A painting of three greyhounds and a king charles spaniel. Hi Pepper if you see this I apologize but I'm only going to do alt text on the photos in the main pages but not in the memes or gallery pages. Just not enough time!

All About Sighthounds

By Courtney Heidenreich

Have you ever seen a dog and thought “wow that dog has a long face, almost like a horse”? You could have seen a member of the Sighthound breed family!

Three Italian Greyhounds sitting in a leather chair

Sighthounds, as the name suggests, are hounds that utilize their sight as the primary sense while hunting. Most breeds are slender, narrow dogs with long faces and powerful legs meant for running at top speeds. They’re also known for having deep chests and narrow hips.

The oldest known breeds originated in the Middle East some 5,000 years ago. In modern times, most sighthounds are bred for pet homes rather than hunting. However, many also participate in dog sports.

An azawakh curled up in a camping chairAt this point I don’t have any more historical information to share (or rather, I don’t want to have to research/write it out) so instead I am going to write a few stream-of-consciousness paragraphs to describe why I like sighthounds in order to bulk out the homepage. First and perhaps most obviously, their long snouts! They make for such silly little faces, especially because so many breeds also have bulging bug eyes. They look like cute little aliens or a child’s drawing come to life

I grew up with dogs (none of them sighthounds) but I don’t have one of my own. My current lifestyle isn’t really conducive to dogs. Luckily I also love cats, and a cat is much more doable. We got our cat last year. His name is Jonesy, and according to the adoption papers he doesn’t do well with other animals. I hope he lives forever or at least the next 15 years, so it’ll probably be that long before I get a dog.