medium-to-large breed
Braque du Bourbonnais
A compact, hardy French pointer in a ticked coat, often born with a natural bobtail, and about as attached to their people as a dog gets - velcro is the word owners use, and they mean it literally. Braques du Bourbonnais are superb with children, easy with other dogs and genuinely eager to work alongside a person. The costs are ninety minutes a day and a dog who copes badly with an empty house.
Pup Height
20-22.5 in
Figures are for males; females are 19-22 in. The coat is white densely ticked with fawn or liver, which reads at a distance as the faded lilac the French call lie de vin - wine dregs. Many are born with a natural bobtail or no tail at all, which is a gene rather than a docking. Source: FCI breed standard.
Pup Weight
40-55 lb
Pup Lifespan
12-15 years
Your pup, at a glance
What’s Life With This Pup Really Like?
The joint highest on this site. They were bred to hunt within a few yards of their handler and bring exactly that closeness home - in the room, against your leg, on the sofa if allowed.
Excellent. Gentle, playful, patient and a sensible size for a family rather than an overwhelming one.
Very good. Sociable with dogs and generally fine with cats. There is real bird drive from the hunting history, so poultry is a different question.
Low. They are not territorial and do not announce much, which makes them an easy neighbor for a breed with this much energy.
High. An hour to ninety minutes daily, and unlike the herding breeds the Braque genuinely settles afterward rather than pacing.
Low. A short fine coat that sheds steadily and is about as easy to live with as any on this site.
Enthusiastic and good-natured. Retrieving games hold them indefinitely and they stay playful well into middle age.
Very low. A clean, dry-mouthed dog.
Very good. Bright, willing and handler-focused by breeding, and soft enough that reward-based work is both preferable and necessary.
Poor. They notice a visitor and go to greet them - there is no guarding instinct here at all.
Very low for the coat and real for the ears. A weekly rub-down plus weekly ear cleaning is the entire routine.
Good on environment, poor on absence. They settle into new homes and routines readily; what they do not adapt to is being left alone all day.
Lifestyle fit
Could This Be Your Best Breed?
A Braque du Bourbonnais suits a house with a yard and a household that is usually home - someone working from the kitchen table rather than commuting. They are cheap for a gundog at $1,300 to $2,200 a year and long-lived at twelve to fifteen. Ask any breeder about the bobtail gene before a litter. The honest question is how many hours the house stands empty on a Tuesday, and whether you want a dog underfoot all day or one who keeps their own counsel.
Living Space
A house with a yard and a household that is usually home. Braques are quiet, clean and take up little room for a gundog, and the two constraints are an hour and a half of real exercise and an attachment to their people that makes long empty days genuinely hard on them.
Pup Experience
Good for a committed first-time owner. The Braque du Bourbonnais is one of the easier gundogs on this site to train - soft, willing and closely bonded - and the things to plan for are the exercise and the fact that they do not cope well alone.
Daily Pup Time
An hour to ninety minutes of real exercise daily with something for the head, plus weekly ears. The coat takes about five minutes a week.
Allergies & Coat
The Braque du Bourbonnais scores 3/10 for shedding and 2/10 for drooling. No dog is truly hypoallergenic. The allergens come from dander and saliva, and a coat that sheds this little leaves far less of them on your furniture, floors, and clothes.
Quirks & challenges
The Not-So-Easy Stuff
A True Velcro Dog
Bred to work within a few yards of their person and behaves the same way at home. Long solo days are the wrong fit for this breed.
They Need a Real Hour
A working gundog's stamina in a forty-five-pound dog. Under-exercised they get restless and mouthy rather than destructive.
Sensitive to Correction
Soft-natured and quick to shut down under pressure. Reward-based work is not a preference here, it is what functions.
Bobtail to Bobtail Is Risky
Many are natural bobtails, and breeding two together can produce spinal defects. Ask what both parents carry.
Ears Need Weekly Care
Drop ears on a dog who works wet ground. Weekly cleaning and drying prevents infections that otherwise recur for life.
Very Hard to Find
Rare outside France, with few breeders and a small gene pool. Expect a wait and ask about testing and coefficients.
The good, the bad & the hairy
Health, Care & Costs
Understanding the health risks and ongoing costs of a Braque du Bourbonnais helps you plan for a happy, healthy life together.
12-15 years
$40-$65
per groom (bath, nails and ears), every 10-12 weeks - a short coat needs little ($150-$300/year)
$1,300-$2,200/year
all-in (food, routine vet, grooming, insurance, incidentals)
Health Risks
Conditions this breed is prone to.
The hip joint develops loosely, so the ball and socket grind instead of gliding. It leads to arthritis and, in severe cases, surgery. A very small breeding population makes parental hip scores a requirement rather than a nicety - ask to see them.
Many in this breed are born with a short tail or none at all, and the gene responsible also shapes the spine. Breeding two natural bobtails together can produce puppies with serious spinal malformations, which is why responsible pairings put a bobtail to a full tail. It is a breeder question rather than a veterinary one.
Drop ears on a dog who works wet ground and swims willingly. Structural rather than inherited, and the most predictable recurring cost in the breed - weekly cleaning and thorough drying is genuine prevention.
Similar to hip dysplasia but in the elbow joint - the bones do not fit together properly, causing pain and early arthritis. Treatment ranges from management to surgery depending on severity.
The eyelid rolls inward and the lashes rub the surface of the eye, which is painful and scars the cornea if left. It is corrected surgically and usually shows up in the first year or two.
The thyroid stops producing enough hormone, causing weight gain, lethargy and a coat that thins or dulls. A daily tablet manages it completely and the medication itself is inexpensive.
Insurance & Health Coverage
One of the sounder and cheaper breeds on this site to keep - hardy, long-lived, and with a coat that asks for almost nothing.
Ears are the recurring line and the one that decides the timing. Infections in a gundog who works wet ground start young, come back, and are exactly what an insurer writes into an exclusion once they appear in the notes. Cover arranged while the record is clean is worth more than the premium difference suggests.
The surgical risks are the joints and the eyelids, each in the low thousands. The bobtail spinal defects are the exception and not an insurance question at all - they are congenital, any policy excludes them, and the protection is a sensible pairing. The very small population is the reason to treat the parents' certificates as a requirement and to ask about inbreeding coefficients directly.
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Care needs
The Daily Routine
Grooming
A short, fine coat that needs a weekly rub-down with a rubber mitt and nothing else - one of the lowest grooming loads on this site. The ears are the real job: checked and cleaned weekly, and dried thoroughly after any swim or wet walk. Nails and teeth on the usual schedule.
Exercise
An hour to ninety minutes daily with something to think about. Gundog work, retrieving, scent games and long walks over varied ground all suit them, and they settle genuinely well once it is done.
Food & Weight
Two measured meals with training treats coming out of the ration. Braques are compact, athletic dogs who should stay lean, and at forty-five pounds a few extra treats a day show up quickly.
Similar breeds
If This Isn’t Quite the One
Blue Picardy Spaniel
The closest match here - another rare French gundog with the same gentle, sensitive, closely-bonded temperament and the same excellent record with children. The Blue Picardy has a longer coat and more feathering to look after; the Bourbonnais is the lower-maintenance of the two.
Bracco Italiano
The same continental pointing tradition in a much larger, houndier dog. The Bracco brings a great deal more drool and more space requirement; the Bourbonnais gives you a similar sweetness in a size that fits an ordinary house.