| The first Weim litter in Russia was bred from Czech working dogs in 1986. The dogs were a gift to some Russian falconers from their Czech colleagues. The puppies spread across the country, but part of them died young of the bloat. Currently, about 10 litters are born annually. The absolute majority of these dogs are from non-working blood lines. An accurate count of the overall Weim population in Russia is hard to give since most are just family pets that do not participate in shows or trials or hunting, neverthelss, I estimate that the number is around 2000 and increasing. Unfortunately, the number of breeders producing working Weims in our country is close to zero. The same can be said about the working Weims. We are lucky if there are 100 of these dogs in the whole country. I could be wrong as most of them do not participate in hunting tests and competitions, but it is clear that the number of working dogs is very small compared to show or pet stock and more often than not, hunters end up buying dogs from non-working lines. This has resulted in a very poor reputation for the breed among Russian hunters. The breed is thought to have a great nose, but is considered to be slow, lacking in hunting passion and requiring more training than other pointing dogs. These opinions are quite reasonable as hunters generally only see Weimaraners from uncontrolled breedings without any selection based on working qualities and unethical breeders spoil the breed's reputation by selling their puppies as great hunting dogs. If a hunter needs a continental pointing dog he will get a proven GPS or GWP. Weimaraners only seem to attract beginning hunters. There is no official or centralized support for maintaining the Weimaraner's hunting qualities. Enthusiasts who support the hunting Weim do it on their own. The National breed club (the only weim club in Russia) only organizes 2 shows and 2 field trials per year. We see no support in education or breeding or field training. The working stock in Russia is mainly represented by Czech and German dogs, a lot of offspring from Zenhof and Cassius v. Munsterlend kennels. There are several duals from the UK, one dog from Austria, one from Belgium and one from Sweden (Scuba). The "old” Moscow blood - descendants from first imported dogs with Czech and German blood - also have the blood of the dogs from France, UK (Roxberg) and Finland. However, due to uncontrolled breeding and intensified inbreeding it is hard to evaluate their working qualities. The number of show dogs and show-litters of good quality tend to increase every year. The popularity of working (hunting) weims seems not so promising. The situation can improve only if the hunters import the puppies of great working bloodlines, correctly and intensively train their dogs and participate in hunting tests, competitions and field trials.
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