irish wolfhounds

[Loton Moocher 1,252]

12 hours ago, Black neck said:

I hear the midlands dogs are not up 2 much

Lol your jokin you wanna see the sausage dogs i seen one kill a wolfhound ? The little fecker got stuck in its throat lol

[Moocher71 4,044]

On 17/06/2020 at 21:38, chartpolski said:

The little 'un is Beddy/grey x deer/grey- whippet/grey; caught most things.

The big 'un is pure Irish wolfhound; couldn't catch a rabbit in a 'phone box !

To be fair, it couldn't get IN a 'phone box ! LOL !

Cheers.

 

You wouldn't want to use a modern day wolf hound ,but if we could go back and see the proper Irish hounds be a different thing .these dogs hunted and went to war and valued by the royals,barons that kept them , the wolf hound we see today is nothing like the war hounds of old .

[sandymere 8,260]

http://www.irishwolfhounds.org/purchase.htm

 

[fireman 10,774]

I got my misses a Irish wolfhound,sort of one of those seems like a good idea and truth be said she was a cracking dog to have around.Not a chance on them hunting as sod trying to carry one off a field if anything went wrong and with them it would at some point,there a lump of a dog and just in size alone would bring most things to there knees in the hit as it were.Iv'e been dropped by her running past me and her tail hitting my legs,by feck it felt like a pool cue (yes i have felt a pool cue or two) had hit me,there stride is massive when they get going and again if they hit something full on something of one of them is going to break and break big time. Seeing one lift a old fox or pull a deer full stride would be a sight to behold but one that will only happen in peoples heads..

A wonderful dog to have around kids and a family home but there a heart breaking dog with health issues, your'll also never have a coffee table while you own one with a waggy tail and if they get the shits it's everything as bad as you could ever imagine and add some..

[howdeeposxxt 1,448]

Would love to know more about to old style ones. The ones that hunted pitty it's too far back. I'd say they where a fine animal in their own right. Them yolks nowadays are just giants 

[sandymere 8,260]

I wonder if before the Romans with British dogs being mainly used to hunt deer, boar, man etc in a largely forested land and in the absence of the brown hare and rabbit in the UK, if they were likely big powerful scent hounds and  mastiff types rather than what we know as sighthounds? By all accounts at the time the Romans came the local dogs were famed as powerful dogs of war and taken back to fight in the Colosseum but there seems a dearth of mention of sight hounds until after the Romans in Britain although they were used in Europe. 

[chartpolski 20,378]

Boiling it down to a minimum, we had basically three types of running dogs; 

the smaller greyhound type that ran hares and rabbits;

the larger type that ran deer;

and the big buggers that ran wolves !

Obviously, when wolves went extinct in Britain, it was pointless keeping and feeding huge hounds, so they died out.

Deerhounds ran and killed or bailed deer, but then there was the invention of the gun, and Deerhounds changed to be dogs that tracked and held or killed wounded deer. The origional Deerhounds then had scent hound added, amongst other breeds.

The greyhound continued as hare coursing was a hugely popular sport, and then evolved into greyhound racing, and, of course, is still doing the job.

The whippet is a relatively modern addition to the sight hound, bred for rabbits and racing.

Yes, there will be arguments around all those breeds, but as I said, I'm just reducing it to the basics.

The old mastiff, molussa types died out eons ago, to be replaced by slavering, weak hipped, short lived caricature's of the origional , much like the bull breeds.

Such is life and progress.........

Cheers.

 

[sandymere 8,260]

15 hours ago, chartpolski said:

Boiling it down to a minimum, we had basically three types of running dogs; 

the smaller greyhound type that ran hares and rabbits;

the larger type that ran deer;

and the big buggers that ran wolves !

Obviously, when wolves went extinct in Britain, it was pointless keeping and feeding huge hounds, so they died out.

Deerhounds ran and killed or bailed deer, but then there was the invention of the gun, and Deerhounds changed to be dogs that tracked and held or killed wounded deer. The origional Deerhounds then had scent hound added, amongst other breeds.

The greyhound continued as hare coursing was a hugely popular sport, and then evolved into greyhound racing, and, of course, is still doing the job.

The whippet is a relatively modern addition to the sight hound, bred for rabbits and racing.

Yes, there will be arguments around all those breeds, but as I said, I'm just reducing it to the basics.

The old mastiff, molussa types died out eons ago, to be replaced by slavering, weak hipped, short lived caricature's of the origional , much like the bull breeds.

Such is life and progress.........

Cheers.

 

 Looking at old pics we see dogs from the size of a whippet to the size of a smallish Deerhound in both rough and smooth all just called greyhounds, the idea if Deerhounds, whippets and greyhounds being different is a modern idea. There were local variations in type to suit ground and game but no kennel club or idea of pure breeds.

As to tales of massive wolfhounds I'm not sure a massive sighthound for wolves has much other than imagination of later writers to support the idea. Are not dogs bred to run deer not ideal to run wolves?  It we take  modern sight hounds used to run wolves they aren't giants, working Borzoi, Tazi, Sloughis etc aren't massive. They may well have been massive dogs that could get stuck in at the end of a course on boar and wolf and used as war/guard dogs but would likely be mastiff types rather than sighthounds. Certainly early depictions of sighhounds show a small to medium sized dog.

ps The last wolf taken in the UK, shot by hunted by my old man

[eastcoast 3,727]

43 minutes ago, sandymere said:

 Looking at old pics we see dogs from the size of a whippet to the size of a smallish Deerhound in both rough and smooth all just called greyhounds, the idea if Deerhounds, whippets and greyhounds being different is a modern idea. There were local variations in type to suit ground and game but no kennel club or idea of pure breeds.

As to tales of massive wolfhounds I'm not sure a massive sighthound for wolves has much other than imagination of later writers to support the idea. Are not dogs bred to run deer not ideal to run wolves?  It we take  modern sight hounds used to run wolves they aren't giants, working Borzoi, Tazi, Sloughis etc aren't massive. They may well have been massive dogs that could get stuck in at the end of a course on boar and wolf and used as war/guard dogs but would likely be mastiff types rather than sighthounds. Certainly early depictions of sighhounds show a small to medium sized dog.

ps The last wolf taken in the UK, shot by hunted by my old man

Not the last wild wolf surely?

[sandymere 8,260]

Running free,  having escaped from Whipsnade Zoo a few days before .

[bird 9,587]

43 minutes ago, sandymere said:

 Looking at old pics we see dogs from the size of a whippet to the size of a smallish Deerhound in both rough and smooth all just called greyhounds, the idea if Deerhounds, whippets and greyhounds being different is a modern idea. There were local variations in type to suit ground and game but no kennel club or idea of pure breeds.

As to tales of massive wolfhounds I'm not sure a massive sighthound for wolves has much other than imagination of later writers to support the idea. Are not dogs bred to run deer not ideal to run wolves?  It we take  modern sight hounds used to run wolves they aren't giants, working Borzoi, Tazi, Sloughis etc aren't massive. They may well have been massive dogs that could get stuck in at the end of a course on boar and wolf and used as war/guard dogs but would likely be mastiff types rather than sighthounds. Certainly early depictions of sighhounds show a small to medium sized dog.

ps The last wolf taken in the UK, shot by hunted by my old man

whats the info  with your dad and the wolf, was he a zoo keeper ? looks good size, even though the 2 men are kneeling down .But your right mate, regards dogs  for wolves , apart from the wolves in Canda = timber wolves which were  massive , they easy go 3 ft high and 12-14 st some males . you deff need 90-100 lb dog for them, what Dan on here said they need 3-4 dogs on a wolf , same as on a yote which are smaller but great fighters from what Dan said , another thig he said that when runnin7g timbr wolves, if a dog lost the  pack=3 dogs , the other wolves would kill the dog , one wolf could kill yote  staghound.  wolves in Europe   spain etc, are lot smaller so smaller type wolf hound would be used  70 -90lb dogs . Dutch Salmon  (Gazehounds & Coursing : History    )  a good read and few pics of the dogs he used for wolves , none were like Irish wolfhound of today, suppose that says it all really ,there just to big/heavy for that kind of work, ok for in a show ring  thats about it .

[Greb147 6,808]

14 minutes ago, bird said:

whats the info  with your dad and the wolf, was he a zoo keeper ? looks good size, even though the 2 men are kneeling down .But your right mate, regards dogs  for wolves , apart from the wolves in Canda = timber wolves which were  massive , they easy go 3 ft high and 12-14 st some males . you deff need 90-100 lb dog for them, what Dan on here said they need 3-4 dogs on a wolf , same as on a yote which are smaller but great fighters from what Dan said , another thig he said that when runnin7g timbr wolves, if a dog lost the  pack=3 dogs , the other wolves would kill the dog , one wolf could kill yote  staghound.  wolves in Europe   spain etc, are lot smaller so smaller type wolf hound would be used  70 -90lb dogs . Dutch Salmon  (Gazehounds & Coursing : History    )  a good read and few pics of the dogs he used for wolves , none were like Irish wolfhound of today, suppose that says it all really ,there just to big/heavy for that kind of work, ok for in a show ring  thats about it .

Not necessarily true, Wolves in eastern Europe get just has big as their North American cousins. There's not much in it all all, depending on their location. 

[bird 9,587]

2 minutes ago, Greb147 said:

Not necessarily true, Wolves in eastern Europe get just has big as their North American cousins. There's not much in it all all, depending on their location. 

is the grey wolf and the timber wolf  same animal , think they are, might be wrong ?

[keepdiggin 9,208]

36 minutes ago, bird said:

is the grey wolf and the timber wolf  same animal , think they are, might be wrong ?

I think they are ray. Wolves seem to go looking for dogs to kill\eat

[eastcoast 3,727]

If the huge Irish hounds did exist was the massive size desirable in hounds possibly used in pursuit of the Irish elk rather than the wolf?