This breed still exists.
It’s just not called the “Old Spanish pointer” anymore.
The proper name is Perdiguero Navarro. Some of these dogs have the “double-nose” feature, which apparently made its way to the Bolivian Amazon, where it entered the village dog population.
The pointer or “English pointer” is derived from this dog, which was crossed with foxhounds to create it in its present form.
Great painting by a GREAT painter!
The Old Spanish Pointer does still exist…sort of.
What we need to understand is that there really never was a single breed called “Spanish Pointer”. It was a description given to dogs the first short haired pointing dogs brought to the UK by soldiers returning after the War of Spanish Succession around 1715. What’s more, the dogs were said to have come from Spain and Portugual and many probably came from the French side of the Pyrenees as well.
Today, there are three breeds of indigenous pointing dogs still being bred in Spain and one in Portugal. All are in various stages of recovery after nearly going extinct in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
In your entry, you mention that the Old Spanish Pointer is called the Perdiguero Navarro, but that is not quite right. The two native Spanish breeds still being bred today are the Pachón Navarro and the Perdiguero de Burgos.
Of the two, the Pachón Navarro is clearly the oldest and the closest breed we have to the old “Spanish Pointer” of days gone by. I’ve met the men who saved the breed from extinction and photographed their dogs. You can see photos here: http://www.craigkoshykphoto.ca/pachones08.html/
I have also met breeders of Peridguero de Burgos and photographed their dogs. You can see some of the photos here: http://www.craigkoshykphoto.ca/burgos.html/
Both breeds are in the hands of dedicated hunters and breeders who are proud of their dogs’ connection to the handsome fellow in the Stubbs painting you’ve posted.
Pachon Navarro= Perdiguero Navarro.
The other two are called Perdigueros, so I’m not going to rock the boat and use Pachon.
Yes, it is just another name, albeit rarely used nowadays and not officially recognized. But it does highlight just how interesting the whole “what’s in a name” subject can be.
You will certainly find cases where the term Perdiguero Navarro is used, especially in the literature before 1911.
However, as mentioned in my first comment, the old sources are not really describing breeds. They were putting names to “types” of dogs. So we see that dogs of the Pachón Navarro type were called Peridguero Navarro, or just plain Navarro or Perdiguero común, or Pachón de Vitoria or Pachón español. It really depended on what region they were in and the local name they went by.
When the first dogs shows were held in Spain around the turn of the 20th century, their names were standardized. The Pachón Navarro was recognized in 1911 by the Real Sociedad Canina de Espana (Royal Canine Society of Spain) and has been known in Spain by that name ever since. Currently there are two clubs for the breed there. The older, larger and more active of the two is the Círculo de Cazadores y Criadores del Pachón Navarro. Their website is here:http://www.pachon.info/contenido/index.php
The other club is the Club Del Pachón Español which, interestingly used to be called the Club Del Pachón Navarro. For reasons that are not quite clear (probably political) they changed Navarro to Español but they do include, in their logo, the names Pacho, Pachón Navarro and Pachón de Vitoria. Here is their website link: http://www.scpachonnavarro.com/
You also mention the other breeds from Spain and Portugal as being Perdigueros, and that is true for the Perdiguero de Burgos and Perdiguero Galego (Spanish) and the Perdigueiro Portugues (Portuguese Pointer, note the extra “i” in perdigueiro, when spelled in Portuguese). But the pointing breed from the island of Majorca (off the coast of Spain) is not called Peridguero, it is known by the name Ca Mè Mallorqui.
In any case, officially recognized names or not, as you point out, people still occasionally call the golden retriever a “yellow” or “Russian” retriever and so it is with some of the pointing breeds, they still go by different names here and there. Just ask some people if they have a Drahthaar or a German Wirehaired Pointer….the discussion will soon go well beyond “what’s in a name”!
Keep up the great posts on your excellent blog!!
http://www.kosmix.com/topic/pachon_navarro
It’s just another name, like calling it a golden retriever a yellow retriever or a Russian retriever (even thought it’s not Russian).
I looked it up. Pachon is an Asturian word, and Perdiguero is Castilian. Because Castilian is “Spanish,” I’m using that word, not Pachon.
You may think it’s a bit trivial, but for years Chesapeake Bay retrievers were called Chesapeake Bay dogs or Chesapeake duck dogs– not retrievers.
There was a huge debate on whether they were retrievers or not.
I’d rather this breed be classified with the Portuguese and Burgos perdigueros, so I’ll keep the nomenclature consistent.
I have issues with a lot of breed names. I would have counseled against calling the decoy of the Maritimes the “Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.” Every time I use that name, I get accused of making it up. “It’s a fake name for a golden retriever mix!”
Obviously those people don’t live in Nova Scotia. To those people, they are real.
Then call it the “Nova Scotia retriever.”
When you make the name that much longer, it sounds contrived.
They do… “toller.” But I suspect you’re right. It does sound like a name imposed on them by CKC show folks.
On the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, they are simply “Bay dogs”.
The double-nose of the Pachón Navarro is a trait that is sought after by many fanciers, as it is peculiar to this breed and also because it is said to be linked to exceptional scenting ability, although that is probably just a myth.
They have a reputation for being excellent family dogs with very nice temperaments.
A double or “split” nose is a feature that can occur in any dog breed. Several modern breed standards actually mention it, although they list it as a severe or disqualifying fault. Humans can also have a “double” nose. Doctors refer to it as a bifid nose and it is often associated with a median cleft palate and other structural malformations.http://www.springerimages.com/Images/MedicineAndPublicHealth/1-10.1007_s00381-008-0613-9-0
We will never really know why 16th century Spanish hunters decided that a split nose was something to select for in the Pachon, but they may have simply believed that “two is better than one”.
When I asked Carlos Contera, the man who revived the Pachon Navarro in the 80s and 90s why he made sure that the double nose remained in the breed he told me that it is one of the defining features of the Pachón Navarro and that they would not specifically select for it, but would not try to eliminate it either. So today, many Pachónes have a split nose but some do not. In fact, one of the clubs that represents the breed is actually completely against the split nose. Their goal is to eliminate it in the breed!
Even breeders that do select for it admit that it is simply a cosmetic issue and that the double nose is not better or worse that a single nose. They also note that about 10 to 15 percent of pups born with a double nose have such severe clefts in the palate that they are unable to suckle properly. They usually die very soon after birth or are quickly euthanised.