About Nachtwald Dobermanns

Nachtwald is the two of us, Annika and Jonas, and the Dobermanns who share our house below the McDowell foothills in north Scottsdale. The name means night forest. It is what Jonas's grandfather called the stand of spruce behind his house in Thuringia, a short drive from Apolda, where this breed began and where he kept Dobermanns for forty years.

Our first Dobermann together was a big, gentle male named Falk. He collapsed and died of dilated cardiomyopathy at six. He had never worn a Holter monitor, and nobody had told us to ask for one. Everything about how we breed comes from that morning.

We spent two years visiting kennels in Germany and reading pedigrees for one thing: how long the dogs in them lived. In 2015 we brought home Freya. She turns twelve this November. Her son, her granddaughters and the dogs we have imported since were chosen the same way, and every breeding dog here has a 24-hour Holter and an echocardiogram with a veterinary cardiologist every year, for life. We publish the results whether they flatter us or not.

We are a small program. One or two litters a year, born in our home office and raised in the kitchen. Our dogs train twice a week with an IGP club in the East Valley, because a Dobermann's temperament should be proven and not just described. They earn their BH-VT, most go on to a ZTP or an IGP title, and then they come home and sleep on the sofa.

The families who do best with our dogs want exactly that: a stable, affectionate house dog who takes the front door seriously. If that is what you are looking for, we would like to hear from you.