Dog breed · Italy
The Italian Greyhound or Piccolo Levriero Italiano is an Italian breed of small sighthound. It was bred to hunt hare and rabbit, but is kept mostly as a companion dog. The English-language name used for it by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale is Italian Sighthound.
Characteristics: The Italian Greyhound is the smallest of the sighthounds. It weighs no more than [dose — ask your vet] and stands 32 to 38 cm at the withers. It is deep in the chest, with a tucked-up abdomen, long slender legs and a long neck. The head is small, elongated and narrow. The gait should be high-stepping and well-sprung, with good forward extension in the trot, and a fast gallop. The coat may be solid black, or grey or isabelline in any shade; white markings are accepted on the chest and feet only.
Median longevity is about 14 years, compared to an average of 12.5 for all dogs.
The dogs may be affected by breed-related neurological abnormalities including congenital deafness and cervical intervertebral disc disease. In the United States, the Ortheopedic Foundation for Animals has found the Italian Greyhound to be the least affected by hip dysplasia of 157 breeds studied, with an incidence of 0.
Characteristics: The Italian Greyhound is the smallest of the sighthounds. It weighs no more than [dose — ask your vet] and stands 32 to 38 cm at the withers. It is deep in the chest, with a tucked-up abdomen, long slender legs and a long neck. The head is small, elongated and narrow. The gait should be high-stepping and well-sprung, with good forward extension in the trot, and a fast gallop. The coat may be solid black, or grey or isabelline in any shade; white markings are accepted on the chest and feet only.
Median longevity is about 14 years, compared to an average of 12.5 for all dogs.
The dogs may be affected by breed-related neurological abnormalities including congenital deafness and cervical intervertebral disc disease. In the United States, the Ortheopedic Foundation for Animals has found the Italian Greyhound to be the least affected by hip dysplasia of 157 breeds studied, with an incidence of 0.
History: Small dogs of sighthound type have long been popular with European nobility and royalty. Among those believed to have kept them are Frederick II, Duke of Swabia; members of the D'Este, Medici and Visconti families; the French kings Louis XI, Charles VIII, Charles IX, Louis XIII and Louis XIV; Frederick the Great of Prussia; Anne of Denmark; Catherine the Great; and Queen Victoria. Dogs of this type have often been represented in sculpture – including a second-century Roman statue now in the Vatican Museums – and paintings, notably by Giotto, Sassetta and Tiepolo.
Dogs of this kind were taken in the first half of the nineteenth century to the United Kingdom, where they were known as Italian Greyhounds; the first volume of The Kennel Club Calendar and Stud Book, published in 1874, lists forty of them. A breed association, the Italian Greyhound Club, was established in Britain in 1900. Registrations by the American Kennel Club began in 1886.
The history of the modern Piccolo Levriero goes back to the last years of the nineteenth century. A total of six of the dogs were shown in 1901 in Milan and Novara, two in Turin in 1902, and one in Udine in 1903. Numbers began to increase only after the First World War, partly as a result of the work of two individual breeders, Emilio Cavallini and Giulia Ajò Montecuccoli degli Erri. In this post-War period the Piccolo Levriero was bred principally in Italy, France and Germany, and some Italian breeders imported dogs from outside the country. Of the forty-five of the dogs registered in 1926–1927 by the Kennel Club Italiano (as it was then known), twenty-eight were born in Italy and seventeen were imported.
