Our Dogs

Limone at her first show

Our two dogs - Rufus and Limone (pronounced 'Limony'), are both 'Korthals Griffons' - a specialist continental hunting breed. These were first bred in the mid-1800's in Holland by a chap called Edouard Korthals. He realised that with the rise of the professional classes - doctors, lawyers, judges, etc. there was a need for a completely new kind of dog. This was because up until that time hunting dogs were kept in packs in large kennels on big estates. One pack would be used for deer, another for pheasants, another for wild boar, etc. When you had a job working in a large town or city - and thus lived in an urban area, there simply wasn't the room to do this.

 

So, using a pool of something like 625 different hunting dogs over a significant number of years, he eventually developed exactly what he wanted. A dog that would live in a house as a loving part of the family, but that was flexible enough to hunt whatever you wanted to hunt. The King of Bavaria was so impressed with Edouard Korthals' abilities, that he paid him to move to Germany to look after his own hounds - he obviously took his own animals with him, so that region was the stronghold of the breed for many years. These days, the largest number of them are to be found in France, but some have come to the UK. In North America, they are known as Wire-Haired Pointing Griffons.

 

Rufus - who is now nine, had an English mother and a German father. Limone - who is seven, on the other hand came from French stock on both sides.