Choosing a Bracco Italiano as your pet

Bracco's are loving, kind dogs that get on with everyone and anything.

But you need to bear in mind, with any breed of dog is a big commitment and a dog is a life changing commitment.

As a child my Aunt had a Red Setter which I adored, the eye's of "lucy" remind me of her, also her temperament.

They make fantastic Gun /fielddogs and it is lovely to watch them at work, even in the garden they will point, track and retrieve.

My three year old loves Bracco's and they love to play together with tennis balls in  the garden.

I have found them hard to house train compared to my other breeds, but that just might be how they were brought up.

I will find out more with my first litter.

Bracco's do make good house pets as there coats are easy to keep clean and are easy to train to wipe their feet.

I find they love good quailty settee's lol. They do demand a lot of time, and do need a lot of affection, they are at their best as working dogs or people with a lot of time to spend with them/Companion dogs.

There are health problem in the breed like any breed, so it  is a good  idea to go to person/breeder who tests there dogs. Sadly there are not all the test available that the breed needs, so best to see both parents. As some of the dogs suffer with poor kidney functions, eye disorders, poor confirmation.

The best place to look for a bracco pup is the official Bracco Italiano club site.http://www.bracco-italiano.co.uk/

History of the Bracco

Breed Standard of the Bracco

Iven here is clearly showing how outstanding is his confirmation is and how close he is to the breed standard he is. With his parents having low hip score and elbows. Iven being pick of his litter we are so over the moon with him

Breeding Ethics

Like all my breeds, I would never breed from poor quailty-temperment un-healthy dogs, we breed to improve..

I bought from lines that have the lowest hip/elbow scores in the UK, With HD, ED being hereditary it is parmount to the breed, too use dogs from low hip /elbow score bloodlines/family members.

Quote from a hip /Elbowexpert:

"Conscientious (ethical)breeders attempt to reduce the incidence of HD by carefully selecting dogs from families with lower incidences of this disease. Knowing the hip status of as many family members as possible helps breeders select dogs with a greater chance of producing offspring with normal hips. Knowing the elbow status of as many family members as possible helps breeders improve their probability of producing puppies with normal elbows."

I also bought from some of the best winning bloodlines in the UK that are winning at top level.

All my dogs have genetic tests carried out if the breed has them to carry out.

My Bracco's will be hip scored at around 2 years old.

Bracco's origin from Italy and first came to England in 1989, The bracco's are worked with the gun and are trained to point and retrieve.

In Italy the Bracco is held in high esteem as a working gundog and today the breed enters more field trials than any other breed.  Its popularity has outstripped all the other gundog breeds available in Italy. Braccos are at their happiest then they are doing there job!

Hips in the breed

The average hip score in the breed is a total of 19 (in 2003).

Exercise

It appears that dogs that are genetically can suffer from hip dyslpasia Exercise may have an increased incidence of disease if they over-exercise at a young age.  But at the same time, it is know that dogs with large and prominent let muscle mass are less likely to contract the disease than dogs with small muscle mass.  So, exercising and maintaining good muscle mass may actually decrease the incidence of the disease.  Moderate exercise that strengthens the gluteal muscles, such as running and swimming, is probably a good idea.  Whereas, activities that apply a lot of force to the joint are contraindicated, an example would be jumping activities such as playing frisbee.

It is also fact that more dogs over the weight over 30Kg suffer more than dogs under this weight.

Hip Dysplasia can be brought on also by poor diet, and the wrong kind of exercise from young pups.  Over weight dogs.  Even injury can give a poor hip score.

Each hip is scored out of 53 points.  Both hips added together would be 106 points.  Each breed has a BMS (British Mean Score)  The Bracco is 19 so that would look something like 9:10 on a dog.  Obviously the lower the score the better.   Sometimes an accident which has nothing to do with HD can result in the hip joint being a higher score on one leg.  ie injury.