Celebrating the Sighthound

Way, way back in time, before there was such a thing as the written word and long before the invention of the wheel, there is evidence of Greyhound-like dogs living with humans.

Excavations at Ҫatal-Hüyük in Turkey, a site dating back to 6000 BCE, have unearthed a sanctuary decorated with ritual hunting scenes. The dogs assisting in the kill had long legs, delicate muzzles and deep chests. These were the progenitors of the Greyhound and all other Sighthounds that have developed over time.

The family tree has many branches, from the large Borzoi of Russia to the diminutive Whippet developed at the end of the 19th Century in the north of England. What these dogs all have in common is not only a similar physique but incredible sight and speed and similar methods of hunting.

When thinking of Sighthounds, for most the first breed that would spring to mind is the Greyhound: coursing breed supreme and more recently racing breed supreme. Coursing under rules was first established in 1776, but it was not until 1919 in Emeryville, California, that the first Greyhound track was opened.

The portrait of the black-and-white Greyhound by the Swiss-born artist Jacques Laurent Agasse (1767-1849) has to be one of the most delicate and beautifully observed of all portraits of the breed. The life-size painting of the Irish Wolfhound was painted by Doris Zinkeisen, official war artist during World War II for the Red Cross who recorded the liberation of Belsen. She was a member of an artistic family that included her sister Anna and nieces Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone.

Painted in the early 1970s, the dog is Samando Conductor, who was owned by Janet and with limited showing won a Reserve CC. His two sisters won extensively in America and Canada. He was bred by Mr. and Mrs. Leet, who also bred Samando Silver, one-time mascot of the Irish Guards.

From the largest of the Sighthounds to one of the smallest, the Whippet, developed by the miners as a little sporting dog for coursing the smaller types of game. The two dogs in the picture are the breed’s first champion, Ch. Zuber, and his son Ch. Enterprise, and with some justification can claim to have been the breed’s early pillars. Zuber was bred by Herbert Vickers and born in 1889.

Their picture was painted by William Eddowes Turner, and signed and dated 1894. It was included in Christie’s much-hyped sale of the collection of Count Alarica Palmieri in 1996, selling for £8,000 against top expectations of £2,500.

Another “first champion” is the Pharaoh Hound Ch. Kilcroney Rekhmire Merymut, born in 1970 and owned by Monica Still. Both his parents were from Maltese stock, and the first year CCs were on offer for the breed he won all the dog CCs. He proved his worth as a sire, one of his champion children being Int/Nord Ch. Caversfield Carmen, the most successful of the early Pharaoh Hounds in Sweden.

Rekhmire’s portrait was painted by the Nottinghamshire-born artist Dorothy Johnson.

Multi-talented Frederick Thomas Daws was one of the best known and highly regarded of the 20th-Century dog artists. He worked in a variety of media and created all the models for Royal Doulton’s Portrait Models of Championship Dogs, many of which are keenly sought by collectors. He also created concrete garden ornaments, chiefly Fox Terriers and Poodles, for the gardens of his wealthy patrons. Like the gardens they adorned, most are lost to the ravages of the English weather, so consequently are as rare as the proverbial “hen’s teeth.”

Daws was fortunate to paint the portraits of many of the top show dogs of his time, and for me one that stands out is the Afghan Hound Ch. Sirdar of Ghazni. Born in 1923 in the kennels of King Amanullah of Afghanistan, he was brought to England by Mrs. Amps, who had been in Afghanistan, where her husband was stationed. The dog founded her celebrated Ghazni kennels. On being exhibited he was at once acclaimed one of the finest Afghans seen in Britain. He won eight CCs, was an outstanding stud dog, and his influence on the breed so great that there are probably few, if any, Afghans in Britain that do not descend from him. Daws’ picture was recently acquired by an American collector who had been chasing it for years.

In his excellent work “Dogs: Their History and Development” (1927), Edward C. Ash writes: “It is claimed that the Saluki is the oldest pure breed in the world,” and certainly by the 16th Century the breed was well established in Persia, as it was throughout the Arab world.

The Saluki under a wisteria tree painted on silk is typical of those being painted by Persian artists in the middle years of the 16th Century, many of whom moved to the Mughal court. Although such paintings are rare, helped probably by the fragility of the material, the Saluki appears on others of the period.

The elegance of the Borzoi has over the decades attracted artists working in a variety of media. Maud Earl was commissioned to paint the breed many times, one of her patrons being the Duchess of Newcastle, and the Royal Kennel Club has two monumental works of her dogs by the artist.

The three Borzoi in the paining here are Pakotai, Neutralize and Pianola, owned by Kenneth Muir of Wandsworth. It was painted by Maud Earl in 1892 and exhibited in Bond Street in 1893. It was sold by Bonhams Los Angeles in their 2015 sale of the estate of the late Beverly Hills resident Gloria Reese for $25,000. A successful breeder of Borzoi, she was at one time president of the Borzoi club, and owner of the top-winning Greyhound of all time.

Finally, a Sighthound that has been around since at least the 17th Century: the lurcher, for the term was first used in 1668. They were traditionally bred in England to assist poachers in hunting rabbits and hares. Today a lurcher is a cross between a Greyhound and another Sighthound breed, usually a Saluki. Originally a lurcher was a cross between a Greyhound and a working-dog breed, the aim of the cross being to produce a Sighthound with more intelligence, a canny animal suitable for poaching.

As a crossbreed they are not formally recognized by any major kennel club around the world today. In America lurchers can be registered with the North America Lurcher and Longdog Association.

The engraving of a keen-eyed lurcher on a rocky bank with rabbits in the distance was done by John Scott from a painting by Philip Reinagle and was published in William Taplin’s “The Sportsman’s Cabinet, or a Correct Delineation of the Canine Race” (1803-04) — in those far-off days they enjoyed their long titles — the third English dog book to be published.

Reference: “The Reign of the Greyhound” by Cynthia A. Branigan (1997).