The dogs we call “greyhounds” today are smooth-coated. Some, like Drake, grow pretty thick winter coats, but they are all smooth-coated dogs.
This breed feature, one would think, would have been well-established in the breed, but it did not become a feature until the rise of “club coursing” in England. English patricians were part of clubs that had vast holdings where hares were managed to abundance, and each club member would come and run dogs on these hares in what were greyhound field trials.
In his book Greyhound Nation: A Coevolutionary History of England, 1200-1900, Edmund Russell writes about how memes affected greyhound evolution in England. One of these memes that arose in the 1820s was that no rough-coated greyhound could be entered. Russell even quotes the rule-book from the Swaffham that “No rough-haired dog to be deemed a greyhound.”
The reason for this dismissal of rough-coated greyhounds is that rough-coated greyhounds were better suited to the North of England and to Scotland and Ireland. The wire coats protected against thorns, rocky terrain, and the cold weather. Smooth-coated dogs were better for the open land, which was more easily found in the South of England.
And it also fit within the general prejudicial views of the elite society of the South of England, which saw itself as being “better-bred” than the North. This division is one that sort of posits the Anglo-Norman parts of the country against the areas where Celtic people held on the longest. This same view was even more exaggerated when these elites looked at the traditionally even more Celtic lands of Scotland and Ireland, where rough-coated greyhounds were the rule, not the exception.
Further, Russell points out that was about this time that lurchers began to be stigmatized among elite coursing circles. The lurcher was seen as the poacher’s dog, and the poacher’s dog very often was a rough-coated creature. Never mind that the intellectual ancestors of these elite coursing men were very much into the business of crossing greyhounds with lurchers, Italian greyhounds, and bulldogs. The lurcher and the wire-coated greyhound began to be seen as debased and low-class and Celtic.
One should also take into account the coursing men were never running hares for food. This was sport. The lurchermen was always running dogs on what could feed him and his family the next day. The wealthy coursing men were interested in the dogs as sport, not survival, and for this difference, they castigated the rough greyhound as a lurcher too.
So these ideas permeated what became the modern greyhound breed. Wire coats are dominant, and it is quite easily to expel them from a breeding program.
Thus, what became the greyhound resulted from the prejudices of the elites in the South of England and Yorkshire, rather than any practical reason.
In the Scottish Highlands, the “deer greyhounds” of that region remained wire-coated, and they eventually became the basis of the modern Scottish deerhound breed. By the time these dogs became part of the modern kennel club registry system, no one really thought of them as being related, and no one really considered the bizarre class and regional reasons why the two breeds wound up with different coats.
The deerhound retained the wire coat because it was practical for running deer in the Highlands. The greyhound lost its wire variety because the elite who coursed them saw them as a sign of debasement and excluded them from the breed.
Human whims and prejudices affect so much of how our breeds evolve. In this case, it is the deep division of the South of England vs. the rest of the British Isles.
Update: Apparently, when a real historian looks at the history of a dog breed within the context of the culture and with a clear understanding of canine genetics, it upsets the apple cart with the Sir Bufton Tufton Brexit and Boris set. I don’t have have time for to approve your comments and show you why the lore is not the same as actual history.
(And here is the genome-wide study that has a phylogenetic wheel in it that places Western sighthounds as close to British herding dogs.)
Good reading regarding the elitism of some English towards the Scots and how the smooth coat of the greyhound came into popular culture. Intersting. Thanks fir sharing
“This same view was even more exaggerated when these elites looked at the traditionally even more Celtic lands of Scotland and Ireland, where rough-coated greyhounds were the rule, not the exception.”
Interesting consequence of elitism. Was the same pattern seen in in Wales, Cornwall and Wight? And, were the deer hounds and lurchers a Celtic/Proletarian response to this bias?
There isn’t much mention of it in book about Wales and the West Country. But it would be interesting.
the greyhound is reported on in biblical terms ( quivering in the slips)i cant possibly imagine that these were rough coated greyhounds in such a hot climate, and they eventualy lost the rough coat and became smooth grew’s so then how did they then become rough coated once more and get banished to the cold north of england i.e scotland and ireland i think edmund russell must have been a friend of d.b. plummer another canine fiction writer to be believed by novice dog owners until they see the light ? ingleby
Greyhounds are not in the Bible at all. Those references are referring to salukis, which are not related to greyhounds or other European sighthounds. European sighthounds are most closely related to herding dogs. Russell points out there is no mention of greyhounds until 1200. Dogs of this type may have been introduced by the Romans, but European sighthounds have no connection to the Middle East. We know this from genetic studies, which clearly place them with European herding dogs, specifically the greater collie family. Even Borzoi are more closely related to herding dogs than they are to any Middle Eastern dogs.
BTW, you don’t know more than an historian who has qualified degrees. He is not a houndsman spouting lore as if it were fact. He is a careful researcher with papers that have passed peer review. Plummer was often full of it, but his musings cannot logically be compared to the careful research in this book.