Pointer Breed Origins and Caracteristics
The pointer is the only breed of English short-haired pointers. It comes from Spain, where these pointers, called Pointing Dogs (perros de punta) were always raised. These dogs arrived to England at the beginning of the 18th century with English officers that had fought in Spain. The primitive type was slow and heavy and the English breeders crossed it with the Foxhound and with French lighter tracker dogs. Thus, the current pointer type was born, it has an excellent sense of smell and it explores the vast surfaces with great velocity and marks the sample very well. It works at great distance out of the gun reach and it does not allow the prey to leave before the hunter comes. A pointer can smell a partridge at 500 m. In its native country, England, the pointer should not pick up the prey so the quality of its sample may not suffer. Therefore, other breeds have been selected to do this task, the retrievers, which role is to recover the piece. The pointer was introduced to the European continent at the beginning of the 19th century where it was used as versatile dog.
We can have an idea of the appearance of the Iberian ancestors of the Pointer when we watch the Bordeaux hunting dog one of the most ancient breeds of Spanish pointers. It is in fact a good representative of the primitive type, very heavy. It is used for small game hunting.
In Portugal its close partner, the Portuguese hunting dog, is much appreciated because of. It is smaller and lighter and thus it has more mobility, but it is practically unknown in Portugal.
Pointer. Size: male 55-70 cm; female 50-65 cm. Weight: 25-30 kg. Colors: generally white with yellow, orange, brown (1) or black patches; the patches can be replaced by a dotted skin. There are also dogs that have only one of the aforementioned colors.
Bordeaux Pointer. Size: male 65-75 cm; female 62-70 cm. Weight: 25-30 kg. Colors: white with patches and reddish brownish-gray moles (2) and brownish reddish with white patches.
Portuguese Pointer. Size: male 56 cm; female 52 cm. Weight: 19-24 kg. Colors: generally chestnut, also white, yellow (3), reddish yellow or black. A combination of colors is accepted.
