Spinone Italiano Breed Magazine - Showsight

FROM THE

TO THE MOUNTAINS

SHOW RING

T oday’s Spinone Italiano originates from the Piedmont region in Northwest Italy. During the 19th century, it was the most important hunting breed in that area. Piedmont, in both French and Italian and other variants, comes from the medieval Latin Pedemontium or Pedemontis , meaning “at the foot of the moun- tains” (referring to the Alps). The Piedmont region is surrounded by the Alps. It borders with France, Switzerland and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria, Aosta Valley and a tiny part of Emilia Romagna. Piedmont is 43.3 percent mountainous and 30.3 percent is vast areas of hills with just 26.4 percent being plains or wetlands. The Spinone, with its two-segmented topline, solid underline and minimal tuck-up, long hock-to-paw length and moderate bend of stifle was not built for super speed. This hunting dog hunted the foothills and mountainsides of the Alps for upland game birds, fox and rab- bit, and down low in the plains and swampy, thick wetlands for waterfowl. It is said that during WWII, the Spinone was used by the Italian partisans to track enemies and to carry food. Speed was not required. A strong, substantial and unhurried yet steady-going dog was needed—and that was the Spinone. So, all that said, the Spinone is not slow. A descriptor word in our Breed Standard is “methodical.” Methodical does not mean slow. The definition of methodical is orderly and systematic in habits or behavior . Obviously, a Spinone is not as fast as a Pointer or German Wirehaired Pointer or Weimaraner or even the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon and Brittany. But not being as fast as those other pointing breeds does not, thereby, mean the Spinone is slow. Not being as fast as the other pointing breeds does not mean the Spinone should go around the ring like a turtle, with its handler walking. We had that happen once; the judge kept telling us to “slow down, slow down!” to the point where we were all literally walking. It was ridiculous! So while the other pointing breeds are faster and look much more flashy in the field, often going back over the same piece of ground more than once, the Spinone, with its easy, pounding trot that goes the distance, is determined as it covers the ground in an orderly and systematic fashion, not going back and forth over the same ground. I suppose, to some, that may appear slow. As I mentioned earlier, the Spinone has a solid underline and minimal tuck-up. That does not mean no tuck-up or zero tuck-up. There is a tuck-up and it is minimal. To quote the Italian Breed Standard: “The ribs are well sprung and slanting with wide space between them. The back ribs (false ribs) are long, oblique and well opened. Underline and belly: Almost hori- zontal in the sternal region, then ascends slightly towards the belly.” The belly is not the tuck-up. The Spinone has a two-piece topline. It is NOT a sway back. The first segment slopes slightly downward from the withers to the 11th thoracic vertebra. You may not always obvi- ously see “the break,” especially in the very young Spinone, but it is there—you can feel it. The second segment of the topline rises gradually and continues into a solid and slightly convex loin without rising above the withers.

BY DAINA B. HODGES

Spinone, standing up and down on a mountainside, displaying the flexible two-segment topline and perpendicular and long hock-to-paw length.

310 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, MAY 2023

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