This text comes from Plummer’s Practical Lurcher Breeding:
So he essentially says that one can easily procure an exotic sight hound from someone who got it as a fashion accessory.
At one time, Afghan hounds were all the rage in the UK. I don’t know why.
But I remember reading of how popular these dogs were in the early to mid 1970’s.
Those were sort of the zenith of the long-haired hippie-type fashion, so I guess the dogs would have fit the motif.
His attitude toward lurcher breeding is no different from people soughting out ex-racers for coyote dogs.
I think sighthounds were made popular quite some time before the sixties. They were popular subjects all through the art deco period, particularly sculpture where they were often depicted in a brace dragging along some elegent woman, or single, lying in the grass next to some naked nymph. Parrots and other exotics like cheetahs were also in vogue.