The dog whose picture we challenged you to identify in the title is a hunting dog native to France created by Baron Joseph de Carayon LaTour of the Chateau Virelade in the 19th century. Though the breed is sometimes called the “Virelade,” it’s better known as the Grand Gascon-Saintongeois.

It is said that only three Saintongeois hounds survived the French Revolution, two dogs and a bitch. Carayon-Latour crossed the last of the old Hound of Saintonge with a few of the remaining old type Bleu de Gascognes from the kennel of Baron de Ruble. The resulting dogs were white with black ticking and named Gascon-saintongeois. These first-generation offspring were of such good quality that the two men continued to breed the dogs, and resulting descendants were given the name “Grand Gascon-Saintongeois.” Later on in the middle of the 20th century, certain hunters from the south west of France chose the smaller dogs from litters of the Grand Gascon Saintongeois, their size more suited to hunt rabbits and small game. These smaller dogs were called the “Petit Gascon Saintongeois” and the two sizes remain today.

The breed is noted for its good nose and excellent voice, and a word we came across frequently when researching the dog was “audacious” in its hunting skill. It typically is hunted in packs, so it gets along well with other dogs, and is described as getting along well with people he knows.

The FCI recognizes this breed, and the United Kennel Club recognized the Grand Gascon-Saintongeois in 1993.