The Afghan Hound is a hound distinguished by its thick, fine, silky coat, and a tail with a ring curl at the end. The breed is selectively bred for its unique features in the cold mountains of Afghanistan. Its local name is Tāžī Spay or Sag-e Tāzī. Other names for this breed are Tāzī, Balkh Hound, Baluchi Hound, and Barakzai Hound.
The EnglishGreyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgence in popularity as a family pet.
The Irish Wolfhound is a breed of large sighthound that has, by its presence and substantial size, inspired literature, poetry and mythology. Strongly associated with Gaelic Ireland and Irish history, they were famed as guardian dogs and for hunting wolves.
The Saluki is a standardised breed developed from sighthounds – dogs that hunt primarily by sight rather than strong scent – that was once used by nomadic tribes to run down game animals. The dog was originally bred in the Fertile Crescent. The modern breed is typically deep-chested and long-legged, and similar dogs appear in medieval and ancient art. The breed is most closely related to the Afghan hound, a basal breed that predates the emergence of modern breeds in the 19th century, and the Saluki has been purebred both in the Middle East, including by royalty, since at least that era, and in the West since the 1840s, though as a free-breeding landrace, similar dogs are common as feral animals in the Middle East. A related standardised breed is the north African Sloughi.
Sighthounds, also called gazehounds, are a type of dog, hounds that hunt primarily by sight and speed rather than by scent and endurance as scent hounds do.
The Whippet is a British breed of medium-sized dog of sighthound type. It is closely related to the Greyhound and – apart from its smaller size – closely resembles it. It has sometimes been described as "the poor man's greyhound". It is kept as a companion dog, and also for showing and for amateur racing and lure coursing. It has the highest running speed of any breed of its weight, and may have the fastest acceleration of any dog.
The Gordon Setter is a large breed of dog, a member of the setter family that also includes both the better-known Irish Setter and the English Setter. Setter breeds are classified as members of either the Sporting or Gundog Group depending on the national kennel club or council. The original purpose of the breed was to hunt gamebirds. Their quarry in the United Kingdom, may be partridge or grouse, pheasant, ptarmigan, blackgame, snipe or woodcock: whilst overseas bird dogs are worked on quail, willow grouse, sand grouse, guinea fowl, sagehen, francolin and any other bird that will sit to a dog—that is to say, will attempt to avoid a potential predator by concealment rather than by taking to the wing at the first sign of danger. It is this combination of a bird that will sit fast in front of a dog that will remain on point that makes bird dog work possible.
A hound is a type of hunting dog used by hunters to track or chase prey.
A dog breed is a particular type of dog that was purposefully bred by humans to perform specific tasks, such as herding, hunting, and guarding. Dogs are the most variable mammal on Earth, with artificial selection producing upward of 360 globally recognized breeds. These breeds possess distinct traits related to morphology, which include body size, skull shape, tail phenotype, fur type, body shape, and coat colour. Their behavioral traits include guarding, herding, and hunting, and personality traits such as hyper-social behavior, boldness, and aggression. Most breeds were derived from small numbers of founders within the last 200 years. As a result, today dogs are the most abundant carnivore species and are dispersed around the world.
A working dog is a dog used to perform practical tasks, as opposed to pet or companion dogs.
A spaniel is a type of gun dog. Spaniels were especially bred to flush game out of denser brush. By the late 17th century, spaniels had been specialized into water and land breeds. The extinct English Water Spaniel was used to retrieve water fowl shot down with arrows. Land spaniels were setting spaniels—those that crept forward and pointed their game, allowing hunters to ensnare them with nets, and springing spaniels—those that sprang pheasants and partridges for hunting with falcons, rabbits and smaller mammals such as rats and mice for hunting with greyhounds. During the 17th century, the role of the spaniel dramatically changed as Englishmen began hunting with flintlocks for wing shooting. Charles Goodall and Julia Gasow (1984) write that spaniels were "transformed from untrained, wild beaters, to smooth, polished gun dogs."
Toy dog traditionally refers to a very small dog or a grouping of small and very small breeds of dog. A toy dog may be of any of various dog types. Types of dogs referred to as toy dogs may include spaniels, pinschers and terriers that have been bred down in size. Not all toy dogs are lap dogs.
Dog crossbreeds, sometimes called designer dogs, are dogs which have been intentionally bred from two or more recognized dog breeds. They are not dogs with no purebred ancestors, but are not otherwise recognised as breeds in their own right, and do not necessarily breed true.
A lurcher is a crossbred dog resulting from mating a greyhound or other sighthound with a dog of another type such as a herding dog or a terrier. The lurcher was for hundreds of years strongly associated with poaching; in modern times, it is kept as a hunting dog or companion dog.
The Alaunt is an extinct type of dog which came in different forms, with the original possibly having existed in North Caucasus, Central Asia and Europe from ancient times.
Bull and terrier was a common name for crossbreeds between bulldogs and terriers in the early 1800s. Other names included half-and-halfs and half-breds. It was a time in history when, for thousands of years, dogs were classified by use or function, unlike the modern pets of today that were bred to be conformation show dogs and family pets. Bull and terrier crosses were originally bred to function as fighting dogs for bull- and bear-baiting, and other popular blood sports during the Victorian era. The sport of bull baiting required a dog with attributes such as tenacity and courage, a wide frame with heavy bone, and a muscular, protruding jaw. By crossing bulldogs with various terriers from Ireland and Great Britain, breeders introduced "gameness and agility" into the hybrid mix.
A feist is a small hunting dog, descended from the terriers brought over to the United States by British miners and other immigrants. These terriers probably included crosses between the Smooth Fox Terrier, the Manchester Terrier, and the now-extinct English White Terrier. These dogs were used as ratters, and gambling on their prowess in killing rats was a favorite hobby of their owners. Some of these dogs have been crossed with Greyhounds, Whippets or Italian Greyhounds, and Beagles or other hounds —extending the family to include a larger variety of purpose than the original ratter, or Rat Terrier.
Tesem was the ancient Egyptian name for "hunting dog". In popular literature it denotes the prick-eared, leggy dog with a curled tail from the early Egyptian age, but it was also used with reference to the lop-eared "Saluki/Sloughi" type. It was one of several types of dogs in Ancient Egypt; particularly the latter Saluki/Sloughi type of Tesem, having the appearance most similar to that of a true sighthound.
