Our Bracco Italianos are a marvelous rare Italian pointing breed. They are a tremendously versatile bird hunting dog - being able to hunt, point, retrieve, track and swim.
How we started out: When we first started our search in 1998, we wanted to find and promote a breed of dog that has not been made popular in the U.S; statistics show that a breed's popularity here is often its downfall. After a 2-year quest, we found Jaap Muller and Tina Steffens, well-known Bracco breeders in the Netherlands. Their dogs have won hunting trials and breed shows all over Europe, and the dogs are raised in Tina and Jaap's home, as are all the puppies. Dino, our brown/white male, was born the day before our wedding, in May 2000; (we lost him in 2006.) When we told Tina and Jaap that we wanted to breed really good Braccos, they were so pleased to help us that Jaap went to Italy and selected Alba, the orange/white female, out of 7 litters.
The puppies arrived in the U.S.
on July 5, 2000 and have been charming everyone since then. We got our 3rd
Bracco, an orange and white female named Mari, from Tina and Jaap and she fit right in - as
charming as the other two. She never did become pregnant, so we spayed and placed her.We then kept Lovely Flora, a brown and white
bitch from our November, 2002 litter. She is a wonderful combination of
both Dino's and Alba's attitudes - she was pointing beautifully at an early age.
In 2005 we obtained Astor, a white and orange male, from GianPaolo
Poggio, a breeder in Italy, through the help of Tina and Jaap, who are his
good friends. Astor added an entirely new bloodline to the United States. Alba and Astor had Giana in October, 2006, and we lost Astor to cancer at 3 years old.
In April, 2007, Dan went to Italy and brought back Dixie and Apollo. When we did PennHip testing on Dixie, Giana and Apollo's hips, he got good results, but both bitches failed .... so after much anguish, we spayed them and placed them in great hunting homes. On Dan's next trip to Italy, he brought back Eros, the pick of the litter bred by Dr. Giovanni Grecchi, past president of SABI. He also brought back Leila, a beautiful orange bitch bred by Luigi Forcati. We have Bambam, Leila's and Apollo's daughter, and Ziva, a brown bitch from Czecheslovakia.
In April, 2011, Eros and Ziva produced 10 puppies, of which we kept one, Serena. |
