Whippet
Dog breed resembling a small Greyhound / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The whippet is a British breed of medium-sized dog, of the sighthound type, related to the larger greyhound and the smaller Italian greyhound. Apart from the differences in height, the whippet closely resembles these two breeds; it has sometimes been described as "the poor man's greyhound".[4] It is kept as a companion dog, for competitive showing, for amateur racing as well as lure coursing. It has the highest running-speed of any breed in its weight and size range, and may have the fastest idle-to-running acceleration of any dog.[5]
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Other names | Snap dog (archaic) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Origin | United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dog (domestic dog) |
The breed's name, ‘whippet’, is derived from an early seventeenth-century word (now obsolete) meaning "to move briskly".[6]
There has been some continuity in describing greyhound-types of different sizes — large, medium and small, recorded in hunting manuals and works on natural history from the Middle Ages. Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, confirmed in his early 15th-century translation of (and additions-to) an original, late 14th-century French Livre de chasse the advantages of maintaining the ‘great’, the ‘middle’, and the ‘small size of greyhound’ for different sorts of game.[7] The English physician and academic John Caius refers in his 16th century De Canibus Britannicus to lesser as well as greater sorts of Leporarius, Grehounde (greyhound)[8] and notably to a type which has been connected to the whippet, the tumbler, a lesser sort of mungrell greyhounde and excellent warren dog for catching rabbits,[9] also recorded by the early 19th-century Scottish curator and editor Thomas Brown.[10] The Victorian English writers describe an emerging modern breed of whippet, or snap-dog, bred for catching rabbits, coursing competitions, straight rag-racing, and for the novel show fancy.[11][12]