I learn new stuff all the time. Some of it is useful and some of it is not. Some of it is fascinating and some of it is not. Some of it is blog-worthy and some of it is not, but I might blog about it anyway.
I was in Santa Clara at a party and I recently met a Miniature Pinscher. Did you know that Min Pins are NOT miniature Doberman Pinschers? I had always thought they were miniature Doberman Pinschers, but they are not. They are actually just a small breed of dog. Miniature Pinschers have reportedly been around longer than the Doberman Pinchers.
“Pinscher” is a “type” of dog, like terrier is a type of dog. This designation refers to the way the dogs behave. There are Doberman Pinschers, German Pinschers, Austraian Pinschers, and another small terrier, the Affenpinscher. According to all that I have seen the Pinshers were developed to catch rats on farms, or fight or guard.
The word Pinscher does not translate from German into terrier, it is actually pincher or biter or some places say “cropped”.
But from what I am reading, the way I am understanding it, the breed is somewhat classified as a terrier due to its high energy level. So even though it is small it is not considered a toy breed, which I guess can be mellow. Min Pins (oh yeah they are sometimes called Min Pins) are quite hyper and need a lot of exercise. Just walking doesn’t sound like that will do for these high energy dogs, they need a lot of play to get there energy worked out.
Also from what I can tell the different Dog clubs that decide what dog is what and what dog gets papers, some say this dog is from a Dachshund with an Italian Greyhound and some say that the German Pinscher was added in with those other two to create the Miniature Pinscher. So who knows. All they seem to agree upon is that it is NOT a miniature Doberman Pinscher. This fact is what made me look into this whole thing in the first place. And there you have it.
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