreds of people will tell you from besides of the showring. You will be everybody's friend as long as your dogs are not realy nice but as soon as you succeed and your dogs are going to win, you have a good possibility to find out who are the real friends and the real fancier of the race!

Take your time with your dogs . Consequently It will take more than 20 years to know what can be achieved and what will be achieved if the different situations in the breed are coming up.

BGD: How do you feel about cross-color breeding?

HW: Nice question because it is a discussion all over the world. I learned from some old breeders how to handel the crossbreeding. There are some more people who don´t want to be known for this part of the breeding lessons they gave to me. It is not allowed to do cross-color breeding in one of Germany's club although in my club it is. Firstly you need to know about all the genetics. If you cannot, you can never work out something interesting in this part of the breeding. The most important color in all qualitys is the fawn and brindle color. The black and harlequin is nice for getting muscles and sometimes a bit more bones. Whereas the blue color is good for the white tones. Most important of all the dogs being crossbred need to be dogs whch have a very high quality in anatomy and health. Besides that the main rules are that you can use fawn and brindel to bring more type into the other colored dogs. Other than that if you have bad color in a harlequin, you can get it better crossing them with blue dogs. If you need more bones in the blue color, you can use black from harlequin for getting it. In fact this is not a guide for every kind of great dane. Every studdog for every litter has to be choosen very carefully and with a good knowledge of all dogs in their bloodlines.

BGD: At what age do you evaluate a litter to decide a "keeper"?

HW: Sometimes there are big surprises in the puppies' development which make it difficult to figure out which one is going to be promising before they are about 8 weeks old. That is why I take a final look at the puppies at the age of 8-9 weeks in order to find out which one is going to be kept by me.

Heiko Wagner

BlueGreatDanes.net would like to thank Mr. Wagner for taking the time to share his perspective.