French Spaniel

Calm indoors; does best with patient handling.
A French Spaniel
Photo: Alephalpha
Adult weight
23–27 kg
50–60 lb
Lifespan
10–12 yrs
Class · Field
also Family

What it's like

In temperament it is gentle and sociable, keen to work with its handler and generally calm indoors. It responds better to patient handling than to harsh correction, and its eagerness in the field sits alongside a steady, affectionate nature at home.

Day to day
Activity
Needs lots of exercise
Intelligence
Learns readily, likes games
Handler demand
Needs steady training
With people
Affection
Affectionate on its own terms
Loyalty
Bonded to its family
Independence
Keen to work with you
Around the home
Sensitivity
Average
Voice
Barks to alert, then settles
Prey drive
Chases; needs managing
Breed explains only about 9% of how individual dogs differ in behaviour1. Meet the dog. A good breeder breeds for temperament as well as health, and matches each puppy's personality to the right home2,3.
Is a French Spaniel right for you?
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Living with one

It has a coat with feathering. It sheds through the year rather than in big seasonal moults. Plan on brushing a few times a week. It needs plenty of exercise compared with other breeds.

Size and growth

A French Spaniel is a medium dog, heavier than a Border Collie and lighter than a Golden Retriever. It is one of the heaviest medium breeds.

It is a tall, sturdily built spaniel with a broad head, long ears and a kind expression. The coat is flat or slightly wavy, white with brown patches and sometimes flecked with brown, and carries feathering on the ears, the backs of the legs and the tail.

Puppy growth

Reference curve · community data appears as owners log
By about 5 months, a male French Spaniel puppy is already as heavy as a grown Staffordshire Bull Terrier. They grow fastest between 3 and 4 months old.
Fully grown
11 mo
Both sexes, at 99% of adult weight7
Male
Female
Shaded: expected range
01020302m4m6m9m12m18m
01020302m3m4m6m9m12m18m
Age
Male
Female
2 months
4.9–5.9 kg 10.8–13.0 lb
5.5–6.5 kg 12.1–14.3 lb
3 months
7.3–8.7 kg 16.1–19.2 lb
7.7–9.3 kg 17.0–20.5 lb
4 months
10.6–12.6 kg 23.4–27.8 lb
11.1–13.2 kg 24.5–29.1 lb
5 months
13.6–16.3 kg 30.0–35.9 lb
14.0–16.8 kg 30.9–37.0 lb
6 months
16.2–19.4 kg 35.7–42.8 lb
16.4–19.6 kg 36.2–43.2 lb
7 months
18.2–21.8 kg 40.1–48.1 lb
18.2–21.8 kg 40.1–48.1 lb
8 months
19.6–23.5 kg 43.2–51.8 lb
19.4–23.3 kg 42.8–51.4 lb
9 months
20.6–24.6 kg 45.4–54.2 lb
20.3–24.3 kg 44.8–53.6 lb
10 months
21.2–25.4 kg 46.7–56.0 lb
21.0–25.1 kg 46.3–55.3 lb
11 months
21.7–26.0 kg 47.8–57.3 lb
21.4–25.6 kg 47.2–56.4 lb
12 months
22.0–26.4 kg 48.5–58.2 lb
21.7–26.0 kg 47.8–57.3 lb
15 months
22.6–27.0 kg 49.8–59.5 lb
22.4–26.8 kg 49.4–59.1 lb

Lifespan

No vet study has measured how long French Spaniels live yet. The 10–12 years shown is a general figure without a published source.

Where it comes from

The French Spaniel is a pointing dog that its FCI standard traces to the bird dogs Gaston Fébus wrote about in the Middle Ages. From 1830 hunters gradually dropped it for English setters and pointers, and by 1886 it had nearly disappeared. Today's dogs descend from the few true-to-type survivors that the Abbé Fournier gathered into his kennel soon after a spaniel club was founded in 19064,8.

The French Spaniel, known in France as the épagneul français, owes its survival to a small revival in the early twentieth century led by a priest, Abbé Fournier, and the breed was rebuilt steadily from his dogs. It has since remained largely a working gun dog, with a strong following among hunters in France and in French-speaking Canada, particularly Quebec. It was bred to quarter ground, hold a firm point on game birds and retrieve to hand, working in woodland, open fields and marsh alike.

Breed standard

The French Spaniel is judged against standard no. 175, in group 7, Pointing Dogs4.

Questions people ask

General guidance for dogs rather than a measured French Spaniel figure: most females have a first season somewhere between six and fifteen months, and cycles then settle to roughly every 180 days. Smaller breeds tend to start earlier and larger ones later, so a medium-sized breed is most likely somewhere in the middle.

Compare with related

German Shorthaired Pointer
Pointing dogs · Medium
Wirehaired Vizsla
Pointing dogs · Medium
Vizsla
Pointing dogs · Medium
German Wirehaired Pointer
Pointing dogs · Medium
Or compare the French Spaniel with any breed you choose
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Sources

Uncited on this page: Lifespan — no reviewed source yet, so it is a general reference figure rather than a published one.
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Parts of this page were written by AI ·