Study of the details of the functional typicality of hunting breeds in the context of the fundamental criteria of the classification of dog breeds
The history of the dog is in many ways the history of man; or, at least, it is connected to it by various factors inherent in the various needs, the ambitions, the various whims of man. Thus, nowadays, we have a very wide range of dogs which scrupulously reflects the three general prerogatives, mentioned above, which determined them.
Apart from the starting conditions, dog breeds, once formed or established, it was logical that it was necessary to classify them.
Several zoologists, which we do not mention, tried their hand over time to give the canine population an order, a rough distribution and a classification.
The typological division that arrived to us with the critical objectivity of our most distinguished cynologist - Solaro - and with his convinced acceptance is that of the French zoologist Pierre Mègnin, in many respects the simplest and most organic.
The Mègnin divides all dog breeds into four large groups: Lupoide. Braccoid. Molosser, Graioide. In each group he considers five Subgroups based on height and other factors, such as short, long, hard hair, on the basis of which he makes subsequent subdivisions.
The fundamental characters of the various groups, of course, concern the head, due to its shape, its size, its characteristics.
Thus, the Lupoids: «dogs with a head in the shape of a horizontal pyramid, ears generally straight, elongated, narrow muzzle. labia minora. tightened, the upper ones not going beyond the base of the lower gums ».
Molosser: «dogs with a voluminous head. round or cuboid: small, drooping ears; short muzzle: long and thick lips. Massive body, generally five toes in back as well as in front. Normal types of large stature "
Braccoids: «dogs having a head that approaches the prismatic shape, with the muzzle as broad at the end as at its base and separated from the forehead by a well marked depression (stop, nose-frontal jump); the ears are drooping, the lips long and hanging, and the upper ones, like the commissure, go far beyond the level of the lower jaw ».
Graioids: «dogs with an elongated cone-shaped head, narrow skull, small ears set back or straight, long snout and thin in all directions, in a straight line with the forehead; salient and angular nose, protruding on the mouth; small lips, short and tight, slender body, frail limbs, very tucked belly ».
Each type of head that distinguishes each of the morphological types described has general characteristics that include those specific to the various racial types.
Here the type that concerns us most is the Braccoid type which includes many hunting breeds (when stationary and not standing still). The Cirneco dell'Etna, belonging to the Graioide morphological type and the Terriers, belonging to the Lupoide type, are excluded.
In the Braccoide type. therefore very representative, one finds among other things the range of racial types which includes the three fundamental morphological types of head: the concavilinear type (pointer), the straight type (setters). and the convex type (hounds. spinons. etc.) which fundamentally differ thanks to the profile of the heads, in particular the concavity, convexity or straightness seen and evaluated from above, and referred upwards, concern the global profile of the head of each type and arise from the diversity structural in which the connection between skull and muzzle is configured. The reciprocal continuity, in fact, = skull - snout, or snout - skull = takes place in the same direction, in the case of straightness of the setters for example, and in different directions in the case of concavity and convexity: precisely, on directions converging towards the «Stop» (nose - frontal jump), in the concavity; on directions diverging from the «stop», in the convexity.
At this point, a clarification is required: each of the three characteristics - straightness, concavity, convexity - and the respective angular values, are appreciable and assessable by taking the upper profile of the nose bridge - upper axis of the USE - as goniometric bases. one part, and the axis of the skull (not concretely identifiable, but interpretable thanks to the easy identification of the two craniometric points it connects), on the other.
The cranio - facial axes are defined: convergent. parallel and divergent. One of them, the axis of the muzzle, coincides with the upper profile of the nasal bridge: it is easy to identify it, follow it by eye. glimpse its ideal extension towards the skull. The axis of the skull is only interpretable in living reality; on the other hand, it can be found exactly in the photos and drawings. in the skeleton. It is considered a straight line as an axis that passes through two clearly defined points: the midpoint of the occipital crest and the midpoint of the segment that connects the inner corners of the eyes.
Of them, the reciprocal inclination characterizes their convergence or divergence; the univocal direction, the parallelism.
In particular: to the visual interpretation, if the extensions of the two axes have no point in common, the parallelism (setters) is obvious; if the extensions of the two axes meet precisely in the nose-frontal jump, it is in the case of converging axes (pointers); if the extension of the upper profile of the muzzle intersects the axis of the skull and protrudes from the skull in front of the occipital region, it is in the case of diverging axes (bracchi, spinons, etc.).
Therefore, in the type of head of each breed, and in the Braccoid type in particular, given our specific interests, the skull-muzzle connection and the consequent direction of the cranial-facial axes became absolute characteristics of typicality, respecting the disposition for practical use. more congenial. So the pointer was wanted with head and axes skull - facial converging to better fulfill his role of investigator at great distances in the spacious expanses, with bold gallop and categorical reactions; the setter (in primeval generality) with head with skull axes - parallel faces so that in fulfilling the same role as the Pointer he could better assert his psychic characteristics that predisposed him to crawling and meandering movements, and to supportive and feline reactions; del Bracco, prototype of the continental "fermatori", the head with divergent skull - facial axes was respected (without hounds excesses) because it was predisposed to favor the search for emanations in various and discontinuous environments, and to support rational psyche on a structurally designed frame for a large fund and average gaits; and in the hound, with a head with very divergent craniofacial axes, it was intended to enhance his natural prerogatives as a trackman, favoring him in receiving emanations linked to the ground, in the ease of movements and in dynamic freedom.
At this point it seems appropriate to reiterate: the creation of the races over the centuries that we find behind us, took place according to the fundamental principles of Nature but also in the scrupulous obedience of the necessity of function that each race was called to fulfill. This is why each race (so-called each group of related races) had peculiar characteristics which not only distinguish the type, but which faithfully serve the function and arise from it.
The direction of the skull - facial axes (one with the skull - muzzle connection) thus became the mark of the three types of head found in dog breeds. And in the Braccoid type, which concerns us most, the three types coexist and mark the differentiation of three canine types that are totally different in physical structure, psychic reactivity, in the disposition to well-defined forms of use.
Even if in the practice of hunting - hunting it is not rare to see the opposite: divergent pointers, convergent setters (rare) or divergent, parallel arms or, worse, too divergent (today, frequent). And superb champions of the tests on the ground have endorsed, by example, the truthfulness and validity of the inverse.
However, the canine reality, desired over time and supported by time, does not fail due to even striking but still occasional exceptions. On the contrary, the acquisition of its principles by the practical users of the dog (hunting, in particular) has determined the diffusion in the various breeds of increasingly remarkable levels of technical compliance. To which we hope to be able to contribute too.
The exceptions are not text; if anything, as in every field, they confirm.