Braque du Bourbonnais

The Braque du Bourbonnais is a breed of pointing dog, with a rustic appearance and health, born with a short tail, whose coat with a white background is entirely and finely speckled with brown ("wine lees" or "dark lilac"). “) or trout of tawny (“peach blossom”).

Distant origins The Braque du Bourbonnais was described for the first time during the Renaissance (Aldrovandi's Natural History, National Library). In danger of disappearing after the First World War, it experienced a new boom with the creation of a club in 1925. However, after the Second World War, the number of births decreased and this club declined until it ceased all activity. Disappearance From 1963 to 1973, there was no registration in the LOF (Book of French origins). This disappearance is undoubtedly due to a selection on secondary criteria, in particular the color of the dress (for which the breeders wanted a very particular "past lilac" shade) and the length of the tail (which must have been naturally short) . Working skills being sometimes forgotten, the breed was neglected by hunters. Recreation of the breed In 1970, Michel Comte decided to search for the last dogs that had Bourbonnais blood. He only found mongrels, each of which had some characteristics of the Braque du Bourbonnais (size, coat, shape of the head, short tail). The most striking of them, whose genes are still dominant in all current Bourbonnais, was Rasteau, a fawn male, also called Pyrrhus, whose father was Napo, the dog of singer Pierre Perret, of whom he made a song. After various more or less consanguineous crossings, he registered his first Braques du Bourbonnais as an initial title between 1973 and 1975; from then on, he united around him several breeders, who, from his dogs, created their own lines, and the number of births increased. In 1981, the Club du Braque du Bourbonnais was recreated. From this moment, the successes of the Bourbonnais in Field trials ensured him a fame which allowed the race to prosper. Introduced in 1988 in the United States, it has since flourished in the latter country.

Very often natural, frank, with a soft tooth. The Braque du Bourbonnais must have on the ground the behavior of an intelligent and passionate dog, of energetic pace, with a flexible character without excessive nervousness.