How It All Started
About The Breed
The Korthals Griffon
The History Of Wirehaired Pointing Griffons
The Wirehaired Pointing Griffon was the work of one man: Eduard Karel Korthals (1851–1896), a Dutch sportsman who set out to build the ultimate walking hunter’s gun dog. Korthals was born in the Netherlands, but he did the actual breeding work in Germany — chiefly at the Biebesheim kennels in Hesse — assembling the breed from his foundation dogs across roughly a decade in the 1870s and 1880s, with the definitive standard adopted in 1887. That is why you will see the breed called the “Korthals Griffon” across much of the world.
After Korthals died young, it was France that became the breed’s steward — today France is its recognized country of origin, and the French club still guards the parent standard. We tell that whole story, with sources, in our history of Korthals and the breed and how France saved and spread it.
The Griff, as we call it, was bred to be a hardy, all-terrain, close-working hunting dog for the walking hunter. According to Dr. E.B. Ilyus, the first secretary of the Griffon Club of America, writing in 1917,
“The chief characteristics in which the griffon excels, and is superior over setters and pointers, are his ready adaptability to all species of game, all climates, and all varieties of terrain, his exquisite nose, wonderful vitality and endurance, and the pronounced instinct which makes him the easiest of all dogs to train on game...and being very intelligent and affectionate, he makes an ideal man’s companion.”
What To Look For
Korthal's Breed Standard
The Wirehaired Pointing Griffon is a medium-sized, sturdy hunting dog with a noble, square-shaped head and a harsh, wiry coat built for all-terrain work. Bred as the ultimate walking hunter’s gun dog, the griff combines a keen nose, natural pointing and retrieving instincts, and an affectionate, trainable temperament.
Here is what surprises most people: there isn’t one breed standard — there are five. The AKC, UKC, FCI, the French club, and the Canadian Kennel Club each wrote their own, and they don’t all agree on height, tail docking, or what gets a dog disqualified. We read all five side by side so you don’t have to.
Go deeper
Our full breed-standard deep-dive compares all five governing standards — where they line up, and where a correct Griffon under one would be disqualified under another.
Read the breed standard, read five ways »Griff Life
Griffons In The Field Vs. At Home
That split — staunch on point afield, devoted couch dog at home — is the whole character of the breed. We wrote the full picture of what living with one is really like in The Griff Life.
Videos
Griffons Hard At Work
Heritage & Registries
Go Deeper Into The Breed
This page is the short version. For the whole story — how the breed was built, who governs it, and how to choose a registry for your own Griffon — we’ve written a researched, sourced library.
- History, Registries & Clubs — the full guide »The hub for the whole series: where the breed came from and how to register a Griffon.
- Edward Korthals & the making of the breed »How a young Dutchman, working in Germany, built the Griffon from scratch in one lifetime.
- How France saved — and spread — the Griffon »Why France became the breed’s steward and country of origin.
- The breed standard, read five ways »AKC, UKC, FCI, French & Canadian standards compared, side by side.
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