Breed, Strain, Variety, and Class: How Dog Breeds Got Their Names
This podcast episode explores the history, language, and meaning behind how dog breeds came to be—and what their names reveal about their origins and purpose.
In this episode, Craig Koshyk—renowned hunting dog historian and author—takes us on a deep dive into the fascinating world of breed names. From the earliest landraces to today’s officially recognized dog breeds, Craig unpacks how language, geography, and hunting traditions shaped the names we use for dogs today.
Through engaging stories and expert insight, Craig explores everything from the confusion around the word spaniel, to double-nosed pointers in Spain, to the meaning behind terms like braque, épagneul, and vizsla. Whether you’ve got a German Wirehair, a Picardy Spaniel, or a Labrador, this episode will give you a new appreciation for what your dog’s breed name really means—and where it came from.
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Podcast Episode Transcript
Have you ever been walking down the street or through a park with your dog, and someone points and asks, “Hey, what kind of dog is that?”
I mean, if you have a Lab or a Golden, you might get that question a little less often, because people recognize those breeds—they know the name and can pronounce it.
But if you have a more obscure breed, like I do, well… that question comes up a lot. In fact, my dogs kind of resemble other breeds, so when people don’t know what they are, they just assume they’re some kind of mix. They’ll say things like, “Hey, what kind of mix is your dog?”
When I had Weimaraners, people would say things like, “Hey, nice Greyhound.” And I mean, it makes sense—it’s a gray dog, so sure, it must be a Greyhound. Or they’d ask, “Is that a really light-colored Chocolate Lab?”
Even people who knew it was a Weimaraner had a hard time pronouncing the name. They’d say things like, “Hey, nice… Weer,” or even, “Weisenheimer.”
The thing I find most interesting about all this is that no matter where you are, people tend to assume that the dog you’re walking is either a purebred or a mix of known pure breeds. And they also assume that there’s a specific name for whatever breed it is—or for all the breeds involved in your mixed-breed dog.
But where did the idea of a breed actually come from? And why is it such a big deal today?
The first thing we need to keep in mind is that the entire concept of a breed is actually a modern one. When our hunting dogs were first taking shape, the people who owned them—the ones who hunted with them and bred them—didn’t think of them as “breeds” the way we do today.
They thought of them as types of dogs. And for many of those folks, there were only one or two types of dogs in their area. They all kind of looked the same, and they all more or less acted the same way.
Gaston Febus was lucky, though. Way back in the 1300s, he had a massive kennel with hundreds and hundreds of dogs. He wrote a book about hunting—and about hunting dogs—and in that book, he divided all the dogs he knew into various groups. Those groups were organized mainly by how the dogs were used or how they were expected to work.
Naturally, the dogs within each group tended to look alike. They shared an overall appearance.
I mean, in the illustrations, all the spaniels have long or curly hair, and generally, they’re smaller than the tracking hounds that are also shown in that book. The tracking hounds are typically short-haired, and all the running dogs—or various types of hounds used to seize game—look more like Greyhounds, Mastiffs, or some kind of cross between the two.
But one thing is clear: Gaston Fébus and his fellow hunters didn’t make any specific effort to keep their dogs “pure,” at least not in the way we think of it today. They didn’t close any studbooks—because, well, they didn’t have any studbooks to close. They simply bred dogs that worked well to other dogs that worked well.
Sure, they often bred within a type—they’d breed a spaniel-looking dog to another spaniel-looking dog, or a tracking-type to another tracker. But they certainly weren’t opposed to mixing different types if it meant creating something that worked better.
There were also natural factors at play—things like geography, environment, and the specific needs of hunters in a region—that led certain types of dogs to become more specialized. Over time, those specializations and unique features eventually evolved into what we now recognize as distinct breeds.
Those were the landraces—basically, types of dogs that developed or adapted to local conditions, traditions, and tastes.
So if we hopped in a time machine and traveled to the Bourbonnais region of central France in the 1600s or 1700s, we’d probably notice that most of the braque-type dogs—the short-haired pointing dogs—were relatively small, had white coats with spots, and many of them had stubby tails or even no tails at all.
But it’s not like someone in that region sat down one day and said, “Okay boys, here’s the kind of dog we’re going to develop. It’s going to look like this, it’s going to behave like that, and we’re going to hunt in this particular way with this specific type of dog.”
The Braque du Bourbonnais—and all the other braque breeds—ended up the way they were because the genes for the traits that made them unique just happened to be present in that region. Hunters simply gravitated toward dogs with those features because they liked how they looked, loved the way they worked, and found them well-suited to the game and terrain of that area.
Any dog that didn’t meet the needs or expectations of the hunters back then? Well, it just didn’t get bred. The ones that did meet those needs? They were bred.
If we set that same time machine to Ireland during the same era, we’d see a lot of dogs that looked like setters—most of them red and white, or solid red. Set the dial to somewhere in Spain, and we’d find a lot of blocky, houndy-looking pointing dogs, many of them with what’s called a “double nose” or split nose.
But the one thing you’d never come across in any of those places is someone claiming that these dogs were the result of some master plan or developed according to a written breed standard. And nobody would have used the word breed to describe them—because they weren’t breeds, at least not in the modern sense.
They were types of dogs—landraces, locally developed and adapted to the needs and preferences of the people who lived and hunted in those regions.
Yeah, the word breed was definitely around at that time. But it basically served as a synonym for words like strain, line, type, variety, or even species. They all meant more or less the same thing, and authors often used them interchangeably—even within the same sentence.
In Edward Laverack’s book The Setter, which he wrote and published around 1872, you can see this happening constantly. There are all kinds of sentences and paragraphs where the words breed, strain, race, variety, and class are used to describe the same concept. He’s talking about a type of dog—or a closely related group of dogs—usually owned or developed by some wealthy guy. But basically, he’s just rotating through those terms: breed, strain, line, variety—all meaning the same thing.
Here’s an example. He wrote:
“If I had not kept my breed of Blue Beltons pure, this rare old strain would have degenerated.”
So right there, he’s talking about his Blue Beltons—his setters—as both a breed and a strain. Same thing.
He also wrote:
“In my young days, almost every grouse shooter had his own particular breed or strain.”
And here’s how he described the Earl of Tankerville’s jet-black setters:
“Another breed of rare excellence, and greatly appreciated by practical sportsmen, was certainly one of the best, most useful, and beautiful strains I ever saw. There is no better test of a pure breed of setters than a perfect uniformity of race.”
Now, those are just a few examples from Laverack’s book The Setter. But if you read other books or magazine articles or letters written around that same time, you’ll see the same thing: terms like breed, race, species, type, class—they were all being thrown around, and they all basically meant the same thing.
But that was also the period when the first canine registries, kennel clubs, and breed clubs were starting to form. They were busy assigning official names and writing standards for all the different kinds of dogs that existed at the time—and they were struggling to keep up with all the new, or so-called “rediscovered,” kinds of dogs people were talking about.
People were eager to promote their dogs and their lines—but before they could do that, they had to figure out exactly what terms like breed, strain, variety, and class actually meant. Because at the time, even the most influential authors and canine experts were using those terms interchangeably. And it caused a lot of confusion.
In 1884, the French dog expert Ernest Quey was shocked to discover that at one show he was supposed to judge, there were over 150 different classes. In a newspaper article published after the event, he wrote:
“We were crushed under a completely unexpected number of classes. And of all those different classifications, we had no idea which ones were correct.”
Even the dog owners sometimes had no clue what kind of dog they had. They’d enter them in the wrong class at a dog show or field trial. So Quey and others began to call on kennel clubs to clearly define the breeds and describe their characteristics once and for all.
Eventually, show organizers and registry bodies started getting things under control. One of the most important steps they took was to stop using certain terms—like race and species—when talking about dogs.
Starting around 1890 or 1895, people generally agreed that the term breed should mean more than just a group of dogs that looked and acted alike. It came to mean a group of closely related dogs with:
- an official name,
- an official conformation standard,
- a studbook,
- and recorded parentage tracked in that studbook.
And that is what the word breed came to mean in the dog world. It’s still the definition we use today.
So, anytime someone talks about a “breed” of dog that supposedly dates back more than 200 years, what they’re really referring to is a type of dog—a landrace, or at most, a strain developed by some wealthy individual in a castle somewhere.
But they weren’t breeds as we think of them today.
Still, despite the best efforts of everyone involved in the dog world, the shift in terminology was slow to take hold. Even well into the 1920s and ’30s, the terms breed and strain were still sometimes used interchangeably.
A good example comes from 1902, in the second edition of the Field Dog Stud Book, when a new breed—the Llewellyn Setter—was added. The official explanation for including it is found in the introduction, which reads:
“For the benefit of those breeders who wish to preserve the Llewellyn Setter in its purity, it has been deemed wise to bring together in a separate list the names of as many of this group of dogs as possible. It has now been 30 years since this breed was created, and during that time, a great many generations have been bred and much outside blood has been introduced into the breed. It is therefore becoming more and more difficult each year to trace the bloodlines of these dogs.”
Almost immediately after that edition was published, the author—Dr. Rowe—realized he had made a mistake. He had used the word breed to describe the Llewellyn when he really should have used the word strain.
So, when he wrote the introduction to the very next edition of the stud book, he included the following correction:
“Errata, Volume II – Llewellyn Setters. Page 9: Change the word ‘breed’ in the fifth line to ‘strain.’”
Unfortunately, that correction came a bit too late. People had already latched onto the idea that the Llewellyn Setter was its own breed—and even today, some Llewellyn enthusiasts still insist it’s a breed, not a strain, despite Dr. Rowe having caught and admitted the error over 125 years ago.
In any case, today we have dog breeds, and they all come with official names, breed standards, clubs, and studbooks. And while we’ve cleaned up a lot of the terminology, some of those old words still linger. Dog shows still use classes. Some breeds have officially recognized varieties. And unofficially, we still talk about different strains or lines within a breed.
I mean, who hasn’t heard of an Elhew or a Miller Pointer? But how many breeds are there now?
Well, it depends on who you ask. Different kennel clubs and canine registries report different numbers. The most recent figure I found from the American Kennel Club indicates they recognize 201 dog breeds.
But is that the full picture? Is that the total number of dog breeds in the world?
Not even close.
There are many more breeds that simply aren’t recognized by the major registries. Or if they are recognized, it’s only by smaller national or regional kennel clubs—not by international bodies like the AKC, FCI, or UKC.
So how many of those lesser-known or locally recognized breeds exist? I’m not sure of the exact number, but I do know it’s not insignificant.
Just within pointing dogs—which is my wheelhouse—I can tell you for a fact that there are at least three or four breeds out there that aren’t recognized by the AKC, FCI, or UKC. These breeds have official names, written standards, even breed clubs—but they’re only recognized by local or specialized registries, not by any major international organization.
When I first started researching the history and development of pointing dogs, I figured there were maybe a dozen or so breeds. But the more I dug, the more I found. And after nearly a dozen years of digging, I eventually identified a total of 52 distinct breeds of pointing dogs.
Well… not quite 52.
Some of those breeds are extinct now. And a couple of them? They never really existed outside the imagination of a few enthusiastic dog folks back in the day.
Even so, in my first book—Pointing Dogs, Volume One—I describe nearly 40 different pointing breeds that still exist today. Some are wildly popular, like the German Shorthaired Pointer. And some are barely hanging on by their toenails—like the Pudelpointer or the Punto Mon.
But there are still a lot of pointing dog breeds out there. And it’s always interesting to see how different kennel clubs classify them—and which names and standards they use.
When I first started writing my books, I decided to use the FCI system as a sort of template for my work, and I did that for a few reasons.
First of all, in the FCI—Fédération Cynologique Internationale—each breed is considered the “property” of a specific country, usually the country where the breed was first developed. That means all the official conformation and working standards published by the FCI come directly from the breed’s parent country. Those standards are published in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and German.
The FCI also provides annual registration stats and other detailed information that other kennel organizations just don’t offer.
But most importantly—at least for my work with pointing dogs—the FCI organizes all pointing breeds into one group: Group 7. That group is then subdivided into two subgroups: one for Continental pointing dogs, and one for British and Irish pointers and setters.
And that’s actually why I published two separate volumes of my book:
Volume One focuses on the Continental breeds, and Volume Two covers the British and Irish breeds. The structure basically mirrors the logic of FCI’s Group 7 classification.
Here in North America, we don’t divide them that way. All pointing dogs are basically lumped together. They compete against each other in field trials and in shows—no matter where the breed originated.
But under FCI rules in Europe, that’s not the case. Continental pointing breeds only run in trials against other Continental breeds. And British and Irish breeds only run against each other in their own separate events.
And here in North America, the largest organization dedicated to the testing and registration of pointing breeds is NAVHDA—the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association. And as of now, NAVHDA only recognizes about 30 pointing dog breeds.
There are still two or three pointing breeds out there that NAVHDA hasn’t recognized—but it’s not because they don’t want to. In most cases, it’s simply because there may not be any actual representatives of those breeds in North America to register or to test.
But no matter the registry, a breed has to have a few key things: an official conformation standard, and an official name. In some registries—and for some breeds—there’s also an official working standard. That’s the document judges use to evaluate dogs in field trials and performance tests, just like how conformation judges use the physical standard in dog shows.
Personally, I wish all hunting breeds had a working standard—an official description of how the dog is supposed to go about doing its job in the field. But hey, that’s just me.
Now, when it comes to breed names, that’s where things get really interesting.
Do you know how or why your breed got its name?
Do you know what it’s called in its country of origin?
Or what it’s called in other parts of the world?
For some breeds, the name says it all. I mean, an Irish Water Spaniel—that’s a water spaniel from Ireland. Pretty straightforward.
An English Setter? A setter from England.
A Golden Retriever? A dog with a golden coat that retrieves.
A Pointer? It points. Easy peasy.
But what about a breed like the Pudelpointer?
Is it a poodle?
Is it a pointer?
What kind of poodle went into it? What kind of pointer?
And who, exactly, picked that name?
Or how about the Hungarian Vizsla—what does “vizsla” even mean?
Or the Pachón Navarro—what does “Pachón” or “Navarro” refer to?
And why did the Americans and the British decide to drop the “Spaniel” part of the Brittany’s name?
Whenever I write a breed profile—whether it’s for a book or a magazine article—I always try to include at least some background on the breed’s name. Because I think it’s fascinating. Names often carry little clues about a dog’s history, its purpose, or even its national pride.
In some cases, the name is pretty straightforward, and the origins are easy to figure out.
Take the German pointing breeds, for example—at least a few of them have very practical names. Translated into English, you get names like German Shorthaired Pointer, German Wirehaired Pointer, and German Longhaired Pointer. Easy peasy. It’s the country of origin plus the coat type. Simple, descriptive, and to the point.
Those names work perfectly well in German too. But once you start translating and dealing with different registries, testing organizations, breed clubs, and so on—things can get a little tricky. It’s honestly way too complicated to dive into fully right now.
Some people refer to those breeds by their original German names. Others use the English translations. But why?
Again, it’s a deep rabbit hole, but in a nutshell—if someone in the U.S. or Canada tells you they have a Deutsch-Drahthaar, or a Deutsch-Langhaar, or a Deutsch-Kurzhaar, they’re signaling that their dog is somehow affiliated with the breed’s parent club in Germany. That means the dog likely comes from, or follows, the German breeding and testing system, and is considered part of that international lineage.
But if someone says they have a German Wirehaired Pointer, or a German Longhaired Pointer, or a German Shorthair, then the connection to the German parent club and its standards is probably not as direct.
So the name a person uses can actually tell you something about the background of the dog—how it was bred, tested, and even how it’s expected to perform in the field.
Both names are technically correct. The German name is, well, the German name. And the English name is just a translation. But behind those names, there’s often a meaningful distinction—especially if you’re interested in breeding, testing, or understanding a dog’s origins.
And when it comes to naming, the same thing applies to Brittanys. If you see a compact, bobtailed little rocket tearing it up in the field, and the owner tells you it’s a Briton—not a Brittany—well, that tells you something. It hints at the dog’s connection, and maybe even the owner’s connection, to the breed’s original country of France.
Even with Labradors, people might say they have a Lab, or a British Lab. And someone with a Cocker Spaniel might tell you they have a British or English Cocker, or maybe a working Cocker—just to distinguish it from other types within the same breed.
As I was writing my first book, I quickly realized I needed to figure out exactly what to call each breed. And I decided to include a little blurb in each chapter to explain where the breed’s name came from, what it means in its country of origin, and even how to pronounce it—at least as close as an English speaker can get to the native pronunciation.
But if all we have to go on is a breed’s name—what can we actually learn from it?
Well, for some breeds, the name gives us a clue about where they come from.
German Shorthaired Pointers—no mystery there, they’re from Germany.
Münsterländers come from a region of Germany called Münsterland.
The Weimaraner is named after the city of Weimar.
The Ponto Mor is named after a city in France.
In fact, most of the French breeds are named after regions or cities in France.
And both of the Italian pointing breeds—the Bracco Italiano and the Spinone Italiano—have “Italiano” in their name, so no surprise there.
On the other hand, you’ve got the Labrador Retriever, which doesn’t actually come from Labrador—at least not directly. The breed was developed in England, but for whatever reason, it was named after a place across the ocean.
And for some breeds, the name tells us something about how they look.
There’s the Irish Red Setter and the Irish Red and White Setter—those names literally describe their coat color.
Same with the Golden Retriever—its name tells you it’s a retriever, and it’s golden.
Even the old, now-extinct breed called the Tricolored Wartenberg Pointer followed that same naming pattern. And almost all of the wire-haired breeds include something in their name that refers to their coat type.
There’s the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, the German Wirehaired Pointer, and the Wirehaired Vizsla. Even the Spinone’s name refers to its coat—the word “spinone” comes from the Italian word spina, meaning thorn. It’s a reference to the prickly, wiry texture of the coat—kind of like running your hand through a thorn bush.
The Stichelhaar is similar. The word Stichel in German refers to a chisel or an awl—something strong, sharp, and pointy. Just like the breed’s harsh coat.
Even the name Český Fousek refers to the coat. Fousek means beard, so the breed’s name literally translates to “the bearded Czech.”
Among retrievers, you see the same thing: there’s the Flat-Coated Retriever, the Wavy-Coated Retriever, and the Curly-Coated Retriever. Their names describe exactly what kind of coat they have.
And then there’s a breed whose name doesn’t describe color or coat texture—it describes the shape of its nose. It’s the old Spanish Double-Nosed Pointer.
When I first read about those dogs, I had no idea what a double nose even was. Some people speculated that it just meant a dog with a nose that could do “double duty”—you know, track ground scent and pick up scent from the air. But I wasn’t convinced.
So I kept digging. And eventually, I found out exactly what a double-nosed Spanish pointer is—and what it looks like—because I found a breeder in northern Spain who still breeds them to this day.
The breed is now called the Pachón Navarro. But they’re basically the old Spanish pointers with this unique feature: a split or cleft in the nose—what people call a double nose.
I remember pulling up into his driveway, stepping out of the car, greeting the breeder and his wife with a hearty handshake and a friendly “Hello, how are you?”—and then they opened the kennel doors.
And out came these incredible-looking dogs.
They kind of looked like pointers—they had long ears and that general pointer shape—but with much shorter legs and a more barrel-chested, blockier build. They were super friendly, too. As soon as we walked in, they came right up to us, tails wagging, trying to climb into our laps. We were petting them and loving on them—and then… we saw the nose.
And let me tell you, at first, it’s kind of shocking. I’d never seen a nose like that before. I hadn’t even imagined a nose like that before.
Basically, if you look at your dog’s nose right now, you’ll see a small crease running along the top of the muzzle, down between the nostrils. In some dogs, that crease is barely visible. In others, depending on the color and shape of the nose, you can kind of make it out. But it’s usually very narrow and shallow.
Now, on these double-nosed pointers, it’s not narrow. It’s not shallow. It’s… huge.
It looks like somebody took a cleaver to the center of the nose. There’s a deep, wide split right down the middle. When you hold one of these dogs’ muzzles in your hands and look right into their eyes—or straight down their nose—it feels like you’re staring at the end of a double-barrel shotgun.
That’s the double nose.
Physiologically speaking, it’s known as a bifid nose. And while it’s most famously associated with the Pachón Navarro, this condition can actually occur in almost any mammal with a nose. It’s kind of like a cleft palate—or harelip—in humans. It can show up spontaneously in just about any dog breed.
In fact, in most breed standards, a bifid or split nose is considered a disqualification. For most breeds—and for most people—it’s seen as a defect. It’s not considered appealing, and in some cases, it may even be a handicap.
Within the Pachón Navarro breed, some puppies are still born with such a deep and pronounced split between the nostrils that they can’t even nurse. Those pups, sadly, don’t survive—and they’re never bred from. So even in the one breed where this trait is considered a defining feature, there’s a limit. If the split is too severe, it’s still considered a fault—both physically and functionally.
But for some reason, somewhere back in time, way down the line in Spain, someone looked at that split nose and thought, “You know what? That’s a cool feature. Let’s keep it. Let’s not put those dogs down. In fact, let’s select specifically for that feature.”
We can all speculate as to why. My theory? At some point, someone just happened to own a dog with a bifid nose that turned out to be exceptional—maybe it had an incredible nose, could scent game from a mile away, and they thought, “You know what? The reason this dog is so good must be because of that double nose.”
So, they started breeding for it.
Today, of course, we know that’s not really how scenting ability works. A double nose doesn’t give a dog any special advantage. But the idea stuck. And to this day, we still have double-nosed pointers—the Pachón Navarro.
I absolutely loved my visit with those dogs. They were super cool—friendly, enthusiastic, and just such a unique-looking group of dogs. As far as I know, there are still no Pachón Navarros in North America. But there is an active breed club in Spain, and several hundred puppies are still born every year. A small but passionate group of breeders is keeping the tradition alive.
Now, sometimes, a breed’s name tells us not just where it’s from, but also what kind of game it was developed to hunt—and even how it was meant to go about it.
The best example of that? The Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.
That name tells you everything. It was developed in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was bred to toll ducks—and to retrieve them.
If you’re unfamiliar with tolling, we actually did a whole episode about it on Hunting Dog Confidential. It’s a fascinating topic, so I won’t go too deep into it here. But basically, tolling is a technique hunters use to lure rafted ducks closer to shore so they can get a shot at them.
I mean, we’ve all been there, right? You’re on the shore, just waiting for ducks to fly—but they’re not flying. They’re all out in the middle of the lake or way out in the bay, just loafing around, not going anywhere.
Well, if you’ve got a trained dog, you might be able to toll those birds.
Here’s how it works: you stay hidden—maybe behind a blind or tucked into the shoreline brush—while your dog stays out in the open. You get the dog to play around on the beach. You might throw a stick, toss a rock, bounce a tennis ball—just anything to get the dog running back and forth, romping around.
And for some reason, ducks—and even geese—are attracted to that behavior. It’s the same instinct that draws their attention to a fox or a coyote. Any kind of canine fooling around on the shoreline tends to pique their curiosity. They’ll start drifting closer to get a better look.
And that’s when you make your move. You spring out, flush the birds, and take your shot. Any birds that fall? Now your tolling dog switches gears and becomes a retriever.
Now, moving beyond tolling, there are plenty of other breeds whose names include their favorite quarry—the game they were originally developed to hunt.
Take the Drótszőrű Vizsla, for example. That name literally means Wirehaired Vizsla, but Vizsla itself is an old Hungarian word that essentially refers to a pointer. It’s a pointing dog.
Then there’s the Perdigueiro, like the Perdigueiro Português—the Portuguese Pointer. The word Perdigueiro means partridge dog, from the Portuguese word perdiz, which means partridge.
Same thing with the Perdiguero de Burgos, the Burgos Pointer from Spain. Perdiguero—again, a partridge dog.
Even the Hühnerhund from Germany—often called the Hühn—gets its name from the German word Huhn, which means quail. So it’s literally the quail dog.
Then there are names that reflect some kind of connection to a person.
Take the Gordon Setter, for example. The Duke of Gordon didn’t actually create the breed, but it was named after him.
The Wirehaired Pointing Griffon is often called the Korthals Griffon, named after its founder, Eduard Karel Korthals. There were other Griffon breeds too, named after the men who developed them—like the Bohle Griffon, the Griffon Boulet, and the Griffon Drié. That last one was named after a pair of brothers named Drié.
Unfortunately, all of those breeds went extinct not long after their founders passed away.
Another thing I’ve found interesting—and, to be honest, kind of frustrating—is figuring out how to pronounce some of these breed names in their native languages. I’ve already butchered a few during this podcast, no doubt!
But beyond pronunciation, the translations can be just as tricky. Take the French word épagneul, for example.
Épagneul is usually translated as spaniel in English—but that translation can cause all kinds of confusion. Because in the English-speaking world, the word spaniel refers to flushing dogs.
You’ve got Springer Spaniels, Cocker Spaniels, Clumber Spaniels, Sussex Spaniels—they all flush birds. They don’t point.
But then you’ve got the Brittany Spaniel, the Picardy Spaniel, the French Spaniel, the Pont-Audemer Spaniel—all these so-called “spaniel” breeds. And that’s because in French, the word épagneul appears in their names. Épagneul de Picardie, Épagneul Français, Épagneul Breton.
These are pointing dogs, not flushing dogs—but the name causes so much confusion. Honestly, I’m a little tired of explaining it every time I’m out walking my dog.
Someone sees my Picardy Spaniel and goes, “Oh wow, is that like a Springer?”
And I have to say, “No… it’s not like a Springer. It’s more like a setter.”
And I know anyone listening to this who owns one of these breeds knows exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve had the same conversation:
“Yes, the name is spaniel, but no—it doesn’t work like a spaniel. It works more like a setter.”
Honestly, I think the whole situation could’ve been avoided. Instead of translating épagneul as spaniel, we should’ve translated it as setter. That would’ve made life a lot easier.
Then we could go around saying,
“I have a Picardy Setter,” or
“A French Setter,” or
“A Pont-Audemer Setter,” or
“A Saint-Usuge Setter.”
It would’ve made things clearer for everyone. But that’s not what happened—and now we just live with the confusion.
And then there are breed names or terms that are even more generic. Like I just mentioned, épagneul really just means longhaired pointing dog—or setter, basically—but unfortunately, it became spaniel in translation.
What about the French word braque? That’s another generic term. It simply means shorthaired pointing dog.
So you have the Braque d’Auvergne, the Braque Français, the Braque du Bourbonnais—various “braques.”
Even the German Shorthaired Pointer—in French, that’s called the Braque Allemand. In other words, the German Braque. Because again, it’s a shorthaired pointing dog.
Same with the Hungarian word vizsla. Just like braque, vizsla is a generic term. It simply means shorthaired pointing dog.
So, Hungarians don’t just call their dogs Vizslas. They call them Magyar Vizslas—literally, Hungarian Vizslas. And if they’re referring to a German Shorthaired Pointer, they’ll call it a Német Vizsla—German Vizsla. Or a Francia Vizsla—French Vizsla.
To them, the word vizsla is basically the same as the French word braque—it just means shorthaired pointing dog.
So how do other countries translate the names of English breeds?
What do the French call Pointers?
What do the Germans call Setters?
How are those names translated?
Well… they’re not.
We English speakers love translating dog breed names. Not all of them, but quite a few—especially ones that are hard for us to pronounce. But many Europeans? They just keep the original English names. They don’t translate them at all. Instead, they pronounce them with wonderfully strong local accents.
One of my favorite examples is a French friend of mine saying Irish Water Spaniel. He doesn’t translate it—he just says it with his French accent:
“Eereesh Wotair Spahn-yell.”
A Cocker Spaniel? That’s a Cok-air Spahn-yell.
And English Setter? Well, sometimes they’ll translate the “English” part—so you get Setter Anglais.
Same with Gordon Setter—they’ll say Setter Gordon.
The Germans? They call Pointers—Pointers. They call Setters—Setters.
Most of Europe just rolls with the English terms for those breeds—and that’s one of the stranger twists in all of this.
Remember, épagneul is translated as spaniel in English. But do the French return the favor?
Do they take Springer Spaniel and call it Épagneul Springer?
Nope. They call it a Spring-air, or a Cock-air, or a Sussex.
They take the English word, toss a thick French accent on top, and call it good.
So the next time you’re thinking about your dog—its breed, and the history of that breed—take a moment to look up where the name came from. And maybe even try pronouncing it in the language of its country of origin.
It’s fun. You might butcher it. But you’ll probably learn something. And at the very least, it’ll give you a deeper appreciation for your dog—and for the long, fascinating history that came before it.
find it endlessly fascinating to go down these rabbit holes—and I hope you guys do too.
And with that, I’ll wrap up episode three of The Hunting Dog Confidential Podcast. Thanks so much for listening, and as always, I wish you happy hunting.
And in the words of my friend Rick Sosa, a proud Český Fousek owner:
“May you shoot straight and often.”