Spinone Italiano

Rough-haired pointing dogs have been present on the Italian peninsula since at least the Renaissance, and Italian art from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries shows heavy, bearded hunting dogs of recognisably similar type. The precise ancestry is disputed, with theories involving old Italian setting dogs, coarse-coated hounds and imported griffon types, but the modern breed took its present form in Piedmont during the nineteenth century, where it was the standard dog of hunters working wet lowland and river country.

The Second World War came close to ending the breed. Numbers collapsed, and the surviving dogs were scattered, some kept working by partisans in the north. In 1949 a group of Italian enthusiasts formed a breed society, La Famiglia dello Spinone, to gather what remained and rebuild a consistent population from it. International recognition followed in 1955, and the Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiana has maintained the standard since.

The breed spread slowly beyond Italy. It reached Britain in the 1980s and was granted Kennel Club championship status there, and the American Kennel Club admitted it to the Sporting Group in 2000. It remains uncommon everywhere outside Italy, where it is still widely used for hunting, and outside its homeland it is more often kept as a family dog than as a working gundog.

The Spinone is a large, powerfully built dog of almost square proportions. Males stand roughly 23.5 to 27.5 inches at the withers and weigh about 70 to 82 pounds, while females measure around 23 to 25.5 inches and weigh roughly 62 to 66 pounds. The bone is heavy, the chest deep and broad, and the muscling solid rather than sculpted; the characteristic gait is a relaxed, extended trot the dog can hold for hours.

The coat is rough, thick, flat and slightly stiff, about one and a half to two and a half inches long on the body, shorter on the head, ears and lower legs, with no undercoat to speak of. The face carries the breed's trademark furnishings: a stiff beard and moustache and long, coarse eyebrows that shield the eyes in thorny cover. Recognised colours are solid white, white with orange markings, orange roan, white with brown markings, and brown roan; black is not permitted. The eyes are large, round and ochre to dark yellow depending on coat colour, and the ears are long, triangular and hanging. The skin is thick, a practical adaptation to working through brambles and reeds.

The Spinone's reputation for good nature is well earned. It is sociable, docile and patient, generally excellent with children, welcoming to visitors and unusually tolerant of other dogs, and it lacks the nervous edge found in some hard-driving gundogs. It bonds closely to its household and dislikes solitude, and many owners describe a dog that follows them from room to room and leans on them at every opportunity.

It is also, by common consent, stubborn. The breed is intelligent and perfectly capable of learning what is asked, but it does things at its own pace and will occasionally decide that a request can wait. Combined with real sensitivity, this means training progresses through patience and good humour rather than repetition or pressure; a Spinone that is nagged simply becomes slower.

Energy levels are moderate rather than extreme. This is a dog with tremendous endurance at a steady pace and comparatively little interest in frantic activity, which makes it calmer in the house than most large gundogs once its needs are met. Young Spinoni are boisterous, clumsy and slow to mature, often staying puppyish in behaviour well past two years, and the beard means water and food travel across the kitchen with them.

In Italy the Spinone remains a serious hunting dog. It works marshland, riverbank, scrub and rough ground, quartering methodically within gunshot, pointing game birds with a low, deliberate stance and retrieving from land and from water, in which it swims strongly and willingly. Its thick skin and coat let it push through thorns that would stop a smooth-coated dog, and its measured pace suits a hunter walking rather than riding. It is also used on hare and, in some regions, for tracking wounded game.

For owners who do not shoot, the Spinone adapts well to a range of activities: gundog working tests and dummy retrieving, tracking and scent work, long hikes and steady countryside walking. Its patient nature and appealing appearance have made it a successful therapy dog in some countries. It will bark at the door but is far too friendly to serve as a guard. Because it is calm indoors, apartment life is possible for a genuinely committed owner, though the size, the shedding beard and the daily exercise requirement all count against it.