CHAPTER IX 

 THE WHIPPET 



THOUGH it is not until recent years that the Whippet, or Snap-dog, 

 has come into such prominence as to warrant its recognition by the 

 Kennel Club as a variety, yet for many decades the animal has been 

 known to the miners and other workers in the North of England. 

 More than thirty years ago at least the name Whippet was bestowed 

 upon a dog built very much on the lines that to-day find favour. 

 It is, however, only some ten or twelve years since the effort 

 to popularise the dog in the South of England was attempted. 

 Somehow, straight-running, as the sport for which the Whippet is 

 chiefly used is called, did not catch on in the South as it already 

 had in the North, and the efforts of those who provided an oppor- 

 tunity for the public to see how the sport was conducted did not 

 meet with much success. 



Prior to the appearance of the First Edition of this work, no 

 mention of the variety as such had been made by any previous 

 writer. To-day no work upon the dog could be regarded as 

 complete that did not deal fully with the Whippet. Moreover, the 

 variety is one of the few that can now boast a handbook devoted to 

 its uses, breeding, training, and general management.* How the 

 name Whippet came to be given is not with certainty known. The 

 probability is that it is .a provincial one, expressive at once of 

 the diminutive size of the dogs and the quick action they display in 

 the sports in which they are used, especially that of rabbit-coursing 

 or, rather, running rabbits, for the laws of coursing are not 

 followed, but the dog that soonest reaches and kills, or snaps, the 

 rabbit, wins ; hence the appellation of Snap-dog, a name by which 

 they used to be known at the Darlington Show, where, in years 

 gone by, good classes of them were annually found. The Whippet 

 was originally produced from a cross between the Greyhound and 

 the Terrier ; but to-day it breeds as true to type as any other variety. 

 In conformation it is Greyhound-like ; in fact, it may be most 

 truthfully described as a small edition of the Greyhound. There 



* "The Whippet and Race-dog," by Freeman Lloyd (London: L. Upcott 

 Gill). 



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