Old Spanish Pointer
Old Spanish Pointer from 1915.
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| Other names | Old Spanish Pointer Spanish Pointer Old Spanish Perro de Punta Braco Español |
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| Origin | Spain |
| Breed status | Extinct |
| Domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) | |
The Old Spanish Pointer or Perro de Punta Español was a breed of dog originating in Spain, believed to be the greater ancestor of all Pointing dogs (except Italian gundogs).
This breed hunted since yesteryear in Spain. Roman writers of the first century, Pliny or Sallustius, comment in their works the existence of dogs from Hispania that were used for hunting birds with net by its detecting efficiency. Centuries later, the Muslim conquerors arrived from the Middle East, besides covering their armies almost of the Iberian Peninsula, shared with the inhabitants its century hunting arts, falconry case. These conquerors were pleasantly surprised when they found hunting dogs that raised the monks of the time a very useful behavior in the application of the hunting with their prey: this dogs stopped when they found the piece -always birds- and remained motionless until that the net of the crossbow prevent it fly away. At this point, the falconry joined to the Spanish Pointer as a perfect mechanism to locate and mark the position of the bird to the hawk pass to action. Since then, the function of the pointing dog has adapted to the technology involved in the hunt, making it the most effective assistant of the hunter of species of smaller hunting.
Alonso Martinez del Espinar described it in 1644, as "an animal of great work, and its breath and agility is so great that from morning to night non-stop run; there are some so light that seem to fly above the ground, and when the dog is skilled in bumping tracking these birds multiply until these proceedings until it stop it that is that it want which follows". (Chapter XXXVII of Arte de Cetrería).
Many authors experts in the arts of hunting and the dogs have exposed at the origin of the pointing dogs is in Spain.
It is the British who most consistently mentioned the Spanish Pointer or Perro de Punta Español, breed of short and brown coat and brought to England in the 17th and 18th centuries. So Stonehengue, a pointer cinófilo scholar, wrote in the late 19th century, it has been created the modern Pointer partly by crosses of the old Spanish Pointer, selecting the lighter and faster specimens of this old Spanish breed.
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Wikipedia