Denmark has two indigenous hunting dog breeds, and one of them is the Old Danish Pointer, sometimes called the Old Danish Bird Dog, (or in Denmark, the Gammel Dansk Honsehund, or “Honsehund”).  It’s also known as the “Bakhund” for the man who created it in the early 18th century, Mortem Bak. He carefully developed the piebald coated gundog over eight generations using various local hounds – descendants of St. Hubert Hounds –  with dogs brought by Roma people from Spain.

Though you may never see a Honsehund outside of Denmark, you would notice two traits in the breed if you did get the opportunity: One is “throatiness,” or loose skin on the dog’s neck, a feature inherited from its hound ancestry, and not normally seen in “clean” headed pointers. The other is a marked difference between males and females. While many breed standards call for bitches to be, well, “bitchy,” and males to be masculine, Old Danish Pointer males are significantly larger and more powerful than the females who are lighter, and, some say, more spirited and fickle, or flighty. This reveals itself on a hunt when the mercurial, impulsive personality of the female, and the gutsy nature of the male become apparent.

The Old Danish Pointing Dog’s standard was published by the FCI in 1998, and the breed was recognized by the United Kennel Club in 2006.

Image by Pleple2000 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1392160