Perdigueiro Galego

Perdigueiro Galego

Other names	Galician Pointer Perdiguero Gallego
Origin	Galicia (Spain)
Traits Height Male 55 to 60 cm Female 50 to 55 cm
Domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris)

The Perdigueiro Galego is a breed of dog originating in Galicia, (Spain), and specializes in feathered game (partridge, woodcock, quail), and as pointing dog.

History and origin of the breed

Its origins date back to the ancient type of Bracco Italiano that originally came to Spain centuries ago with the Romans and settled throughout the area between the northern province of Lusitania and the Southwest, now France. The breed underwent morphological changes in the different geographical regions (biotypes), which led it to different breeds, depending on its adaptations to different media: Perdigueiro Português, Perdigueiro Galego, Perdiguero de Burgos (Burgalese Pointer), Pachón Navarro, Braco Español (also called Old Spanish Perro de Punta), Braque français, type Gascogne and Braque français, type Pyrénées (lighter). This type of dog, specifically the Perdigueiro Portugues and the Old Spanish Perro de Punta, which were subsequently led the English Pointer, and Perdiguero de Burgos originated the German Shorthaired Pointer.

Area of origin

Its area of origin comprises the entire northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula, with rugged terrain of forest and scrubland, with tojeras and abundant shrubbery, where there are few open spaces.

It was often seen in Orensenan zones A Mezquita and Viana do Bolo, as well as in the municipalities of Riós, Laza and A Veiga. From the seventies, with the introduction of foreign breeds, it was very mixed and virtually absorbed by the Pointers and German Shorthaired Pointers, which caused the decline and virtual disappearance of this breed. Right now it is trying to recover from the few specimens can still be found in varying purity, scattered throughout the provinces of Lugo and, above all, Ourense.

Utilization

Hunting dog in the form of pointing; ideal for the feather, it can also train for hunting hair.

Characteristics

General Characteristics

General appearance

Braccoid dog type (Mégnin P., 1897), medium size, well balanced and mesomorph; shapely, firm in appearance, with broad chest and, solid structure flexible, trotter, flexible movements, strong and resilient. It is excellent as pointing dog and great retriever both on land and in water. As claim the ancient farmers / hunters, some of its were born with cleft nose.

Temperament and behavior

Animal docile, obedient and affectionate, has a temperament of great courage and bravery in hunting, thus showing no fear against the gorse or with the silvas find and retrieve the piece struck down by the hunter. Has a great smell and is an active search, as well as both ventando and by trail, beat the ground with method, care and thoroughness, adapting to the most varied means and climates, maintaining continuous contact with the hunter, what transmits it, with its characteristic body attitudes, the captured olfactory impressions presenting a firm and rigid displays, with tense muscles, high tail and immobile head.

Works nearby the hunter, using alternately the trot to canter in its thorough search of the Galician closed and broken mountain terrain, being perfectly suited to this type of terrain, it shows no fear of finding and retrieving the folded piece by the hunter. It can also train for hunting hair (rabbit and hare).

Physical characteristics

Head

Large head (about 4/10 the height at withers), prism-shaped, broad, with cranio-facial lines converging (upper longitudinal axes of muzzle and skull). Straight profile, prominent occiput, with middle cranial suco reaching the face. Faced with large and well-developed sinuses. Frontonasal marked depression, with the same distance to the occiput than to the tip of the nose. Wide, straight and square snout big nose, equally wide at the end than at the base. sometimes exemplars may appear with the split nose. Thick lips and fallen, slightly exceeding the upper mandible, but without show feeling of weakness or drooling. Strong teeth and scissor bite. Big, bright, generally dark eyes, with attached lids and noble, kind expression; not present ectropion. leathers set: high, broad, large, thin and footprints in the face, without folds and the bottom edge rounded and oriented slightly forward.

Neck

Long, muscular neck, top straight or slightly arched , sometimes with a slight double chin in some exemplars, but very little relevant.

Trunk

Rectangular body and great thoracic capacity. Topline straight and level. Loins wide and short. Wide rump. Chest broad and deep, its perimeter in usually exceed in a quarter the height at the withers. Ribs long and slightly arched. Belly not very gathered. The tail is usually not excessively long, is thick and strong at the base, gradually thinning to the tip.

Extremities

Firm, vertical and straight. The forelimbs have somewhat inclined blades. Muscular arms. Elbows parallel to the median plane of the body, not closed or open. Forearms vertical with strong bone. Feet tend to be more round than oval, with black pads and nails pigmented or white.

The hind legs have long, broad, muscular and obliques thighs. Shanks parallel and extending to the vertical line of the handle. Metatarsals strong and thin, perfectly vertical. Feet a little more rounded than the front.

Movement

It is a animal of flexible movements with broad trot, rhythmic cadence, has not a long gallop, like its relative the English Pointer running long distances away from the hunter, in large tracts of land, open and free of vegetation; by contrast, it works closer to the man, alternately using the trot with the canter in the thorough search in the broken terrain and dense forest, forest with thick scrub of Galicia.

Coat

• Skin: The skin must be thin and tightly.
• Coat (color): White and pencada or dirty in brown, orange, cinnamon and black. Coat ternary , tricolor, white in brown or black, with tan markings on eyebrows and cheeks. Also uniform in brown, yellow or black.
• Hair: short, thick, very dense, smooth and rough.

Size

• Height at the withers: 50 to 60 cm .; males 55–60 cm .; females 50–55 cm.

Fouls

Any deviation from the foregoing points should be considered a failure, with the severity of this proportional to the degree of deviation from the standard. The most common may be the presence of ectropion and entropion, topline saddle, pointed snout, level bite, etc.

Defects

Originates the decrease more or less marked of some particular function of the animal, which can be full, partial or regional, depending on the extent to which is reduced the essential ability of the animal (lameness in extremities, ablation or mutilation in ears and tail, missing of teeth extractions, eye trauma with loss of vision, etc.).

Fouls or disqualifying defects

Are those characteristics that fit all the criteria mentioned in the breed standard, and are exclusive for itself, dependent on a genetic component features which are not covered, nor desired, in the racial prototype. In this regard it is important to exclude the presence of animals with mental abnormalities and with anatomic defects and / or type, linked to undesirable genes, such as instabilities or abnormal character imbalances, extreme aggression unprovoked, epilepsy, the absence of a testicle in the scrotal sacs (monorchidism and cryptorchidism), hip dysplasia, progressive retinal atrophy, incorrect walls of the dental arches (prognathism and enognatisms), the absence of more than two premolars or albinisms.

Shows

• Silleda (Feria Internacional Semana Verde de Galicia).

Breed associations

• Club de Raza do Perdigueiro Galego.