portuguese pointer

PORTUGUESE POINTER - PORTUGUESE POINTING DOG (Perdigueiro Português) DATE OF PUBLICATION OF THE ORIGINAL STANDARD IN FORCE: 19.09.1967. UTILIZATION: A tenacious seeker and active walker, the Portuguese Pointer stalks the terrain with the steadfastness and persistence of a stubborn explorer, searching earnestly for what brought him to the field; he puts the extraordinary subtlety of his flair at the service of his tiring mission and gives to the quest all the attention that his hunting instinct, his knowledge of the terrain and his experience call for. He is a sagacious worker and an indispensable and disinterested collaborator of the sport hunter, with whom he must advance in perfect agreement. It acts noiselessly with natural vivacity, head held high, sniffing the air in such a way as to reveal to the hunter the emanations collected by its sense of smell and to awaken it by its postures, its looks, the position of its tail and again by his way of walking. The good Portuguese Pointing Dog always shows a very marked desire to work with intelligence and, sometimes, even with surprising and astute skill. He stops as soon as the scent of game awakens his sense of smell; he then stops firmly, in a paradoxical attitude caused by a state of excitement which is particular to him: contracted facies, haggard eye, staring gaze, ears in a listening position, head motionless, tail straight, one limb raised; as soon as his sense of smell has perceived the emanations given off by the proximity of the game, he is at times indifferent to what is happening around him. Not at all selfish, he associates himself with a marked joy with the pleasure that man feels in practicing hunting sport; whatever the temperature and the quality of the ground, its greatest interest is to hunt to death; once the game has fallen, his greatest reward is to fetch the wounded game and bring it back to the hunter. Thanks to his exceptional vocation, which, in equal circumstances, does not fear comparison, he carries out his work admirably in the service of man. FCI CLASSIFICATION: Group 7 Pointing Dogs. Section 1.1 Continental Pointing Dogs, pointer type. With work trial.

With regard to its origin, it would be risky to affirm peremptorily as certain a determined origin, because it is currently still unknown; it would only be a hypothetical assertion which would not be based on indubitable facts and which would lack the necessary confirmation. Possibly coming from the Orient, the existence of pointing dogs in the Iberian Peninsula dates back to a fairly distant period; its presence in Portugal is recorded with some likelihood from the last decades of the 14th century. If this is so, we can admit that over time and as a result of influences of different kinds, the modifications produced in the original individual are found in the current dog. Under these conditions, we can consider the Portuguese pointing dog or braque national as an autochthonous dog, constituting by its morphological, dynamic and psychic characteristics a perfectly well-defined local breed. The Portuguese pointing dog lives scattered throughout the metropolitan territory, but is found in greater numbers in the cities, where the disciples of Saint Hubert are more numerous.

It is an extremely affectionate animal, very submissive, sometimes even becoming importunate to indecent when, for lack of education, it obeys neither gestures nor commands. Very sociable animal, but somewhat petulant towards its fellows. Of a graceful appearance, he has a calm but lively temperament and his attitudes are of an interesting plasticity.