In addition to “Andean double-nosed tiger hound,” there are two pointer (really HPR) breeds that have double noses: the Navarro Pointer and the çatalburun or Turkish pointer. German short-hairs and some Porguese pointrs have the double-nosed characteristic, probably as the result of having ancestry from the Navarro pointer. I am not as willing to suggest, as the BBC report does, that the Bolivian jaguar hunting dog are descended from any sort of European breed. It seems to me that they are very likely to be an indigeneous Bolivian creation. Because all Latin American dogs have a very high amount of European dog in them, though, it is possible that the some Navarro Pointer blood got into the local jaguar dogs.
This is a Turkish pointer or Çatalburun. It is one of several split-nosed pointers.
The çatalburun is native only to the Tarsus region. It is virtually unknown outside of Turkey. It is possible that this is home to the original mutation of split-nosed dogs in the Old World. The Spanish and Portuguese were major rivals of the Ottoman Empire during the fifteen and sixteenth centuries. It is possible that they obtained these dogs from Turkey. It is also possible that the origins of the mutation is Iberia, rather than Turkey, and the dogs eventually wound up in Turkish hands. I have yet to find really good historical records on either the Iberian split-nosed dogs or their Turkish counterparts.
The Navarro pointer, Pachon Navarro, or Perdiguero Navarro is another rare breed with that same unusual nose. Unlike the çatalburun, the dogs don’t always have a double nose, but they very often do. This breed is one of two breeds that was referred to as the Spanish pointer. (The other one is the more widely known Perdiguero de Burgos, which is the ancestor of both the German short-hair and the English pointer.)
I’d be curious to know what other genetic aberrations/problems go along with the double nose, since one would assume such would affect brain size and development, since so much space would be given over to the olfactory sites? Dog forbid us breeders seize on this and think it “desirable”!
It’s too late! Turkish breeders have been breeding them for centuries, as have breeders of the Navarro pointer.
I don’t think the Bolivian dogs were selected for. My guess is they just popped up out a genetic soup of Jaguar hunting curs.
I don’t know what genetic disorders could be associated with the split nose. I’m sure there are some. I wonder if the dogs are more prone sinus infections.
As long as the dogs are bred for for type, which is what I assume they are, versus an arbitrary club standard, whatever associated problems may arise wouldn’t be that big a factor unless those involved are doing a lot of inbreeding. It’s when the type becomes an arbitrarily defined breed with a closed gene pool that problems occur.
One does have to wonder though, how much of an advantage a split nosed breed has in the field? How more successful are these dogs over other single nosed breeds with a large nose pad?
I’d never heard of them before ( I admit on occasion to not knowing everything) and am intrigued by their existence and their addition to my knowledge of working types and breeds.
Supposedly, they have a better sense of smell than a normal nose dog. I know of know scientific evidence to back that up.
It’s a novelty, and it’s arbitrary. I have no stance on them, but I do think that the breeders are breeding for novelty only. I don’t think function has much to with type in this case.
I’ve never even seen the Portguese pointer, the big Spanish pointer, the Navarro pointer, or the Turkish pointer, so I can’t attest to their abilities.
I’m sure you don’t care that the village dogs of Bolivia, which are very much mixed in lineage, sometimes have double noses.
I don’t know everything either, but I can make some thing like an educated guess.
[…] Remember the Andean tiger hound and the various strains of double-nosed pointer? […]
I am currently working on a book about how structure impacts performance and am looking for permission to print a picture (any picture) of a split nose on a dog.
Any possibility that anyone could be of assistance?
Thank you,
Pat Hastings
I don’t own that photograph. However, it has appeared in several different websites, including this one: http://www.mihav.com/forum/kopek-irklari/tarsus-catalburun-ve-hakkinda-hersey-12252/ and this one: http://www.avagit.com/catalburun.php
I do not know where it originally came from, but I have never been asked to remove it.
I have seen references to “Double Barrelled” Pointers and it would appear that they have the same nose as those you are discussing.
I have to say that as somebody who puts function before form I would have no problem breeding from such a dog from within the Pointer gene pool if it performed to at a higher level than “ordinary” pointers. To ignore its potential simply because it was less asthetically pleasing would be folly in my book.
So these dogs exist in the pointer bloodline?
I was unaware of that they occurred in this breed, but I had heard of them in the German short-haired pointer (Kurzhaar).
Whether they still do is not clear but they certainly did at some time so I suppose in theory the gene is still there…somewhere.If it was ever deemed an undesireable trait it may have been heavily bred away from just like the rough coated pointer the difference being that there is a double/roughcoated pointer in Ireland at the minute.
Here is a link to my double barrel dog http://www.pbase.com/mplonsky/image/142414593 I rescued her, and she is clearly not a pointer! Her lineage is absolutely unknown, but she is a great dog and has been easy to train for all manner of things.
http://karlshuker.blogspot.ru/2013/02/fawcetts-double-nosed-andean-tiger.html
Derived from the same Spanish breed, which is a pointer.