MOHNS ENGLISH SHEPHERDS

© 2006 by Vivian Flynt

No other English Shepherd breeders, past or present, can rival the Elmer-Mohns’ families’ longevity in our breed. For over 120 years four generations of the Elmer and Mohns families worked and bred the same line of black-&-white sheppies on their family farm near Brodhead, Wisconsin.

Starting in the 1880s Henry Elmer, Harold Mohns' great-grandfather, imported Percheron horses – one at a time, as he could afford them – from a farmer in England. They were shipped across the Atlantic and through the Great Lakes to Wisconsin. Every horse was accompanied in transit by a black-&-white shepherd dog. When the first horse arrived Henry was puzzled about what to do with the dog, so he contacted the English farmer. "Keep it," was the farmer's reply. "It'll be the best dog you've ever owned."

Henry soon found what the Englishman said was God's truth. He was so pleased with the shepherd dogs who arrived with each Percheron horse that he decided their traits were worth perpetuating. As family members died, the shepherd breeding passed from one generation to another. Admiral William Elmer took over when Henry died, Grace Mohns took over when her uncle William passed, and Harold took over when his mother Grace passed. Unfortunately, there was no one to take over when Harold died in 2001 at 90 years of age. He and his wife June still lived on the family farm near Brodhead.

Grace Mohns was the first in the family to register the dogs. According to Harold, it took a personal visit from Mr. Ed Emanuel to convince them to register with the International English Shepherd Registry (IESR). Until that time none of their sheppies had been registered, thus little to no ancestry is available for the Elmer dogs. Hence, most Mohns pedigrees start with Old Sport, a Grace owned Elmer-bred who was whelped in 1936. (See Figure A.)

Another tradition that Grace instituted was giving each sheppy a unique name. Many of the Elmer dogs had similar names – King Sr. and King Cook; Elmer’s Pudge and Pudge Jr.; Old Pal, Pal I and Pal II – and Harold said it simply got too confusing. (See 1949 IESR pedigree for Mohns’ Major in Figure B.) So he and his mother vowed every dog would have its own, special name.

As hog farmers the Elmer-Mohns had no inhibitions about breeding close, so even though they occasionally brought new blood into their line they continued to linebreed closely to those original imports. Two breeders whose stock was utilized by the Elmer-Mohns families as outcrosses were Gerhard Wolter’s Black Shepherds of Hamburg, Minnesota, and Ed Emanuel’s Stepsavers of Butler, Indiana. But the Mohns always stayed true to their original English imports. The families close adherence to intense line breeding resulted in a line known for its intelligence, athleticism, working ability, soundness, and tractability. Above all, an Elmer-Mohns sheppy’s favorite activity was whatever was on the day’s schedule.

In those days everyone hunted, including the Mohns family. Living in the Midwest, where hunting is a way of life, helped the Mohns develop an appreciation for the English Shepherd breed’s versatility. According to Grace, “My late husband and our son were ardent sportsmen. Ole [pronounced O-lee, like oleo] grew up when pheasant hunting was at its best in Green County, Wisconsin. He was an excellent retriever, but during hunting, if anyone said, ‘It’s a hen,’ Ole would ignore the bird.” But Ole’s hunting prowess didn’t stop there. Said Grace, “Not only was Ole remarkable at hunting pheasants and ducks, but he also loved to hunt fox. He helped our son to get his first fox. But as much as Ole loved to hunt birds, when the fox season was on and the bird season closed, birds could fly up all around him and he would pay no attention to them.” (1)

Ole was Grace’s first sheppy, a strapping black-&-white male given to her by her uncle Admiral William Elmer in 1936. Ole showed Grace why it was so important to conserve this breed. She later summed it all up into one sentence, “He was a once in a lifetime dog.” (2) It wasn’t until 1943, when her uncle gave Grace her first female, did she begin raising English Shepherds.

Harold worked closely with his mother in raising and selling the family sheppies. He instituted a policy of never selling a puppy until it demonstrated biddability. If a puppy had not learned “come,” “fetch” and “shake” by 8 weeks of age, he considered it an unsellable and unbreedable cull. Stock work, however, began much later. “’A dog ought to have his second teeth before you start ‘em to work livestock,’ Harold said. ‘Usually that won’t be until they’re seven or eight months of age.” (3)

While he believed in discipline, Harold also advised sheppy owners to treat each dog as an individual. “Some of them need stronger correction to make them mind, others only require a soft voice command. Dogs need encouragement, too. If a dog gets rolled over by the stock, the trainer should get him up and encourage him to get back with the stock.” Said Harold, “If a guy says he’s never had a good dog, chances are he doesn’t know how to train a dog.” (4)

Harold’s training paid off when Little Guy was caught in the jugular by a boar. That eventful day he was the only sheppy who tagged along to help Harold get the hogs out of a recently harvested cornfield. All the hogs skedaddled to the barn with the exception of the big boar. After meeting Little Guy’s charge and cutting his throat, the boar turned tail and ran to the barn. Harold put the dog on a sit-stay and scooped Little Guy out of the bloody snow.

They rode a quarter mile home on the tractor, with Harold holding Little Guy’s throat to staunch the bleeding. Says Grace, “I nearly fainted when he came in carrying Little Guy dripping blood all over. I ran to the phone, called the veterinary clinic at Brodhead, told them what had happened, and asked them to be ready to care for him as soon as we could get him the 9 miles to town.” (5)

Luckily Little Guy’s jugular vein was only nicked and he eventually recovered, but Harold’s emphasis on training was not lost on Grace. “[Little Guy] is so well trained, that when Harold commands him to sit that is exactly what he does. It doesn’t even occur to him to do anything else. [I]f he hadn’t been trained to obey to perfection, he would not be alive today. The minute Harold saw what had happened, he told him to sit til he got to him. Had the dog been less trained or had he panicked and run, he would have lost too much blood before he could have had help.” (6)

“The famous Mendelian laws of heredity, founded by the austere Augustinian priest, Gregor Johann Mendel, were not even recognized until the year 1900. The great majority of dog breeds were already developed by 1900 and, according to all reports, most of the working breeds have deteriorated since then. Admittedly, this deterioration is due more to non-use then to the discovery of genetics; nevertheless, genetics has not been [a] boon to the breeding of using-dogs. Certainly the relatively new science of genetics is a handy tool to breed better dogs; however, never lose sight of the fact that any tool in the hands of a craftsman can create a work of art, but in the hands of a fool… well, you get the picture.” (7)

Central to the Elmer-Mohns success was their patience. Figure A shows 11 generations in 60 years time. That averages 5-1/2 years per generation – plenty of time to evaluate a dog’s structure, temperament, and working abilities to determine his suitability as breeding stock. Contrast their timeline with today’s “microwave breeders,” who crank out generation after generation of 10 month olds. By acting as true stewards of the breed, this dedicated family preserved the talents and traits of those original English imports.

Which begs the question: Just what particular breed of shepherd dog did the Elmer-Mohns families preserve? Harold told me that they did not call their dogs English Shepherds until Mr. Ed Emanuel, “The English Shepherd Man,” stopped by their farm in the early 1950s. Until then they had simply referred to them as “black shepherds.” Remember, the moniker “English Shepherd” is American – not British. So what breed – if any – were these dogs known as in England?

Unfortunately, Henry Elmer’s correspondence with the English farmer has been lost, thus we will never know with 100% certainty. Many of this line’s characteristics – their black-&-white color, jet-black coats, high tail carriage, light to medium ear leather, sharp temperaments, high tractability, robust health, and header working style – remind me of an early version (pre-Border Collie influx) of the Welsh Shepherd or its cousin, the Black Mountain Shepherd. (The Black Mountains are on the border of Wales and Herefordshire.)

Much of this description of the Black Mountain Shepherd dogs applies to the Elmer-Mohns line, “[T]hey are reminiscent of the type written about in the Modern Farrier (various authors) in 1832: ‘fiercer than the shepherd’s dog; their hair is smoother and shorter. They are mostly of a black and white colour; their ears are half-pricked; and many of them with short tails; which seem as if they had been cut.’ The bob-tailed dogs of the Black Mountains are renowned for their hardness: they will ‘grip’ a troublesome ram by the neck, a bothersome bull by the nose and hang on a cow’s tail in their utter determination to impose their will.” (8)

Whether the Mohns sheppies’ tendency to go to the head was developed later, as a consequence of their being hog dogs, or was a trait of the original imports is impossible to say.

According to Harold only one of their sheppies was a natural bobtail (NBT). She was whelped a few years before Harold died. In turn, the only pup she ever whelped was a NBT. In further research I found references to some Black Mountain Shepherds being surgical bobs. (9)

Two other traits of the Mohns line bear mentioning: the complete absence of blue eye(s) and all are clear for the MDR1 multi-drug sensitivity gene mutation.

Preliminary checks of Welsh Sheepdog Society records do not turn up any Percheron breeders in Wales, however. So in all likelihood those original Elmer imports were descended from Welsh shepherding dogs taken to England and crossed with other British Isles shepherding and droving dogs. When selling livestock it was a common practice to include the dogs that managed them. In this way British herding dogs spread, and were adapted and developed into native breeds in their new countries. “In his The Working Sheep Dog published in Chicago in 1937, Luke Pasco relates how time and time again he was able to trace outstanding dogs to British stock, usually imported from Scotland with a load of sheep or cattle and often shrewdly included in the deal by American livestock dealers.” (10)

What distinguished Henry Elmer, Admiral William Elmer, Grace Mohns, and Harold Mohns was their stockman’s eye and craftsman’s talent for recognizing and preserving doing-dog traits. That one family was able to do so for over 120 years is truly remarkable.

I think I speak for all owners of Mohns dog descendants when I thank the Elmer and Mohns families for carefully preserving their black-&-white shepherd dogs. I thank them for producing a strong and solid base for others to work with. I thank them for their years of dedication to our breed. And I wish them eternal happiness together.

FOOTNOTES

(1)“A Look at the English Shepherd” by Mrs. Herbert Mohns, National Stock Dog Magazine, Winter, 1983.

(2)Ibid.

(3)“The Mohns: Generations of English Shepherds” by Juanita Russell, National Stock Dog Magazine, Winter, 1983.

(4)Ibid.

(5)“Little Guy has Surgery” by Mrs. Herbert Mohns, National Stock Dog Magazine, Summer, 1978.

(6)Ibid.

(7)New Guide to Breeding Old Fashioned Working Dogs by Guy Gregory Ormiston, Great Plains Books, 1989.

(8)Old Farm Dogs by David Hancock, Shire Publications, 1999.

(9)Herding Dogs: Their Origins and Development in Britain by Iris Combe, Faber and Faber, 1987.

(10)The Heritage of the Dog by Colonel David Hancock, Nimrod Press, 1990.