Pointer Origins
Firearms
With the improvement of
firearms, and the introduction of shooting
flying birds the use of pointers really came
into its own, and by the middle of the
eighteenth century they were being used all over
Europe, including England. In France, Louis XIII
was passionately fond of his dogs and allowed
them to sleep in some numbers on his bed, but
his contemporary, the Duc de Vendome, went even
further, allowing: "a crowd of pointers to sleep
on his bed and the bitches were permitted to
litter there!" Louis XIV always had seven or
eight of them in his apartments and used to feed
them himself so that they would know him better.
Their love for their dogs did not however extend
to their subjects who might dare to keep a
pointer without leave; ferocious laws and
ordinances were enforced against transgressors
and the dogs were destroyed, and the owners were
lucky if they did not meet a similar fate. All
this was an attempt to preserve their forests
and hunting grounds for themselves, and they saw
a very real menace in the use of pointers and
setting dogs by poachers. Charles X did not
however keep up the tradition, Elzear Blase
writes:
"Charles X was a great sportsman, he killed
from seven to eight hundred head a day; in
front of him passed unendingly partridges,
rabbits, hares and pheasants; there was only
the trouble of choice. In my opinion it was a
very dull amusement. The pleasure of the true
sportsman commences when his dog meets him;
Kings have no dogs or if have, no pointing
dogs, they use two hundred beaters. The
pleasure increases when the dog makes a good
point; Kings have never seen a dog on point.
The sportsman delights in gathering his bird;
Kings do not see dead game nearer than twenty
paces, touch it never. Their business is to
fire a thousand shots; a steam engine could do
it as well!"
During this period
France was recognised as the most civilised
country in Europe and the German Princes looked
towards France a model of sophisticated life,
and they imported more and more dogs from France
to use with their improved firearms.
Reproduced from "The
Origins and History of the German Shorthaired
Pointer" by Michael Meredith Hardy.
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