What happened to Irish Wolfhounds?

[Deleted]

AFAIK the quality of Irish wolfhounds has declined over the years. What’s the story behind that?

[Hardcastle]

Same story as most breeds; Work died out, dogs nearly died out, small group of people noticed and made concerted effort to "preserve the breed", didn't understand that the animal won't be preserved without the work, also took some artistic liberties with how they believed they should look, and got a little carried away with silly outcrossings, and we ended up with something different that serves to "pay homage" to a real working dog from the past, but isn't that animal anymore.

Mind you, it still has a lot to offer in a cross. Also a lot of people seem to assume it got "weaker" and that the old wolfhound was some enormous monster beast. No, it is now bigger than it used to be. It was more accurately like a deerhound, just a teency bigger with a little more substance in the head. The galgo patagonico a fairly faithful representation of what the wolfhound was.

[Deleted]

Dec 13, 2022 14:55:46 GMT @packhunter said:

AFAIK the quality of Irish wolfhounds has declined over the years. What’s the story behind that?

Well I think anyone who says ''ah IW is ruined I think a snub nosed monkey would kill one'' is a dumbass. It's not really THAT ruined, it's nowhere near the top of the iceberg but it's OK.
Crosses are quite good, I think you could make an outstanding Dogal using a wolfhound instead of a galgo.

[Hardcastle]

That's true, it's funny when people shit on wolfhounds and then from that same mouth they try and act like some other bullshit breed is legit. Whatever your favourite breed is, it's LUCKY if it's only ruined as much as the irish wolfhound. It's probably more ruined. Boerboel? Cane corso? Even most dogo argentinos? All way worse. Wolfhounds really aren't bad even pure. Outstanding in crosses.

[Bolushi]

bombsonyourmom
There's no such thing as "working line Irish Wolfhounds" really, unless we remove the "Irish" stipulation. Still though, IWs are no joke. They do alright at the size they are.

[Hardcastle]

Aug 28, 2023 4:19:38 GMT Bolushi said:

bombsonyourmom
There's no such thing as "working line Irish Wolfhounds" really, unless we remove the "Irish" stipulation. Still though, IWs are no joke. They do alright at the size they are.

Did BOYM make a post and delete it?

I saw someone in youtube comments claim the scottish deerhound is the actual irish wolfhound and it was a political move by Britain to call it the scottish deerhound.

There are small issues I have with that theory, mostly I'm sure the same dog ranged over Scotland and Ireland, the idea hairy sighthounds or hairy cows are either Irish OR Scottish and not the other is not realistic. Basically a "Gaelic culture" spanned over both Ireland and Scotland. Historically, before the Anglo Saxon invasion, it would have spanned over england and wales as well and hairy sighthounds would have ruled all of great britain and ireland.

But ignoring that... they may kind of have a point. Maybe the scottish deerhound literally is the historical wolfhound. We assume it must have been more a more "potent" dog than that, but that could just be because we over-inflate wolves.
On the other hand, both things could be true. The Scottish deerhound could be a direct descendant that is basically pure coming down from the legendary wolfhound, while also perhaps morphing into a less combatively capable version due to no longer hunting wolves and boars or being used in ancient wars against horses etc.

edit - ahh I see the shoutbox now...

yeah the original irish wolfhound was definitely tall, and in fact the height of the great dane comes from mixing the alano (basically) with the original wolfhound. The great dane got bigger since it stopped working, but still it is clear some of the old wolfhounds must have been very tall. The modern wolfhound differs more in being too sluggish and slow and lumbering and low-energy from english mastiff and LGD influence.
By blending modern wolfhounds with greyhounds and deerhounds I think you can recreate the old wolfhound faithfully enough.

[bombsonyourmom]

It is true that the size of premodern domestic animals were exaggerated. Recently research has shown that the supposedly shire horse sized destriers were really just regular sized riding horse that were more athletic. Once again, this is probably because people starvation and a lack of food was more of a concern back then.

What is the largest, functional working hunting dog? Maybe that could give us an idea of what is the highest viable height a dog can attain before it suffers from severe performance issues.

[Hardcastle]

75 kg seems to be max weight of rare freakish working boarhounds. My own cousin had one, and I have heard about and seen a couple others. There was also a 76kg feral boarhound shot in NSW. Dogs of this size are usually gonna be a blend of wolfhound or dane with mastiff, but I have seen freaks from other strange sources too, like an ebt x grey that was inexplicably 73 kgs, though it was deemed not good enough to keep working. Still, was shredded lean at that weight. Have also seen a bull arab in the high 60s. We have some weights of new world civil war era bloodhounds, one was 72 kgs and the other was actually 89 kg but even in the illustration it looked fat, so in shape was probably ~75 kgs. That seems to be the "magic number", and even then should be considered akin to a 300 lbs human athlete. A freaky "Shaquille O'neal" among dogs.