Know Your Sighthounds

From  the biggest Wolfhound to the smallest Italian Greyhounds, Sighthounds  come in a wide range of breeds, sizes, and personalities.  Do you know  them all?  Do you know what a sight hound is?  Did you know there is  well over 20 breeds and types that fall into the ‘sighthound’ category?

While  Greyhounds, Whippets and Italian Greyhounds are amongst the most  well-known, and popular in the UK, there are many less common breeds to  be found such as the Borzoi, Afghan Hound and those that are classed as  sighthounds, but are cross breeds, such as Lurchers and Longdogs.

Lurchers  and Longdogs, like pure bred sighthounds, were historically bred with  the purpose of being the perfect hunting and coursing companions.  

Longdogs  are the cross of two sighthound breeds such as a Greyhound x Saluki, a  very popular coursing combination, or any sighthound crossed with a  Whippet to get a hound of smaller stature.

Lurchers  are the cross of a sighthound and a working breed, typically with a  Labrador, Collie or Terrier type.  Popular mixes we still see today are  the Greyhound x Collie and Whippet x Bedlington.  You also get the  scruffy lurchers which are often Deerhound crossed with a working  breed…but it’s often hard to tell what by looking at them!

With  countless breed combinations to utilise, breed specific characteristics  were selected to improve each generations intelligence, athletic  ability, and resilience for racing and coursing.  In many parts of the  UK, this is still the case.  

While  sighthounds are often collectively dumped into that box of being  easy-going couch potatoes, that have short burst of energy, as they’re  designed for sprinting to catch rabbits and the like…Lurchers definitely  should not be thrown into this category.

As  soon as you put a working breed into the mix, you are taking on a dog  that is more intelligent, has more endurance, and that has more of a  drive.  They often need a lot more exercise than their true sighthound  counterparts, even if they have some of the couch potato genes.

Some  Longdogs can also often come under this banner, especially anything  with Saluki mixed into it!  They are stubborn, chatty, intelligent and  don’t give a flying monkeys about what you want or ask of them!  

We  would never put Lurchers or Longdogs into the ‘suitable for first time  owners’ category, dependant on the breed mix, due to their often being  quite highly strung and much more demanding than the ever-reliable  greyhound.

Though while Lurchers  and Longdogs are still considered mixes, the most common and popular  mixes may one day get their own breed’s name as not all ‘pure’  sighthounds are as they seem!

It  is not uncommon for people to refer to Whippets as just being ‘small  greyhounds’ despite being quite different in temperament and overall  character.  Whippets are in fact direct descendants of the greyhound,  originally bred in the 19th century by combining small greyhounds with  terriers to gain the smaller stature.  This would technically class them  as Lurchers…but they have been around since the 1800s, so it’s probably  fair that they are their own established breed!

The  same could be said for many other sighthounds such as the Wolfhound  which nearly went extinct in the 17th century, only to be revived in the  19th century through the breeding of what few remaining Wolfhound type  dogs could be found with the Scottish Deerhound, Great Dane and even the  Borzoi.

Eventually the Wolfhound  type dog was being produced with every generation born and the breed  was officially reinstated, and showing within the Kennel Club, by the  late 1800s.

The history of all  the different sighthounds is truly fascinating, and all thought to be  descended from the ancient greyhound in some form or another!