Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir

✨ Key Takeaways

Quick Facts

Common Names & Variants

Modern aliases

Historical names

⚖️ Pros & Cons

Physical Appearance

Recognized colors

Coat

Other

Ears: Drop, long. Tail: Long, carried in action.

🕰 History

An English cross the French chose to keep

Where most old French pack hounds treat a strain of English Foxhound blood as an accident to be bred out, the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir was built around exactly that cross and named for it. The hound is one of three large Anglo-French pack breeds whose very title -- Anglo-Francais -- announces a deliberate marriage of native French scenthounds with the imported English Foxhound, and the black-and-white member of the trio descends in the main from the old white-and-black hounds of the Saintonge country put to Foxhound stallions in the middle of the nineteenth century. The product of that union was for a long time called the Batard Anglo-Saintongeois, the English-Saintongeois half-breed, and it is the foundation from which the modern breed was later fixed and renamed. This is, in other words, a hound that wears its hybrid origin on its registration papers rather than hiding it.

The Saintongeois behind the black blanket

The French side of the cross was the white-and-black hound of Saintonge and Gascony -- the line that survives today as the Gascon-Saintongeois -- a large, distinguished scenthound carrying the black mantle, the blue and black mottling and the discreet tan points that the Blanc et Noir still shows. To that grave, slow-voiced French type the breeders of the 1800s added the English Foxhound, prized across the Channel for soundness, drive and the steadiness that lets a large pack hold together over a long chase. The aim was a faster, harder-running pack hound that kept the nose and the marked white-and-black coat of the Saintongeois while gaining the robust frame and pack discipline of the Foxhound. The resulting Anglo-Saintongeois half-breeds were never a single uniform dog at first; they were a working population, bred for results in the field and only gradually pulled into a recognisable type.

Grand means the game, not the dog

The word that confuses most newcomers is Grand. It does not describe the size of the hound -- though the breed is genuinely large -- but the size of the quarry. A grand chien is a hound bred for grand gibier, the big game of the French forest: roe deer, red deer and wild boar, hunted in large mounted packs in the venerie tradition. The distinction matters because France also developed Anglo-French hounds for petit gibier, the petite venerie of hare and fox, which is the separate Anglo-Francais de Petite Venerie. The Blanc et Noir belongs squarely to the grand-game branch, and everything about its construction -- the strong bone, the depth of chest, the stamina to run all day in front of horses -- answers to that role rather than to any show-ring ideal.

Sorting the half-breeds into named breeds

For nearly a century the Anglo-French hounds existed as a tangle of regional packs and informal types with no settled nomenclature. The order came in stages in the twentieth century. The term Anglo-Francais was adopted officially in 1957 to cover the whole family of French-Foxhound crosses, and over the following decades the large grand-game hounds were sorted by coat into three distinct breeds: the Grand Anglo-Francais Tricolore, the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Orange, and this one, the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir. The black-and-white hound was recognised on a definitive basis by the Federation Cynologique Internationale on 27 January 1983, and its valid standard -- FCI Standard No. 323, Group 6, Section 1.1 (Large-sized Hounds) -- was last published on 4 November 2008. The breed is subject to a working trial, the FCI's way of insisting that it remain a functional hunting hound and not drift into a purely cosmetic type.

One of three, told apart by coat

The black-and-white hound is best understood as one member of a closely related trio rather than as an isolated breed. The Grand Anglo-Francais Tricolore, the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Orange and the Blanc et Noir share the same essential make-up -- a large French grand-game pack hound carrying English Foxhound blood -- and differ mainly in colour, each tracing to a different strand of the old French hound landscape. The tricolour line leans on the great tricolour French hounds and the Foxhound; the white-and-orange on the orange-and-white Billy and Chien Francais blood; and the white-and-black, the breed described here, on the white-and-black Saintongeois. In a working context the three were long bred and run with little regard for the modern colour divisions, which is why the breeds remain so alike in build, voice and purpose and why the coat is the most reliable way to tell them apart. The FCI fixed the three as separate breeds only in the later twentieth century, formalising distinctions that French huntsmen had treated as a matter of preference rather than of pedigree.

A living pack breed, barely a pet

What separates the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir from almost every breed a pet owner will meet is that it was never meaningfully domesticated to the house. It is a working pack hound, bred and kept by hunting establishments in France, and around twenty or more organised packs were reported running it as recently as the late 2000s. The dogs live and work as a meute -- the large, mounted-hunt pack of the French tradition -- on roe deer, boar and fox across forest and farmland, and the overwhelming majority of puppies bred each year are destined for those packs, not for sale as companions. Outside France the breed is very seldom seen. Its survival is owed to the continuing vitality of the venerie itself: as long as French hunts run big game with large packs, the black-and-white Anglo-French hound has a job, and as long as it has a job it will be bred.

Temperament & Personality

A pack animal to the core

The temperament of the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir cannot honestly be separated from the way it lives, because it is one of the few breeds still bred almost entirely to function inside a large hunting pack rather than to share a household. The dominant traits are the ones the meute selects for: sociability with other dogs, an even and biddable disposition toward the huntsman, deep stamina and an all-consuming drive to follow scent. These are gregarious, companionable hounds among their own kind, content in the company of a dozen or more pack-mates and conditioned from puppyhood to cooperate rather than compete destructively. The flip side is that an individual taken out of that setting and asked to live as a solitary pet is a dog removed from the only world it was designed for.

Gentle with people, governed by the nose

With people the breed is friendly, calm and free of sharpness; like most French pack hounds it is no guard, greeting strangers with mild interest rather than suspicion. That gentleness is genuine, but it sits alongside a powerful and largely uncontrollable scenting instinct that dictates the dog's behaviour the moment a line is struck. A Blanc et Noir on a fresh deer or boar trail is single-minded to the point of deafness, and this is not disobedience but the precise quality two centuries of breeding put there on purpose. Owners who read the breed correctly understand that they have a nose with a dog attached, and that the dog's affection for its people, real as it is, will not override the trail.

Voice, energy and the need for the field

Like every grand-game scenthound the breed gives tongue freely on a line, a melodious, carrying voice that is treasured in the hunt and entirely unsuited to a neighbour close by. It is also a high-energy, high-stamina animal that was bred to run for hours in front of horses, and the bottomless appetite for work does not switch off because the dog has been placed in a kennel without a hunt to attend. A Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir with proper outlets -- pack work, long scenting exercise, real physical and mental load -- is a steady, sociable, easy-natured hound. The same dog under-exercised and isolated becomes vocal, restless and frustrated, and the gap between those two versions is the single most important thing a prospective owner can grasp.

🏡 Living With a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir

Built for the kennel and the hunt, not the flat

This is among the clearest cases in the hound world of a breed whose needs decide whether ownership can work at all. The Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir is a large, athletic pack scenthound bred to cover open country all day, and in its homeland it almost always lives as one of a working pack rather than as a house dog. Its exercise requirement is not the brisk daily walk a fit companion breed wants but sustained, vigorous activity at a real pace, ideally combined with scent-work or actual hunting that occupies the nose as well as the legs. A town flat and a couple of lead walks come nowhere near meeting it, and an under-worked dog turns its frustration into voice and restlessness.

Company, not solitude

Because the breed was shaped by life in a meute, it does badly in isolation in a way many pet breeds do not. These are intensely sociable hounds that thrive among other dogs and grow anxious and noisy when kept alone for long stretches. The kennel life of a French pack suits the breed precisely because it comes with constant canine company and the regular rhythm of the hunt; a single dog left by itself in a run or a back garden has neither. Anyone keeping one outside a working pack should expect to provide both substantial daily exercise and genuine companionship, whether human or canine, through most of the day.

Fencing, prey drive and the realistic household

Secure, substantial perimeter fencing is essential, not optional. A hound bred to drive roe deer and boar will follow a line of live game without hesitation, and a large scenthound in pursuit travels fast and far before it surfaces from the trail. The same prey drive makes cats and small pets a real consideration; a dog raised among them may tolerate them, but the instinct toward outdoor wildlife never lessens. With its own people the breed is gentle and good-natured, and tolerant of children it has grown up with, but its size, energy and field focus mean it is far better suited to an active rural home -- ideally one connected to hunting -- than to a quiet domestic setting or an inexperienced first-time owner.

🎓 Training & Exercise

Cooperative in the pack, independent on the line

The Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir carries the same productive tension as every driving scenthound: it is sociable, even-tempered and willing to work with the people it trusts, yet it was selected for generations to make its own decisions on a trail with little moment-to-moment direction. Inside the structure of a pack, under a huntsman it knows, it is a cooperative and manageable dog. Asked to perform the precise, instant-compliance obedience of a companion breed, it shows the independence that the field rewards and the living room does not. Training succeeds when it works with that nature -- calm, consistent, reward-based, patient -- and fails when it relies on heavy correction, which a fundamentally gentle hound simply shuts down under.

Recall is the honest ceiling

Reliable recall in the presence of live scent is the real limit of what this breed can be trained to do, and pretending otherwise sets both dog and owner up to fail. A Blanc et Noir that answers perfectly in the garden can become effectively deaf the instant it strikes a deer or boar line, because a hound that could be called off the chase would have been useless in the pack it was bred for. The practical management is the standard one for a powerful scenthound: build recall slowly across progressively more distracting settings, reward it generously every single time, and treat a long line or securely enclosed ground as the default wherever scenting conditions are strong. Hunters control the dogs by keeping the pack within working contact and reading the country, not by expecting gun-dog precision.

Early socialisation and steady routine

Because the breed lives so naturally among other dogs, early and broad socialisation pays large dividends in producing a settled adult, especially for any dog that will live outside a pack and meet the wider world of traffic, strangers and unfamiliar animals. A puppy exposed calmly to varied people, places and situations in its first months grows into a more confident, adaptable hound. Throughout its life the breed responds best to a predictable routine and a clear, gentle structure; it is not a candidate for the high-pressure competitive obedience or agility disciplines, where its scent-led, independent temperament works against the split-second responses those sports demand.

Give the drive a real job

The kindest and most effective training an owner can offer is a genuine outlet for the breed's defining instinct. Where hunting is legal and available the dog excels at the grand-game pack work it was made for; where it is not, tracking, mantrailing and structured nose-work convert the hound's strongest drive into focused, cooperative engagement with its handler. A Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir given real scent-work is a willing, contented partner. Denied any outlet for the nose and the stamina, it becomes the frustrated, vocal dog that gives pack hounds their difficult reputation among people who took one on without understanding what it was bred to do.

✂️ Grooming & Coat Care

A short working coat that asks little

The Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir wears one of the most practical coats in the large-hound world. It is short, dense and close-lying -- a functional jacket built to shed brambles and the wet of the field rather than to draw a show judge's eye -- and it needs no clipping, stripping or professional grooming whatsoever. A weekly going-over with a firm-bristle brush or a rubber curry comb lifts dead hair, spreads the skin's natural oils and keeps the marked white-and-black coat looking clean. During the spring and autumn moults the dog sheds more heavily, and brushing every second or third day through those weeks keeps loose hair under control. Bathing is occasional -- when the dog is genuinely dirty or smells of the field rather than on any fixed schedule -- using a mild dog shampoo that does not strip the coat's weather resistance.

Ears first, every week

The long drop ears are the real grooming priority, far more than the coat. Their hanging, close-fitting conformation invites the warmth and moisture in which ear infections begin, and a working or water-crossing hound is exposed to that risk often. Inspect both ears weekly for redness, discharge or odour, clean the outer canal gently with a veterinarian-approved cleaner on a cotton pad -- never pushing anything down into the canal itself -- and dry the ears carefully after swimming, bathing or wet field work. Catching the early signs of trouble and acting on them is what keeps a minor irritation from becoming a chronic, painful condition, and for a pack-worked dog it is simply part of the daily round.

Nails, teeth and the post-work check

Nails should be checked monthly. A hound worked on hard ground may wear them naturally, but a dog exercised mostly on soft going will need trimming before the nails grow long enough to alter its gait. Dental care matters as much in this breed as in any large dog: regular tooth-brushing with a canine toothpaste is the most effective preventive against the periodontal disease that is otherwise near-universal, supported by appropriate dental chews. Because the breed works in rough cover, a hands-on check after every outing -- running the hands over the skin and coat, feeling between the toes and under the earflaps for grass seeds, ticks or thorns, and glancing at the eyes -- belongs in the routine alongside the brush and the nail clippers.

🍖 Diet & Nutrition

Feeding a hard-running pack hound

The Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir is a large, athletic, energetic working dog, and its diet has to track both its real energy output and the way that output swings with the hunting season. A good-quality complete dog food matched to the dog's life stage -- puppy, adult or senior -- and to its activity level is the sensible baseline. A hound worked regularly will burn far more than the same dog resting out of season, and the amount fed should rise and fall with the workload rather than sit at a single year-round ration. The feeding guide on the bag is a starting point, not a prescription; hands-on body-condition scoring is the more reliable everyday measure. A hound in good condition has ribs that are easily felt under a thin covering, a waist visible from above and a clear tuck-up behind the ribs when seen from the side.

Feeding the working season and the quiet one

The commonest nutritional mistake with any working hound is to keep feeding at the working rate once the work has stopped, and this breed's seasonal life makes the trap especially easy to fall into. During the hunting months a hard-driven pack dog needs a generous, high-energy intake to sustain long days in the field; out of season, when the same dog is doing a fraction of the work, the ration must come down to match or the weight creeps on before anyone notices. Overweight is more than a cosmetic issue in a large, hard-working breed: excess load accelerates joint wear and shortens the working career the dog was bred for. Measured meals rather than free-choice feeding, restraint with table scraps, and counting any training treats inside the daily ration -- not on top of it -- are the habits that keep this hound in trim.

Schedule, water and field practice

Adult dogs are normally fed twice a day, morning and evening, rather than in one large meal; splitting the ration steadies the dog and, in a deep-chested large breed, is a sensible precaution against digestive upset. Fresh water must always be available, and demand rises sharply on working days and in warm weather. As a matter of routine field practice, a hard-running hound should not be fed a heavy meal immediately before vigorous work -- a gap of roughly two hours between a full meal and the off is the standard, widely-followed precaution, particularly in a deep-chested dog. On a long hunting day a light meal well before the start, water through the day, and the main feed given after the dog has cooled and rested suit the breed better than a single large pre-work meal. Puppies need more frequent, smaller meals appropriate to their age, transitioning to the adult pattern as they mature.

🐶 Buying & Adopting a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir

A pack breed, rarely sold as a pet

The Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir presents one of the most challenging buying pictures of any recognised breed, and a prospective owner should grasp the scale of that before getting attached to the idea. The breed is held almost entirely in French hunting packs -- around twenty or more were reported running it in the late 2000s -- and the great majority of dogs bred each year are destined for those packs rather than offered for sale as companions. Outside France the breed is barely present at all, and breed-specific availability anywhere else is effectively nil. A would-be owner anywhere outside the French hunting world should set realistic expectations from the outset: finding a dog will mean approaching French hunting establishments and the Societe Centrale Canine directly, accepting a substantial wait, and budgeting for the veterinary checks, paperwork and transport that any international placement requires. There is no standardised global price for the breed, and any source advertising ready availability of one at an ordinary pet-dog price deserves scepticism rather than enthusiasm.

Where to begin: the SCC and the French packs

The right first contacts are the official French bodies and the breed's working community. The Societe Centrale Canine is the national keeper of the breed in its homeland and the natural starting point for finding ethical breeders, and the FCI nomenclature entry for Standard No. 323 connects enquirers to national cynological organisations elsewhere on the rare occasion that a dog turns up outside France. Because the breed is so concentrated in working packs, much of the real expertise lives with the hunts that run them, and a serious enquirer will end up talking to people whose first concern is whether a dog will get the work and pack life it needs. A responsible breeder will ask searching questions about the buyer's space, fencing, dog-handling experience and ability to provide real exercise and engagement, and a breeder who asks none of this and offers a puppy on demand is a warning sign, not a convenience.

A sober assessment of fit -- and of adoption

Breed-specific rescue is effectively non-existent outside France simply because the breed is so scarce, though Anglo-French pack hounds occasionally appear in general hound rescue in their home region, usually as dogs that proved unsuited to a home that could not meet their needs -- precisely the mismatch this guide aims to prevent. Whether buying or adopting, the honest question is the same one the breed has always posed: can you provide a large, energetic, intensely sociable pack hound with the space, the secure fencing, the canine company, the work and the experienced handling it requires? For an active rural home connected to hunting, with the room and the inclination to give the dog a real job, the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir is a sound, good-natured and rewarding partner. For a town household wanting an easy companion, it is the wrong dog, and recognising that before the purchase is a kindness to everyone, the dog most of all.

📜 Breed Name Etymology — iDogNames original research

Anglo-Francais -- a name that admits the cross

The breed's name is unusually honest about where the dog came from. Anglo-Francais means, plainly, English-French, and it marks this hound as a deliberate union of the English Foxhound with native French scenthounds -- the very Foxhound blood that the pure Chien Francais breeds treat as a fault to be bred out. Where a French hound named for a province or a colour hides its make-up behind geography or appearance, the Anglo-French hounds carry their hybrid foundation in their title. The term was adopted officially in 1957 to cover the whole family of French-Foxhound crosses, replacing the older and franker label Batard Anglo-Saintongeois -- the English-Saintongeois half-breed -- by which the black-and-white type had been known since the nineteenth century.

Grand, Blanc and Noir -- size of game, colour of coat

Each remaining word in the name carries precise information. Grand refers not to the dog's stature but to grand gibier, the big game -- roe deer, red deer and wild boar -- that the breed is bred to hunt in large packs, distinguishing it from the Anglo-French hounds developed for the petite venerie of hare and fox. Blanc et noir simply means white and black, naming the obligatory coat colour that separates this breed from its two close cousins, the Grand Anglo-Francais Tricolore and the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Orange. The full name is therefore a compact description of exactly what the dog is: a large-game Anglo-French pack hound in white and black. In English the breed is rendered, just as literally, as the Great Anglo-French White and Black Hound.

The Saintongeois thread in the name's history

Behind the modern name lies the older one that records the French side of the cross. Batard Anglo-Saintongeois pointed directly to the white-and-black hounds of the Saintonge country -- the line preserved today as the Gascon-Saintongeois -- whose black mantle, blue mottling and discreet tan points the Blanc et Noir still wears. When the Anglo-French hounds were reclassified and renamed in the mid-twentieth century, that regional reference dropped out of the everyday name, but it survives in the breed's history and in the coat itself, which reads as a Saintongeois pattern carried on a frame the Foxhound helped build.

Name forms at a glance

🏛 Naming Traditions — iDogNames original research

French venerie names for a French pack hound

Because the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir is so completely a creature of the French hunt, owners who want a name that fits the breed reach naturally for France -- and, more specifically, for the venerie tradition that produced the dog. French pack-hunting has its own deep well of hound names, often short, vowel-rich and chosen to carry across country when a huntsman calls the pack: names like Tambour (drum, for a deep voice), Fanfare, Clairon (bugle) and Tayaut -- the French hunting cry, the equivalent of tally-ho -- all belong to that living tradition. Traditional French given names such as Gaston, Aime, Margot or Colette sit equally well on a hound whose whole identity is rooted in the French countryside and its mounted hunts.

The breed's striking black-and-white coat offers a second rich vein. French colour words -- Noir and Noire for the black mantle, Blanc and Blanche for the white ground, Pie for a pied dog, Ardoise for the slate of the blue mottling -- tie a name directly to the coat, and the roe-buck mark the standard names gives Chevreuil a natural place too. The breed's English-French ancestry gives a third: a nod across the Channel with names like Foxhound-flavoured Hunter or Chase, or to the Saintonge homeland of its French side. Whichever direction an owner takes, the strongest names for this hound are the ones that reflect what the dog actually is -- a large black-and-white Anglo-French pack hound, bred for big game and built to be heard.

🐾 Themed Names for Your Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir — iDogNames original research

French venerie and hound-tradition names

• Tayaut -- the French hunting cry, the equivalent of tally-ho; pure venerie tradition
• Vaillant -- French for valiant; a classic French pack-hound name
• Tambour -- French for drum, honouring the deep, carrying voice
• Fanfare -- the flourish of horns at the hunt; spirited and French
• Clairon -- French for bugle, for the ringing bay on a line
• Trompette -- French for trumpet, another nod to the carrying voice
• Rapide -- French for swift, for a ground-covering hound
• Marquise -- a noble French name befitting an old hunting breed

Black-and-white coat and colour names

• Noir -- French for black, for the breed's black mantle
• Noire -- the feminine form of black, for a bitch
• Blanc -- French for white, for the pale ground colour
• Pie -- French for pied, for a boldly black-and-white dog
• Ardoise -- French for slate, for the blue and black mottling
• Domino -- a playful name for a black-and-white coat
• Magpie -- the black-and-white bird, plain English for the markings
• Inky -- a simple name for the dark mantle

French heritage and Saintonge names

• Gaston -- a traditional French name with a hunting flavour
• Saintonge -- the French region behind the breed's French ancestry
• Loire -- the great river of west-central France
• Margot -- a warm, traditional French female name
• Aime -- French for beloved, a fond name for a devoted hound
• Colette -- a classic French female name with literary depth
• Renard -- French for fox, one of the breed's quarries
• Chevreuil -- French for roe deer, the tan roe-buck mark and a chief quarry

Hunt, quarry and voice names

• Chasse -- French for the hunt, the breed's reason for being
• Meute -- French for the hunting pack, this hound's natural unit
• Cerf -- French for stag, evoking the deer the breed runs
• Sanglier -- French for wild boar, one of the breed's quarries
• Piste -- French for track or scent trail
• Echo -- for the carrying, melodious voice in cover
• Chasseur -- French for hunter, for a born pack worker
• Ranger -- plain English for a dog built to cover ground all day
• Scout -- for the methodical scenting work of the hound
• Hunter -- a nod to the English Foxhound in the breed's make-up

More French heritage names

• French Trail - best for a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir name rooted in France rather than generic style
• France; French side derived from the white-and-black hounds of Saintonge and Gascony Ridge - best for a regional landscape cue tied to the Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir story
• Local Line - best for a name that respects local breed history
• Old Route - best for migration, trade, field or pastoral routes behind the breed
• Heritage Note - best for a page where origin should be treated as context, not decoration
• Village Path - best for rustic, local or landrace-style background
• Working Home - best for a dog whose name should remember large grand-game pack scenthound (chien courant) bred to hunt roe deer, wild boar and fox in large organised m
• Country Mark - best for a concise country-of-origin cue

More work and purpose names

• Cold Nose - best for a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir tied to older scent trails
• Track Bell - best for a hound whose voice marks the trail
• Scent Check - best for a dog that confirms track direction
• Long Trail - best for endurance over rough or wooded country
• Forest Cast - best for methodical search through cover
• Leash Rule - best for wildlife and road-safety management
• Checkback - best for a trail dog who learns to return to the handler
• Settle - best for calm at home after scent work

More coat and build names

• White And Black (obligatory) - best for a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir whose color or markings deserve a simple call name
• Short, Dense Coat - best for the short, dense coat type on this breed
• White Blaze - best for a clear face or chest marking
• Dark Mask - best for a dog with a strong muzzle or face marking
• Weather Coat - best for outdoor or working-dog coat context
• Strong Frame - best for a dog whose build is part of its function
• Bright Eye - best for an alert expression
• Ground Step - best for a name tied to movement and body type

📋 Breed Standard at a Glance

FCI Standard No. 323 -- general appearance and size

The Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir is a large French scenthound classified by the FCI in Group 6 (Scent Hounds and Related Breeds), Section 1.1 (Large-sized Hounds), and is subject to a working trial. The standard describes a big, rather powerful hound, resistant and robust, with strong bone -- the construction of a pack dog built to run grand game over long distances rather than for sprint speed. Males stand 65 to 72 cm at the withers and females 62 to 68 cm, with a tolerance of one centimetre either way. The overall impression is of a sound, well-built, athletic hound carrying its size without coarseness, the obvious legacy of the English Foxhound in its make-up combined with the head and colour of the old French Saintongeois.

Head, coat and the obligatory colour

The head is moderately long with a slightly domed skull and a noble, open expression; the ears are set on at about eye level, supple and fairly long, in the manner of the French pack hound rather than the heavy, low-hung ear of the southern Gascony breeds. The coat is short and dense, lying close to the skin. Colour is the breed's defining feature and is obligatory: white and black, with a black mantle or black markings more or less spread out, which may carry black or bluish mottling. Small tan freckles are permitted, but tan appears only on the limbs, and a characteristic tan mark at the base of the upper thigh is known in French as the marque de chevreuil, the roe-buck mark. The whole effect is a clean, strongly marked black-and-white hound, easily told in a pack from its tricolour and white-and-orange cousins.

Body, movement and working requirements

The body is that of a powerful stayer: a deep, well-developed chest giving good lung room, a strong back, a muscular loin and well-angulated hindquarters built to drive the dog efficiently over rough ground for hours. The tail is long and carried in the action of the hunt. Movement is free, easy and ground-covering -- the gait of an endurance pack hound rather than a galloper. That the FCI lists the breed as subject to a working trial is the most telling line in the standard: it reflects the insistence that this remains a functional grand-game hunting dog, bred and judged for the pack work it was created to do rather than for the show ring alone.

🏆 Recognition

FCI standard No. 323 (Section 1.1 -- Large-sized Hounds), recognized in 1983.

Other registries

Breed clubs

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir's temperament like?

It is an energetic, hardy, hunt-driven pack hound bred to live and work among many other dogs. With people it is friendly, calm and even-tempered -- a gentle hound that is not sharp or nervous, which also makes it a poor guard -- and it is notably sociable with other dogs, a legacy of pack life. The defining trait is an all-consuming scenting drive: a dog on a fresh deer or boar line is single-minded to the point of deafness, which is the design working as intended rather than disobedience. It is not a typical pet, does badly in isolation, and does best in an active, dog-experienced home that can provide space, canine company and real work.

How big does a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir get?

It is a large French scenthound. Under FCI Standard No. 323 males stand 65 to 72 cm at the withers and females 62 to 68 cm, with a tolerance of one centimetre either way, and weight runs in the region of 28 to 35 kg. The standard describes a big, rather powerful, robust hound with strong bone -- the construction of a stayer built to run grand game over long distances in a pack rather than a heavy, bulky dog. The word grand in the name refers to the size of the game, not the size of the dog.

What health problems does a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir have?

It is generally a sound, athletic hound, but it is a rare working breed kept almost entirely in French hunting packs and almost no formal, breed-specific health data exists for it. No unusual hereditary disorder has been documented as characteristic of the breed, which reflects both genuine working soundness -- packs select hard for dogs that can run all day -- and a real lack of study. The predictable practical concerns are otitis externa in the long pendant ears, managed by regular inspection, gentle cleaning and careful drying, and, as in any large athletic dog, hip dysplasia, for which radiographic screening of breeding stock is advised. Typical lifespan is in the region of 10 to 12 years. This is general educational information, not veterinary advice.

Are Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir good family dogs?

For an active rural household connected to hunting, with space, secure fencing and dog-handling experience, this breed can be a gentle, good-natured companion that is friendly with people and excellent with other dogs. But it is not a typical pet: it is a large, energetic pack hound bred to live in a meute, so it does badly alone, needs serious daily exercise and a real scent-work or hunting outlet, and has a strong prey drive that makes cats and small pets a real consideration. It is unsuited to a quiet urban flat or to first-time owners. Outside France the breed is extremely rare and held mostly in working packs, so acquiring one usually means a long wait and direct contact with French hunting establishments.

How much grooming does a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir need?

Very little, where the coat is concerned. The short, dense, close-lying coat needs only a weekly brush with a firm-bristle brush or rubber curry comb, with more frequent brushing during the spring and autumn moults, and occasional bathing when the dog is genuinely dirty -- it needs no clipping or stripping. The real grooming priority is the long drop ears, which trap warmth and moisture and are prone to infection: regular inspection, gentle cleaning of the outer canal with a veterinarian-approved product and careful drying after wet field work are essential. Nails need monthly checking and teeth benefit from regular brushing; a hands-on check for ticks and grass seeds after work in cover is sensible for this rough-country breed.

How much exercise does a Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir need?

A Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir needs exercise that matches its history and build. Plan for daily movement, training and mental work connected to large grand-game pack scenthound (chien courant) bred to hunt roe deer, wild boar and fox in large organised m. The right amount depends on age, health and individual temperament, so owners should balance activity with rest rather than relying on a one-size routine.

📚 Sources & Further Reading

Every load-bearing factual claim on this page is anchored to one of the sources below. iDogNames does not synthesize from secondary aggregators.

• fci standard pdf FCI Standard No. 323 -- Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir — Federation Cynologique Internationale (2008)
• breed club official Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir -- FCI Nomenclature Entry No. 323 — Federation Cynologique Internationale (2024)
• breed club official Societe Centrale Canine -- national kennel club of France — Societe Centrale Canine (2024)
• wikipedia Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir -- Wikipedia — Wikipedia
• wikidata Grand Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir -- Wikidata entity Q3115537 — Wikidata
• breed club official Great Anglo-French White and Black Hound -- UKC Breed Standard — United Kennel Club (1996)
• book The New Encyclopedia of the Dog — Dorling Kindersley (2000)
• veterinary org Otitis Externa in Dogs -- overview and management — Merck Veterinary Manual (2024)
• veterinary org Hip Dysplasia -- evaluation and screening — Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (2024)

You May Also Like

Grand Anglo-Français Tricolore

Grand Anglo-Français Blanc et Orange

Gascon Saintongeois

Grand Bleu de Gascogne

Poitevin