I post this video to show exactly what a Bracco Italiano is.
It is an HPR or “versatile gundog.”
These pointers have a history with the heavy scent hounds.
However, because the pointer we know best are the German HPR’s and our own (English) pointer, we really don’t have a connection to the old type.
I have a post on the Bracco Italiano that you might want to check out.
I should note that Mark Derr writes about a bloodhound that points in his A Dog’s History of America. The bloodhound belonged to the grizzly hunter Montague Stevens, who wrote Meet Mr. Grizzly. Stevens trained an unorthodox pack of dogs to trail grizzlies in New Mexico. He used only rewards of bread to teach his dogs the proper behavior.
Classical histories of the (English) pointer say that it was derived from crossing the heavy Old Spanish pointer, which was not that dissimilar from the bracco, with the foxhound. The foxhound made it faster and more lightly built.
So there is a connection with the St. Hubert’s-type scent hound and the pointers. It’s just not as obvious as we might assume.
I’m assuming you’ve read “Meet Mr. Grizzly”–it’s one of my FAVORITE books involving training animals(mainly hunting dogs and horses)–people, DO NOT let the silly, inane title turn you away–Montague Stevens, the one-armed Englishman in late 1800’s New Mexico, was LIGHT YEARS ahead of his time in his humane respectful attitude towards his animals–I like this old fellow so much, I got a photo of him with his Bloodhounds and put it up in my dog room in my house! I HIGHLY recommend this book, and copies are always available from my favorite book catalog place, Dutch Salmon’s “High Lonesome Books” whom I have been ordering from for over a decade…….As for untypical types of dogs pointing–one of my 50% percentile wolf hybrids(her dog genetics were Nordic types, also not typical bird dogs) was MESMERIZED by birds, and pointed classically(tail up, paw raised) whenever she encountered all kinds of birds–mainly Ruffed Grouse where we lived. She would not hold a point long, and she was certainly not suitable to shoot over, and her idea of”retrieve” was to regugitate the bird and eat it again! But still, it was fascinating to me to see such an instinct in so primitive a dog type–it is easy to see how such a characteristic could be selected for, and eventually lead to our present day bird dog breeds–one of the most refined hunting behaviours in the dogworld!
I have not read it, but Mark Derr has a whole section on it in A Dog’s History of America.
Well, Retrieverrman, I suggest you order you a copy TODAY! “High Lonesome Books” has a website, as well as an old-fashioned paper catalog! Although Montague Stevens DID train his Bloodhounds to hunt game(specifically bear), he had to jump through all manner of hoops to get them to do it–Bloodhounds are NOT usually used(nor have they been bred for it for many, many generations) as hunting dogs for game–they are normally mantrailers–lost people, criminals, and, in the pre-civil War South, to trail runaway slaves. They are the ANTITHESIS of a good trail hunting hound–very large,slow and methodical, gentle, and rarely bay on the trail(despite what you’ve seen portrayed by Hollywood!)–perfect for trailing people(especially if you don’t want the people being trailed damaged!), but next to useless on wild game! Although Bloodhounds were certainly used to develop most or all the trailhound types used on wild game(mainly for their scenting ability, but little else….), they are still very different dogs. This is why it is SUCH a huge pet peeve of mine to see the stereotypic hillbilly as portrayed by Hollywood with a Bloodhound as his huntin’ dawg–“The Beverly Hillbillies”, “Hee-Haw”, etc. This is VERY INACCURATE, and gives people the wrong idea about Bloodhounds–I actually worked on a T. V. series filmed in Tennessee where I had a chance to correct this, and despite my apoplexy in trying, I failed to get this across to the director and other unknowledgable people on the subject–and they ended up using a dang Bloodhound as the “best hunting dawg in the mountains”!!!!! Hence my perpetual aggravation with this portrayal of Bloodhounds! Montague Stevens DID actually use them, but he was the exception, and he still required a whole support system of other types of dogs to hunt successfully with them……
Lane,
You are 100 percent correct about bloodhounds.
Bloodhounds are actually derived from English limers and Scottish sleuth-hounds.
A limer was a big heavy hound, probably derived from mastiffs, that would be put on a leash or “lyam,” where they would be put on a trail of a boar or deer. If the boar or deer was wounded, the dog would follow the blood spoor. That’s how we got the term bloodhound, not because they were “blooded hounds.”
The bloodhound is probably not the Chien de Hubert, which was a French-Belgian limer.
There are also German limers– the Hanoverian and the Bavarian. They are still used the same way. The Hanoverian is the one the Platz/Plott family brought into the mountains of NC. The Hanoverian breed still looks like a smaller brindle bloodhound. The American Plott hound has evolved on more a foxhound line.
The foxhounds are derived from other English hounds called raches. Raches could run down a boar or deer after the limer found them.
Check out this really good “real” history of the bloodhound:
http://www.bloodhoundclub.co.uk/history/
It will change the way you think.
It’s exactly the kind of breed history we need!