The Irish Wolfhound 613 



promised to assist in producing a dog of the desired type was impressed 

 into service. Mr. Lee mentions a dog shown in 1895, named Goth II., 

 which stood 34 inches and weighed 134 pounds, that impressed him very- 

 much and on inquiry he found that Goth II. was a combination of Russian 

 wolfhound, through his sire the well-known Korotai, bred on a bitch of Irish 

 and Scottish hounds strain, with a dash of what was given as Siberian wolf 

 or sheep dog coming through one of his maternal grandsires. While all of 

 them were not such an olla podrida of blood lines as that winning Irish dog, 

 yet the connection with the past was so slight and so many more were pro- 

 duced without a drop of Irish blood in their veins that it is quite a stretch 

 of the imagination to give them the name they have. 



Still there is much credit due to the gentlemen who have attempted to 

 reproduce what they held was the correct type of the best lines. They did 

 not breed some dogs and then fit them with a standard, but drew up a de- 

 scription of what they considered must have been a typical dog of the old 

 breed and then set to work to produce that ideal. That they have succeeded 

 to a marked extent is beyond contradiction and with the facile material at 

 their command and their good judgment in using it to the best advantage, 

 the Irish wolfhound as shown to-day in England and Ireland is as typical of 

 what one would imagine the dog that was lost must have been as is possible 

 to conceive. It combines size, strength, speed and a quiet dignity of car- 

 riage which all go to make up a dog of quite impressive appearance. After 

 one has read so much about this wonderful dog as described by fanciful 

 writers there may be some disappointment that even the show specimens 

 do not look so very large, nor are they so large as the Great Danes and St. 

 Bernards, but one must dismiss the old visionary tales and prepare himself 

 to see a substantially built deerhound and he will not then be disappointed; 

 for he may see a larger dog than he really anticipated if the specimen 

 is a good one, for they do run up to 33 inches and some times a little over 

 that. 



The breed has never attained to the popularity that it should have 

 among Irishmen, indeed were it not for a Scotchman, Captain Graham, and 

 some half dozen Englishmen the breed would never have become what it is 

 to-day. The larger English shows offer classes for Irish wolfhounds, but 

 the entries are never large and in this country there has never been a class 

 provided for them. Indeed we know of but one in the country and that 

 is a bitch owned by Mr. Ballantyne at Empire, Colorado. 



