what a pointer's born to do

thanks to wikipaintings.org {{PD-US}}

Here's the great Romantic painter George Stubbs (English, 1724-1806) showing us the soul of a Spanish pointer in this work from around 1766.  Do you think this dog looks as though it's cowering?  I would have too before I knew our dog Briar.  Briar is an English setter, which is also a pointing/gun dog breed, and I have seen him do this intense slinky crouching thing many times when the scent of game birds is in the air.  (I have also seen him do it to chickadees, common brown sparrows, that tubby squirrel in the alley, and Veronica the cat.)  He is bred bone-deep to slowly, silently creep up on the bird with the most intense concentration.  He lives for that chase.  I can tell this fellow does too.  That's typical of Romantic painting - you get an immediate sense of the power and emotion of an animal's nature.
If you wanted a Spanish pointer today, what sort of dog is that?  There isn't any one breed called "Spanish pointer" these days, not that I can find.  It could be one of any number of breeds, including the Burgos Pointer.  For an excellent look at that breed with mention of a few similar ones, I'd like to send you to this post at The Pointing Dog Blog.