tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-423815608168342684.post5704248735773146257..comments2024-03-13T02:57:59.591-07:00Comments on Pointing Dog Blog: Myth-busting the Grand Duke's Grey GhostCraig Koshykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00551849205683278959noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-423815608168342684.post-11435796942987404322010-06-25T22:18:20.718-07:002010-06-25T22:18:20.718-07:00Really? You are actually invoking the prove a néga...Really?<br><br> You are actually invoking the prove a négative gambit?<br><br>Really? <br><br>I just had diner with Santa Clause. Until there is definitive proof that I did NOT have diner with Santa Clause, Anyone who says I didn,t is just stirring the pot!<br><br>the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, not on the one asking for proof. Some claim the Duke or dukes, depending on which way the wind is blowing, had a thousand dogs, that their kennel keepers were illiterate, that they somehow developed the weim...<br><br>to those claimants, I say, show me the evidence!Dog Willinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16830138886047757371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-423815608168342684.post-74111306300591581602010-06-25T22:18:20.717-07:002010-06-25T22:18:20.717-07:00Really? You are actually invoking the prove a néga...Really?<br><br> You are actually invoking the prove a négative gambit?<br><br>Really? <br><br>I just had diner with Santa Clause. Until there is definitive proof that I did NOT have diner with Santa Clause, Anyone who says I didn,t is just stirring the pot!<br><br>the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, not on the one asking for proof. Some claim the Duke or dukes, depending on which way the wind is blowing, had a thousand dogs, that their kennel keepers were illiterate, that they somehow developed the weim...<br><br>to those claimants, I say, show me the evidence!Dog Willinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16830138886047757371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-423815608168342684.post-26521431445916270702010-06-25T18:13:01.854-07:002010-06-25T18:13:01.854-07:00The kennels of the Dukes of Saxe Weimar were said ...The kennels of the Dukes of Saxe Weimar were said to contain more than a thousand dogs of all types. Given that the folks most likely to know the breakdown of the hunting dogs in those kennels, the gamekeepers, would have largely been illiterate at this time - it's not surprising that there is a paucity of written information. Is there any written evidence that he owned this brown and white dog? <br><br>Oral history may not be as reliable as written history, but then again it may be. Until there is definitive proof that the Duke did not have Weimeraners among those 1100 dogs, then claiming he didn't is just stirring the pot - something Dr. Kleeman, at least, loved to do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-423815608168342684.post-52283232155970158012009-07-20T12:35:14.673-07:002009-07-20T12:35:14.673-07:00The real issue for me is not so much my inability ...The real issue for me is not so much my inability to find a connection. It is about those who claim that there IS a connection yet provide no evidence to support their claims. <br><br>Consider this from Weimaraner Ways : "The Grand Duke Carl August certainly played an important role in breeding and establishing Weimaraners as the special prerogative of the German aristocracy".<br><br>What is this statement based on? It is in complete opposition to the positions of Herber and Kleeman, arguably the most knowledgeable experts in Germany in the early days of the breed. One would expect there to be a pretty big smoking gun proving them wrong. <br><br>But where is it? What is the source that confirms the author's claims? If they have evidence of any kind, why is it not presented? <br><br>It seems to me that there are only two answers: 1. Evidence that the Duke played an important role in the breeding of Weimaraners is so scare, or so highly secret, that only anointed authors of weim bibles and literary detectives have access to it or 2. The whole Grand Duke connection is a crock. <br><br>Which answer would Occam choose?Dog Willinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16830138886047757371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-423815608168342684.post-20714929708181074722009-07-20T10:54:18.825-07:002009-07-20T10:54:18.825-07:00Academically, an argument from silence is the weak...Academically, an argument from silence is the weakest.<br><br>If you haven't found a connection, consider it agnostic. You'd have to find someplace where he journaled: "Saw one of those new grey dogs Hans is always going on about; ugly as sin. What is the world coming to?" before you can call it busted. <br><br>You can't make an argument from silence based on the art, either. Remember that very little illustration at that time had anything to do with capturing a true moment. Having himself painted with a favorite munsterlander (maybe?)-type dog doesn't mean he didn't have other dogs in the house. <br><br>The park illustration looks very deliberately composed, which probably means it was a political statement about who he liked to hang out with and how terribly intelligent he was and how much he enjoyed the bucolic "woods" (with groomed path and bench, natch) with his interesting and intelligent friends. Who knows if the whippet-types ever existed; they could be the 19th-century version of "photoshopped in" to draw further attention to the person in the center of the picture. <br><br>They're not evidence that he didn't have early proto-Weims in the house, any more than they ARE evidence that he bred whippets.<br><br>So I think at this point you're stuck with an interesting hole in the information, but you can't draw too many conclusions from it.Joannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08178480102282961954noreply@blogger.com