Форум

The „Classic Greyhound“ – has he remained unchanged?

Filed under: Auf den Greyhound gekommen,Literaturtip — admin @ 20:30

Auf vielfachen Wunsch haben wir den Artikel „Der klassische Greyhound – hat er sich unverändert erhalten?“ von Dr. Barbara Kessler (Rumford) nun ins Englische übersetzt:

With good reason we are proud to have one of the world’s oldest breeds at our side – the Greyhound is not only a dog breed, but also a cultural asset, immortalized on numerous pieces of art since ancient times. Especially as amateur breeders, who have taken it upon ourselves to safeguard this cultural asset, we have the responsibility to preserve the Greyhound as it was meant to be. But: what is the “classic” Greyhound? Was there ever “the” Greyhound after all?

Or did we always have to deal with more or less different types – in former times dependent on the kind of prey, the terrain and the hunting style, later adjusted for the use on the racing track, the park coursing, the open field coursing or as a show dog. We are lucky to have so many Greyhounds depicted in paintings or statues from several centuries to look at.
The general type is easy to recognize – but on a closer look it seems there has always been some variation. Sturdy, refined, well-angulated, steep, big, small, long, compact, slender, bulky dogs: you do not have to look far in order to find a large range of types on tableaus or engravings, even if they originate from the same era.
In addition, the artistic freedom and skill must be taken into account. Well, which one is now the “classic” Greyhound? It should be obvious that a definition founded on ancient graphic documents cannot be unambiguous. Whoever wants to give it a try will find a historical counterpart for each Greyhound from today. You could assume that there must be some variation in the breed from the beginning. Maybe some of those ancient varieties already carried a kind of predisposition for modern purposes like track racing or conformation shows. Not accidentally the modern racing lines base on Irish Park Coursing Greyhounds and the modern “Showgrey” on Cornish Coursing Greyhounds. The latter supposedly not mainly because of their merits in coursing, but all the more because their kind had a more impressing look. We should not harbor illusions: Dog shows were beauty contests right from the beginning.
Nevertheless it is even more necessary to give thought to the breed type today. My following remarks refer to the breed standard, and I will take the type of dogs serving as models for that standard as the “classic” Greyhounds.
The standard was finished quite late, around 1947 – a point in time when the separation into racing and show lines had already begun. It was not the racing type which acted as a role model, but the type of Greyhound, which was presented in the rings as the new sport of conformation shows evolved. However I want to emphasize that I do not want this to be understood as an assessment in terms of more or less “original”. Hence the denomination “classic Greyhound” seems a bit inappropriate to me. “Standard Greyhound” would be maybe more to the point, even though this term could be understood as some sort of rating. Ultimately, we have been facing two different breed lines for about 100 years: one type selected only because of its racing performance (regardless of the conformation) and another type selected only for its. The fanciers of the latter variety say they strive to come as close to the standard as possible with their breeding.
But is the standard still the main goal? Glancing into today’s show rings sometimes makes you wonder….
We must not ignore the fact that the show type has developed in a direction which is targeted more on a spectacular performance in the Best in Show ring than to fulfilling the breed standard. Many
standard details get overdone – “long” becomes “very long”, “well angulated” becomes “extremely angulated”, an energy-efficient flat trot becomes a fancy show trot with tremendous reach an drive (“TRAD”). Is that really still true to breed type?
Other features, which are not even mentioned in the standard, are suddenly of utmost importance – e.g. the shape of the forechest. Of course you do not want to see hollow “cathedral chests” due to faulty shoulder angulation and lacking thorax volume. But does that really mean that you need a broad chest like that of a Boxer, with almost grotesquely prominent breastbone, looking like a ship’s keel? Especially alarming is the loss of one central virtue of the sighthound group: the length of leg. The concentration of longer backs has already resulted in a change in shape. The shorter the legs, the longer the dog seems to be – this can and must not be right for a sighthound!

But does not the standard ask for a “long” back? No, this is not what it says! Head, neck and front legs should be “long”, the back only “rather long”. A “rather long” dog is a bit longer than tall – so in no way square – but on the other hand neither long, nor very long nor as long as possible!
All too frequent we see loose lips, sagging toplines with very long, but often flat and flabby loins, extremely low briskets reaching under the elbow, very accentuated shoulder angulation, sagging underlines with sparse tuck-up – but a far reaching, spectacular movement. All this in one and the same dog. Coincidence?

At least since the evaluation by Fischer and Lilje (“Jenaer Study”) it is well known that the centre of rotation for the front limb is not at the shoulder joint, but at the cranial angle of the scapula. Essential for the extent of the stride is not – as still often wrongly assumed – the shoulder angulation, but the position and the mobility of the shoulder blade. A more loose suspension increases the mobility and enables a longer stride – this is exactly the gait which is so popular in the Best in show ring. But at what cost? Slack connective tissue does not come isolated in only one body part – it is always the whole organism which is affected. This is why we usually find the whole package in Greyhounds with TRAD: soft backs, sagging underlines, loose lips…and if we take it just a little bit further we could end up with a higher risk of gastric torsions!?
One or two may think this is old-fashioned doom-mongering, but you just have to look at some photos to prove there has been a change of type.

It is not too easy to find suitable photos for an evaluation – the shot must be level with the dog’s profile in order to avoid artificial distortions.
I selected three popular Greyhounds of the breed’s history, which were important influencers on the show type. Singing the Blues at Solstrand, Solstrand Double Diamond and Gulds Black & White Lady represent the top winners from the past, which are still mentioned by today’s judges as timelessly beautiful specimens of the breed. But if we imagine them standing in today’s show rings – would they still be competitive? Rather not – compared to modern criteria probably too short, too “leggy”, too upright, too little forechest, too little substance…

Архив нашего форума

Сайт русских псовых борзых VEGA SHELK

Сайт НКП РПБ