Whippet: Nutrition, character, training and much more about the English Greyhound

By Roland Berger

There are numerous breeds of greyhounds in the world and you are interested in a whippet. This dog is an exceptionally good athlete and its attitude and employment should be oriented accordingly. So, it might present you with some challenges. Also, you should keep in mind that a Whippet is a hunting dog and therefore it will need special training, for which you will have to spend a lot of time and patience. The hunting and hounding instinct is innate in this breed and cannot and should not be easily suppressed.

A greyhound is born to run. You should definitely keep this in mind when keeping one. This book is designed to make it as easy as possible for you to handle a Whippet and to give you tips.

The contents of the book are therefore as follows:
- The history to the greyhound
- Character and nature of the Whippet
- Nutrition, attitude and education
- Recognizing important diseases
- Meaningful activity

The informations hopefully helped you to make a decision for or against a Whippet. Have fun reading and learning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XinXii
• Release date: Apr 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9783986468880

Book preview

The history of the greyhound

In order to be able to keep a sighthound, you should first and foremost know why this breed exists at all and what it was once bred for. Only then you can have understanding for this unique breed, because it has its own peculiarities in many situations and should not be lumped together with other dog breeds.

Even in the earliest human cultures, greyhounds were kept to assist humans in hunting game. They should be able to follow the game. So they had to be so fast that they could catch up with it and kill it, in order to help man in the exploitation of his food. Therefore, the survival of early mankind also depended on these dogs. To this day, the outer appearance of the greyhounds has been largely preserved. Today, as then, they are equipped with very long legs and are extremely slender and agile. Likewise, their character and nature has hardly changed.

The name greyhound means Wendish (Slavic) dog. From this it can be concluded that sighthounds used to be kept mostly in Slavic countries. In addition, the word Wind indicates the old German word Wint, this means hunting. Therefore, a sighthound can also be called a hunting dog.

Some tribes still keep their sighthounds according to ancient tradition. They accompany their owner who travels by horse or camel, can be found hunting falcons or live with desert nomads and rich sheikhs.

In aristocratic circles, hunting with sighthounds was more for pleasure, but the Bedouins really used these dogs for food procurement. Therefore, they were particularly appreciated there at that time. The dogs were allowed to sleep with the desert inhabitants with in the tent and were treated very affectionately, why a special status came to them here opposite other dog races. The watchdogs, for example, always lived outside the camp and had hardly any relation to the people. By the way, this way of life among the Bedouins can still be found today.

The greyhound was also known in Europe long before the birth of Christ. Here, however, it was also reserved only for the higher society to own such noble animals. Greyhounds have always been very precious and they could not be bought just anywhere. They changed owners at most when they were presented as gifts on special occasions. But then there was also an obligation to breed this breed if a noble lord wanted to keep them and use them for hunting. Since hunting was reserved only for the nobility, no citizen had the right to own a sighthound. And here we are with the Whippet.

This is the youngest breed in the history of the development of the sighthound and was created in the 19th century. It was bred to take away the privileges of greyhound hunting from the nobility and to enable the ordinary citizen to own a greyhound. Above all, it was used for hunting hares, which was illegal at that time. Simple miners and factory workers bred this breed from Greyhounds and Italian Greyhounds that remained small, by mating them with short-haired terriers. Since 1891, the Whippet breed has been officially registered in a stud book. The name Whippet is derived from the words whip and pet. Translated, this means whip dog and points to the long tail of a Whippet. In the meantime, there is also a long-haired Whippet again. However, this is listed as the own breed Silken Windsprite, because it is not based on backbreeding.

In modern times, the nobility no longer exists as it did then. They no longer have any privileges as far as land ownership and hunting are concerned. But likewise, nowadays free hunting with greyhounds is no longer possible and forbidden. Hunting of game is reserved for official hunters. The sighthound with its actual task has had its day, because man no longer needs it to procure food. But still the greyhound enjoys more and more growing popularity, which is probably due to its elegant and unusual appearance.

The Whippet -

Portrait of a greyhound

Originally, the Whippet was bred in the United Kingdom. Since 1891, he is listed there in the stud book. However, its ancestors go back to ancient times. As already mentioned, the Whippet was bred from Greyhounds and Greyhounds, which were used for hunting by the nobility in Europe at that time. Later, when greyhounds were no longer needed for hunting, they benefited from the sporting and betting passion of the British. The greyhounds, including the whippet, became the racehorse of the common man. Here, a simple worker could become wealthy if his Whippet could win a significant race. The greyhound races were taken very seriously and dogs that did not win big races were, and unfortunately still are, often simply put to sleep. However, the Whippet has now risen to become a popular companion dog, which is why he is no longer bred only for dog racing. Nevertheless, he is and remains, due to his genetic disposition, a hunting and racing dog. Speeds of over 50 km/h are not uncommon, and it looks very elegant when the Whippet makes his rounds around a racetrack. Since this greyhound is not too big, it can still be classified as a calm, loving and cuddly family dog, because it is a very sociable and likeable companion.

Picture 1: young whippet, 8 months old

If you are interested in the breed of the Whippet, you can contact two clubs in Germany, which takes care of this sighthound. This is once the German Sighthound Breeding and Racing Association and secondly the Whippet Club Germany, which was founded in 1990. Both clubs, in addition also the VDH, will certainly give you information about registered breeders, so that you can find your puppy without hesitation. If you already own such a wonderful animal, you have the possibility to let your Whippet participate in track races and similar events through these clubs, so that he can live out his need for fast running. You can read more about this later.

What does a whippet look like?

This breed is equipped with a very short coat and its small height of up to 51 cm makes it an ideal family dog. The weight varies depending on the size between 6.8 and 19 kg. The physique is typical for a sighthound, just very slender and petite with exceedingly long legs. His athleticism is confirmed by the broad chest. Due to the angled pelvis, the Whippet usually carries his tail between his hind legs. The dark, expressive eyes sit forward on his elongated head, which is important for this so-called sight hunter. The ears are rather small and should be folded in the shape of a rose. The Whippet has a proud life expectancy of up to 15 years.

A special feature of the Whippet is that he has no undercoat because of the very short coat and also has fewer sebaceous glands. This leads to the fact that he actually hardly smells like a dog, but is very sensitive to cold and accordingly should be equipped with a protective blanket, if the weather is not so nice once.

In Whippets, according to the studbook, all colors are allowed. This is rare in the whole dog breeding. Mostly there are specifications about the color of a breed. In this beautiful greyhound are mostly black, white, fawn, brindle, blue and red.

Sometimes a bred gene defect can be found in Whippets. This is the so-called Bully-Whippet gene. The muscle growth is then too strongly developed and the affected dog looks like a bodybuilder. If only one parent carries this gene, there will be no consequences and the offspring will remain healthy. However, if both parents are affected, the puppies may also develop heart and eye diseases. However, breeding dogs from reputable breeders are tested for this, so that it is almost impossible to acquire a puppy with this gene defect.

Dangerous trend colors

Unfortunately, there are coat colors that come from defective genes, so you should be a little careful here when buying a Whippet. By the way, this is the case with all dog breeds and not only with Whippets. These would be for example the colors blue, gray or chocolate. These are so-called dilute colors, which occur as a side effect of a gene defect. This dilute gene dilutes the original coat color of the dog, so to speak, and this is thereby lightened. For example, a brown coat color becomes silver and a black coat color becomes gray-blue. You can see this mutation already at the birth of the puppies, because this lightening of the coat color is already visible here. The dog federation FCI (what the FCI is, will be described in one of the next chapters), does not recognize most of the colors, which are caused by this gene, as breed standard, because it can lead to possible health problems. However, there are dog breeds where breeding with carriers of the dilution gene is allowed. These would be, for example, the Great Dane and the Weimaraner.