Braque d'Auvergne puppies

About the Braque d'Auvergne

The Braque d'Auvergne is a French pointing breed from the mountainous Cantal country, where they have been present for more than two centuries. They are built as an all day gundog: strongly boned without heaviness, able to quarter difficult ground from dawn to dusk and to point, flush and retrieve. The short glossy coat is black flecked or greyed over white so the dog reads as blue at a distance, with a black head and a white blaze. Males stand 57 to 63 centimetres.

The Kennel Club recommends hip scoring before breeding and puts exercise at more than two hours a day, which is honest for a dog with this much stamina. Grooming is a weekly brush. The character is unusually soft for a gundog, gentle and obedient and closely attached to one handler, so training is a matter of shaping instinct rather than imposing on it. That biddable temperament comes packaged with a working drive, so give the drive a real job beyond a suburban garden.

What to expect at eight weeks

At eight weeks a Braque d'Auvergne puppy is sleeping around 18 to 20 hours a day, is not house trained, and cannot hold on for more than an hour or two at a stretch. A large breed puppy at eight weeks looks deceptively normal sized and will roughly double every few weeks for a while. Keep exercise short and low impact, the growth plates are wide open. This is a high energy breed. At eight weeks that shows up as intensity rather than stamina, and they will need a job to do long before they need long walks. Grooming is straightforward, but start handling the coat, feet and ears in week one anyway so it is never a fight later. The socialisation window is open and closing: everything they meet calmly now, from vacuum cleaners to men in hats, is easier for the rest of their life.

Health worth knowing about

Conditions this breed is reported to be predisposed to. Predisposed does not mean inevitable, it means ask about it.

• Hip dysplasia, which the Kennel Club recommends breeding stock be scored for under the BVA and Kennel Club hip dysplasia scheme
• Entropion and ectropion, which the breed standard treats as disqualifying and which a vet identifies on eye examination
• Ear infections under drop leathers on a dog worked in wet cover, found by checking and drying the ear after every outing
• Cuts and pad damage from working rough mountain ground, found by inspecting feet and legs after work
• A small gene pool outside France, which the Kennel Club asks breeders to manage by prioritising genetic diversity

Your Braque d'Auvergne puppy's first six months

• Vaccination schedule, dated for your country.
• Worming and parasite schedule.
• Feeding calculator. Set expected adult size to Large for a Braque d'Auvergne.
• Adult size predictor, to check growth against the 22 to 28 kg adult range.
• Puppy names and the first week checklist.

Kit sizes: crate 36 inch (36 x 24 x 26 in, 91 x 61 x 66 cm) for an adult of up to 28 kg; chew toys made for large breeds. Worked out the same way as the crate size calculator. PetMD bases a crate on the dog's own measurements, not weight or breed alone, so measure once the puppy is home.

Buying guides for this

• Best crate for a puppy: wire, plastic or soft, and how to size one with a divider

Other large breeds

Previous: Bracco Italiano · Next: Braque du Bourbonnais

Sources

• fci.be for adult weight and height, energy, grooming and the temperament ratings, coat type and country of origin
• fci.be for life expectancy
• royalkennelclub.com for health notes
• Health notes from Braque d'Auvergne breed information at https://www.royalkennelclub.com/search/breeds-a-to-z/breeds/gundog/braque-d-auvergne-imp/. Discuss any of these with your own vet.

No published figure for life expectancy, so nothing is shown rather than a guess.

Photo: Mrsthurlow, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped. All photographers are listed on the photo credits page.