Interview with a Connoisseur

Xavier and a small herd of Braque Saint Germains

CK: Xavier, how did you first get interested in the French pointing breeds?
XT:  I must have been 14 or 15 when I got my first hunting permit, and I was initially attracted to two French breeds, the Braque Dupuy and Braque Saint Germain. But when I became a professional trainer later, I mainly trained and raised English Setters. However I found them to be overrated. Now, don't get me wrong, Setters are great dogs with loads of natural ability, but to me, they were just overrated. So I went in search of a dog that was not necessarily from the top breed in the world, but a dog that suited me. A combination of circumstances lead me to the Braque Saint Germain and, by extension, to the world of our old French breeds. The more I got to know them, the more I fell in love with them.  I realized that all our old breeds were developed to serve hunters in the various regions of France, that they were created by the hunters, game and terrain found there.


CK: In your opinion, in what way do the French breeds differ from the other pointing breeds from England, Germany and elsewhere?
XT: They reflect the same differences that we can see when we compare the people and cultures found in those countries. The large variety of our breeds is due to the simple fact that they were created to suit the needs of the local hunters and average citizen of the area they come from. The major difference between the English and French breeds is also due to different breeding systems. English breeders developed a more sophisticated breeding system than the French.  To perfect the Pointer for example, the English used our Braques to lighten it, and then proceeded from there. We then adopted the English style and either anglicised our breeds by crossing them to Setters or Pointers or we abandoned them. On the German side, they turned to greater versatility, so they needed a different kind of dog, with a stronger character, but still easy to train. 

Braque Dupuy

CK: The French canine system has always faced the same challenges as canine systems in other countries. Egos and politics always play a role and make things difficult, especially in France where it seems that arguing has been raised to an art form. But despite all that, the French have created more pointing breeds than any others and they continue to produce some of the best dogs in the world. How is that possible? How can so many good breeds and good dogs come from a system that always seems to be at war with itself?
XT: Our system is becoming increasingly messed up, more and more people are breeders in name only and the system focuses only on the here and now, not on the long term. The rules are constantly changing and many clubs are now lead by people who are not there to manage a breed, but are there to use the club to promote a single line, usually their own. Too many breeders have no long term goals, their dogs are no longer being selected in a truly objective way, they are guided only by subjective criteria. Personally, I believe that if a breeder doesn't have long term, consistent goals and demonstrates strict selection criteria, he or she should not be allowed to breed. But French breeders reflect their Gallic heritage, they are guided more by passion than by logic and they can produce excellent dogs and we have created fantastic breeds.  


CK: What do you see in the future of French breeds? Which breeds are in decline? Which ones are on the rise? Are French hunters returning to the old French breeds or is Anglomania still strong in France?
XT: Anglomania will continue to be strong among French hunters, but some of the old breeds like the Braque d'Auvergne are on the rise. However, others are in decline, unfortunately. And the reasons are always linked to the people involved often at the club level. What happens far too often is that a gang of incompetent people seeking to gain an advantage over another gang of incompetent people, takes over a club. And the result is almost always the same, the breed's field abilities decline. If we want to improve all these old breeds our selection needs to focus less on creating the perfect dog and more on creating more good dogs. When I see an excellent dog that no one uses for their breeding program simply because it lacks a minor point in terms of breed type, for example, it makes me furious. Our French breeds are fragile and will follow the decline of the overall population of hunters I'm afraid. The ONCFS (Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage) had a repository of ancient dog breeds, but faced with a lack of interest on the part of the breed clubs and other stupidity, the program fell apart.

Braque d'Auvergne

CK: How do French breeders and hunters feel about the growing number of people outside of France that are now interested in the French breeds? It seems to me that there is very little effort to promote the French breeds outside of France, where there is a growing interest and a market. Aside from the Épagneul Breton, the other French breeds are almost completely unknown outside of France, why?
XT: Because too many French breeders are no longer breeders, they are salesmen who consider anyone with 'his breed' abroad as potential competition. I'd say that 80% of litters produced by our so-called 'breeders' do nothing for the breed.  80% are produced without any specific purpose, without selection of any kind. And that is why I got out of breeding.  Too few breeders actually breed. Many believe they do, but they don't. Breeding means implementing a strict selection process to improve the breed. It is not about stroking one's ego, or about self-promotion and selling to the masses etc. Anyone who isn't in the process of implementing a 5 generation plan is not breeding, they are just producing puppies. 

Breeding means 15, 20, 30 years of dedicated work, of whelping puppies, keeping the unsold ones, training young dogs and competing with adult dogs. It means having breeding plans for many years in advance. It means understanding that just because faults don't appear, that they are not there, it means being able to step back to see your breeding program objectively.  Too many breeds now face an uncertain future because too many breeders are seeking the one 'perfect' specimen. But there are no perfect dogs and even a near-perfect specimen may contribute very little to the breed overall because when a gene pool gets too small, the breed will die out.  The wealth of a breed is in its diversity! Nothing good can come from a narrow-minded breeding program run by a kennel blind breeder.

CK: What advice do you have for someone outside of France interested in a dog from one of the French breeds, a Braque,  épagneul or griffon ? How does one find a good dog, a good breeder?
XT: I'd advise them to look elsewhere than the breed club. Look at the listings of litters and pups published by the French kennel club, and then contact the breeder to ask for pedigree and breeding program information. If you live abroad you will need to find someone over here that you can trust to help advise you, and if you can travel, then you should go see the parents in the field.  Avoid like the plague any breeder who bad-mouths other breeders just to talk up their own dogs. Avoid like the plague so-called 'experienced' breeders who've only been at it for 5 years and have had a grand total of two litters (you can generally find them on the board of directors of the breed club). Flee from all those who claim to have the best dog in the land, but always has a sketchy reason to never actually prove it in competition or tests. Avoid any breeder that does not hunt with his or her dogs! And for some breeds, look for a breeder outside France.

Braque du Bourbonnais

CK: Thank you Xavier
XT: You are very welcome!


 


Version française

CK : Quand as-tu développé ton intérêt pour les races françaises et pourquoi?
XT : Tout d'abord, j'ai été attiré par deux races françaises : le Dupuis et le BSG. Je devais avoir 14 ou 15 ans au moment de mon premier permis. Devenu dresseur professionnel plus tard, j'ai élevé du Setter anglais, mais ce dernier pour ma part était surfait, plein de qualités certes, mais surfaites. Je me suis donc mis en quête du chien non pas idéal, mais qui me correspondait. Un concours de circonstances m'a fait entrer dans le monde du BSG et, par extension, dans le monde de nos vieilles races que j'ai appris à connaître et à aimer. J'ai trouvé dans chacune de nos vieilles races un animal de terroir, un outil adapté à un territoire, adapté à des hommes, à une chasse, chaque chien de ces races françaises correspond à ce pour quoi il a été créé pour la majorité.


CK : À ton avis, comment et pourquoi est-ce que les races françaises sont différentes par rapport aux autres races de chiens d'arrêt? Anglaises, allemandes, etc.
XT : Elles sont différentes, comme le sont les hommes. La variété de nos races est due au simple fait que suivant leurs besoins nos paysans ou nos éleveurs ont sélectionné le chien qu'il leur fallait. Le fait qu'il y ait autant de différences entre chiens anglais et français est dû aussi à l’élevage. L'éleveur anglais sait évoluer dans l’élevage, le français non! Pour perfectionner le Pointer, les Anglais ont eu recours à nos braques afin de l’alléger, ils ont évolué. Nous, nous avons de tout temps suivi la mode et l’anglicisation de nos races ou leur abandon pur et simple. Du coté allemand, ils se sont tournés vers la polyvalence, donc il leur a fallu un autre type de chien, plus fort de caractère tout en restant corvéable.


CK : Le système canin français rencontre les mêmes défis que les systèmes canins dans d'autres pays. L'ego et la politique des hommes peuvent rendre les choses difficiles, surtout en France où s'engueuler est un art. Malgré tout, les Français ont créé plus de races de chiens d'arrêt que tout autre peuple et ils continuent de produire parmi les meilleurs chiens au monde. Comment est-ce possible? Comment tant de bons chiens peuvent-ils encore venir d'un système qui semble être en guerre constante contre lui-même?
XT : Notre système devient de plus en plus difficile, de plus en plus de gens n'ont rien à faire en tant qu’éleveur. Notre système, pour nos vieilles races, ne donne des résultats que sur un instant et sur un élevage. Les règles changent constamment au gré des dirigeants de club qui, en général, ne gèrent pas une race par l’intermédiaire d'un club, mais une souche; de façon générale, la leur. Le chien n'est plus vraiment sélectionné sur de vrais critères, mais juste sur des critères subjectifs. Trop d’éleveurs élèvent sans but, personnellement si un éleveur doit élever sans vraiment de but cohérent et une évidente sélection, il ne devrait pas pouvoir le faire. Mais l'éleveur français reste avant tout un passionné, l'éleveur français est resté gaulois dans l'esprit comme le résumait si bien Sénèque, je crois.


CK : Que vois-tu dans l'avenir des races françaises? Lesquelles sont en déclin? Lesquelles sont à la hausse? Les chasseurs français retournent-ils aux vieilles races françaises ou est-ce que l'anglomanie est toujours aussi forte?
XT : L'anglomanie restera toujours aussi forte, car dans l'esprit des chasseurs, leur race est la meilleure « du moins tant qu'ils n'en changent pas ». Certaines vieilles races ont le vent en poupe, le braque d'Auvergne, par exemple, d'autres sont malheureusement en déclin, les causes sont toujours humaines. En général, une bande d'incapables cherche à prendre l'avantage sur une autre bande d'incapables mais, de façon générale, ils se retrouvent toujours pour nuire à ceux qui eux travaillent sur le terrain. L'élevage de toutes ces vieilles races devrait être quantitatif et non qualitatif. Quand je vois un chien bourré de qualités ne pas reproduire juste parce qu'il manque légèrement de type, par exemple, cela me fait bondir. Les races françaises sont fragiles et suivront le déclin des chasseurs. L'ONCFS avait fait un conservatoire des vieilles races de chien, mais devant l'inintérêt des clubs ou, pour certains autres, leur virulence cette heureuse initiative est tombée à l'eau.


CK : Comment est-ce que les éleveurs et les chasseurs français perçoivent les gens de l'extérieur de la France qui s'intéressent aux races françaises? Il me semble y avoir peu d'effort fait pour promouvoir ces races à l'extérieur des frontières, là où il existe un intérêt croissant et un marché. Mis à part le Breton, les autres races françaises sont inconnues en dehors de la France, pourquoi?
XT : Juste parce que l’éleveur français n'est plus éleveur, mais un bon marchand qui voit dans le développement de « Sa race » à l’étranger une concurrence potentielle. Pour beaucoup, leur élevage est bon vu qu'ils exportent. 80% des portées faites par « des éleveurs » ne le sont pas par intérêt de la race, 80% sont faites sans but, sans sélection d'aucune sorte. J'ai arrêté le chien pour toutes ces raisons. Peu d’éleveurs élèvent.  Beaucoup le croient, mais peu le font. Élever c'est sélectionner pour améliorer la race et non flatter l'ego, s'auto-recommander, s'auto-déclarer, etc. Ne pas voir plus loin que les cinq générations à venir ne s'appelle pas élever, mais produire.

CK : Donc pour quelqu'un en dehors de la France qui s'intéresse à une belle race française, braque ou épagneul, que lui conseillerais-tu? Comment peut-il trouver un bon chien, d'un bon éleveur?
XT : Je lui conseillerais de prendre conseil ailleurs que dans les clubs, regarder les naissances auprès de la SCC, ensuite demander aux éleveurs une projection de pedigrees. Et ensuite, se renseigner, si vous habitez à l'étranger faites confiance à une personne sur place et si vous pouvez vous déplacer demandez à voir les parents sur le terrain. Pas de terrain, pas d'achat. Évitez comme la peste ceux qui pour valoriser un élevage en casse un autre, les éleveurs savants qui élèvent depuis cinq ans et ont fait deux portées (en général ils dirigent ou font partie du club de race). Fuyez tous ceux qui ont le meilleur chien du canton, mais qui pour x raisons n'ont pu faire de concours. Fuyez celui qui n'utilise pas ses chiens sur le terrain! Et pour certaines races, achetez votre chien dans de bons élevages hors de France.


CK: Merci Xavier
XT: Je t'en prie.

The Braque Dupuy

The origins of the Braque Dupuy have been the subject of speculation since it first appeared on the French gundog scene in the mid-1800s. No one knows exactly how the breed came to be, but it was probably created by hunters who bred sight hounds to French braques.


The first such crosses are said to have occurred in 1808 at the kennels of Omer and Narcisse Dupuy, hunters in the Poitou region of France. Apparently the Dupuys were impressed by the hunting skills of a sighthound named Rémus belonging to one of their friends. They were also frustrated with their own braques. They found them to be too heavy and close-working. So, in an effort to develop a dog with the speed of a sight hound and the firm point of a braque, the Dupuy brothers bred Rémus to two of their bitches. Three pups from the first two litters were kept and then bred back to their best braques. That second cross produced a dog with all the qualities they were seeking. They named him Rémus in honor of his grandsire, and bred him to a female braque named Léda. Pups from that breeding were the first to be considered true Braques Dupuy.


The breed struggled to gain acceptance in its early days, and by about 1850 was in serious trouble. But a man named Gaston Hublot is credited with reconstructing it and even wrote a book about the breed, Le Chien Dupuy, in 1899. In terms of appearance they resembled sight hounds more than braques. They were very tall and had a short white and liver coat. Some may have had black and white coats.

The Dupuy Pointer is a big upstanding dog with considerable elegance in his movements. The head is narrow and long. Occipital bone prominent, muzzle long, lean and slightly arched. Eyes golden brown in color with a rather melancholy expression. … Stern [tail] long, set low and carried like a greyhound’s tail.

In terms of hunting style there seems to be a difference of opinion. Some authors describe the Dupuy as a fast dog that excelled at hunting on the plains. Others write that it was more of a trotter. In a letter published in Le Chenil in June of 1887, a Mr. O. Pineau, who had been around Braques Dupuy for most of his life, explained that it may have been a bit of both.

The Dupuy has a lot of drive; when young and rested it searches at a gallop; if it is affected by age or fatigue, its pace is a fast trot. In action, it holds the head high, into the wind, but when a partridge runs, it follows all the twists and turns of its trail, sometimes putting its nose where the game placed its feet. The Dupuy retrieves quail or partridge naturally when he has seen other dogs do it. But the use of the force collar is often necessary to make it retrieve a hare that it finds a bit heavy, or strong smelling waterfowl that it is not used to.

In another account, the breed is described as being similar to the English Pointer.

The Braque Dupuy is very much like the English Pointer in build, but his head is squarer, and he is stouter on his pins [legs]. He is a moderately fast ranger, and a clever finder of game, very stanch and steady. When brought-up to it he does not mind rough work, but few of them go well to water. They are dashing workers, and are very greatly prized. I have seen a brace that would come to their points at awful distances, by a tropical heat; hence, for the hot departments of France they are admirably suited. (Walter Esplin Mason, Dogs of All Nations, 48)

After the First World War, the Braque Dupuy went into a steep decline, and had all but disappeared by the 1950s. In 1960, Jean Castaing wrote:

If, here and there, we see, very rarely, a dog called a Braque Dupuy, it is most often a bastard of unknown origins whose sighthound look is more or less of the Dupuy type. I do not believe that there is an organized breeding program even though breeders try from time to time to reconstitute this artificial dog that had its moment of glory mainly due to a desire to create a French version of the [English] Pointer.

My friend Christophe Oriou, an avid hunter and field trial enthusiast, lived in the Poitou region in the 1990s. While there, he did some research into the breed.

I discovered that the last Dupuy with a real pedigree belonged to Mr. Charpentier, a dentist in the village of St. Jean de Sauves. His wife showed me some color photographs of the dog—it had died in 1964. It was very moving to realize that I was looking at the very last Braque Dupuy. After him, the breed disappeared without a trace!

Strangely, despite that fact that no one has actually bred a Braque Dupuy in over half a century, the FCI continues to publish the breed’s official standard and still lists it in Group 7 for pointing dogs. There are even people in Europe qualified to judge the breed—even though they have never seen a Braque Dupuy! But there is a logical explanation for this seemingly bizarre situation. It was Michel Comte, the father of the modern Braque du Bourbonnais, who explained it to me.

Under certain circumstances, a breed that is thought to be extinct can still be listed. It is a way of “keeping the porch light on”. In other words, if someone decides to revive the breed from whatever remnants can be found, there will still be an official standard to use as a guide and there will be judges ready to evaluate the dogs. In fact, if it were not for this peculiar policy of the SCC, the Braque du Bourbonnais would have never been recreated. 

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

One of the more interesting things I discovered when I was researching the various French breeds of pointing dogs for my book was how much information there is to be found on them in the old English sporting press from the mid to late 1800s. In fact, for some breeds, there is more information in English than in French.

And now that I am writing my second book, this time on the British and Irish breeds, I am re-reading many of the same old books, but with an eye for references to Setters and Pointers. Unfortunately, even though the stories themselves are fascinating, a lot of them were written by unbelievably arrogant English snobs who regarded France as a third world country and its inhabitants as illiterate heathens. A few of them are so over the top, they sound like Donald Trump talking about Mexicans.

Anyway, here is a short passage from a book called "The sportsman in France : comprising a sporting ramble through Picardy and Normandy, and boar shooting in Lower Brittany" written in 1841. It is about how the author found and purchased a well bred-setter near Abbeville, France.



"It came to pass, that, being at Abbeville, in 1829, 1 was induced to shoot my way to Amiens, via the marshes on the banks of the Somme. On my return, and when about half way from home, my attention was attracted to a dog in the swamp, which was beating and quartering his ground in a very superior manner : the style of going, the pace, the action, and that indescribable dashing and swinging of the stern, which betrays high breeding, were so unusual in that part of the world, that I was induced to approach the chasseur, whom, to my astonishment, I found to be a Frenchman.

After the interchange of as many bows as would suffice for an Englishman during the term of his natural life, I ventured to observe, " that he had a nice dog with him." He answered me by stating that it was a '' sacre chienne Anglaise,'' and of the '' veritable race," but that she would not remain close to him, and always beat her ground at too great a distance to suit him.

I then inquired where he picked up the dog. He told me candidly, that he believed the mother to have been stolen, as she had strayed from the servant of an English gentleman, on the road from Boulogne ; that she was in pup at the time ; and that the animal before me was one of the litter. "

I've embedded the book below. But be forewarned; there are some passages that may make you want to say the following to the author:


Click on the right or left to leaf through the pages or on the link to read the book at archive.org

Modder Rhu

Modder Rhu by Craig Koshyk on Exposure