An orange and white French Brittany.
A Brittany or Epagneul Breton is a French HPR. It is the smallest of the HPR’s, although in America, it is often thought of the smallest breed of setter. I am uncomfortable calling it a setter. The French have several spaniel-type HPR’s, including the Picardy, Blue Picardy, and French spaniels. The Brittany fits within this family, although it has a little different history.
Poachers in Brittany wanted a small bird dog that could point the nobles’ pheasants and partridge. The poachers would then net the birds and get the heck out. The last thing they needed was a long-quartering pointing dog that would draw attention to the poachers.
The ancestry of the Brittany is not well-documented. The French have a history of short-tailed dogs in their gun dog lines. The Bourbonnais pointer often is born with a naturally short-tail. The Brittany is sometimes born with this trait, so it is often suggested that both descend from some landrace bird dog-type with brachyury. (The Bourbonnaiss pointer was reconstructed with some Brittany blood crossed in).
The Brittany became a relatively common gun dog in North America following the Second World War. We North Americans adapted it to our style of hunting. We bred them with longer legs and more gracile frames. We bred them to quarter out father afield, although they don’t typically quarter in the same wide range as other “index” dogs. We also don’t breed them to come in any colors besides liver and white, tricolored liver, or orange and white, the most common color.
The French, on the other hand, have maintained the original type. It does not quarter in a wide range at all. It is still a dog that is typically accompanied on foot, and it comes in black and tan tricolor and black and white.
I mistook the first black and white Brittany I ever saw for a springer. Springers, though, don’t point, and most of them like to quarter out really wide.
Now, in North America, we tend to call this shorter-legged and multi-colored dog the “French Britanny,” which is a bit of a redundancy. Brittany (Breton) is in France, and its people speak a Celtic language similar to Welsh and Cornish. However, because we have a different version of the same basic dog in this country, we have to call them French Brittanys. It is redundant, but it works.
I grew up with a Brittany (the CKC/AKC version, not the French variety) and after she had passed, I ran into some people who owned a French Brittany, and was a little confused over the obvious differences for a bit. So thanks for the differentiation. I did notice that the French brit I met seemed to have a lot more unfocused ‘hyper energy’ although I’m not sure that the dog was being used to his full potential (he was a family dog, not a hunting dog).
For anyone reading this, BTW, Brittanys do make great family dogs if they get enough exercise – they are very much wanting to please their owners, are great with kids, not too big (although now I prefer the larger retrieving types :) and are great for the family person who hunts or spends time in the bush on occasion.
Thanks for the post.
PS how is the job hunt going?
Job hunt is going well. I have a meeting/interview Tuesday.
Funny, my father always had the same race of dogs, different from the ones in the magazines and so we thought the dogs wasn’t totally with pedigree. Thanks to your article I went for reasearch and discovered our dogs are Brittany Spaniels and the ones in the hunt magazines are French Brittany :)