Pachón Navarro

The Pachón Navarro is a Spanish hunting dog from Navarre, in the north of the country. It is thought to be one of the oldest pointing dogs of the Iberian peninsula. It is counted among the five Basque dog breeds, alongside the Basque Shepherd Dog, the Erbi Txakur, the Villano de Las Encartaciones and the Villanuco de Las Encartaciones.

History

Pictures of dogs of this kind go back to the Middle Ages. In the nineteenth century, when hunting became a pastime of the middle classes, the Pachón spread through much of Spain under several names, among them Pachón de Vitoria, Pachón español, Perdiguero común and Perdiguero navarro. Dogs of the type were shown at the first Spanish dog shows in the 1890s.

The Real Sociedad Canina recognised the Pachón when the society was founded in 1911. By the 1970s the breed was believed extinct. Recovery began with a census of surviving dogs in 1979, and in 1983 the Pachón was one of four Spanish breeds shown on a set of postage stamps. A breed society was set up at Laserna in Álava in 2001, and a second, for hunters and breeders, in Pamplona in 2002. The government of Navarre published a standard in 2006, and in 2010 the Spanish government added the Pachón to its list of recognised breeds. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale does not recognise it.

In 2009 the population was put at between 700 and 1,000 dogs. In 2026 the Pachón was among sixteen Spanish breeds that the Real Sociedad Canina de España considered vulnerable.

Appearance

The Pachón stands 48 to 60 cm tall, with males averaging 55 cm and females 52 cm, and weighs 20 to 30 kg. The coat is usually short and varies a great deal: it may be of one, two or three colors. The most common are black and white, chestnut and white, liver and white, and orange and white, in each case with colored patches and specks on a white ground.

A few dogs have a split, or bifid, nose. The same unusual feature is found in the Turkish Tarsus çatalburun and now and then in South American dogs.

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