The first known reference to a dog said to be a Scottish deerhound goes back to the 16th-century history book Holinshed’s Chronicles – the source of many of Shakespeare’s greatest plays – and a story it tells that dates back more than 1,700 years, to 288CE. In many ways, it is the shaggy dog story to end all shaggy dog stories.
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Some Pictish nobles much admired the dogs owned by King Crathlint, leader of the Scots. Over what sounds like several days of hunting and feasting with the Scots (well, “making merie”, Holinshed reports – we may only imagine what this involved), the Picts had observed that Crathlint’s dogs far excelled theirs in “fairnesse, swiftnesse [and] hardinesse”.
Such was their admiration, Thomas Brown relates in his 1829 work, Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anecdotes of Dogs, the king gave them both “dogs and bitches”, but being “not so contented”, they stole another they particularly liked the look of.
This, it turned out, was a bad move – old King Crathlint clearly cared for his canine companions more than the green-eyed Picts could have expected. Crathlint’s “master of the leash” pursued the thieves and – reading between the lines – tried to persuade them to return the cherished hound, but they instead ran him through with their “horsespeares”. There followed a series of tit-for-tat killings which resulted in the deaths of 60 Scottish nobles (and a great many commoners, though this clearly didn’t matter as much) and some 100 Picts.
But what were these remarkable animals that sparked such a murderous internecine conflict? Well, if they were anything like the modern breed, they were lean, lugubrious and grizzled, standing 75cm tall at the shoulder and with a sad and mournful gaze. The Official Standard for the breed, drawn up in 1892, is more than 1,000 words long and contains detailed information on what the head, ears, neck, body, legs, feet, tail and coat should be like.
“Eyes: Should be dark – generally dark brown, brown or hazel. A very light eye is not liked. The eye should be moderately full, with a soft look in repose, but a keen, far away look when the Deerhound is roused,” it recommends. Sir Walter Scott, no less, was their number one admirer, calling them “the most perfect creature of heaven”.
The origins of the Scottish deerhound
We cannot know for sure if Crathlint’s dogs were deerhounds, though it seems likely they were kept as hunting animals. The true origins of the breed are, as Q Van Hummel writes in The American Book of the Dog in 1891, “shrouded in mystery”. They are variously referred to as “Scotch” and “rough greyhounds” and “Scottish” and “Highland deerhounds”, and finally just deerhounds.
It’s often said that the earliest hard evidence for the existence of deerhounds survives in the form of the Hilton of Cadboll stone, which was carved around 800CE in Cromarty in north-east Scotland. Its middle panel depicts a deer being chased by two horseman and two large dogs, usually interpreted as being deerhounds.
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Up to the 1800s, we know that deerhounds were used to hunt deer, as their name suggests. In A Handbook of Deer-stalking, published in 1880 by one Alexander Macrae, we even have some idea of how this was done, though he laments they “are now very much out of fashion” at this time.
Rather than letting the dog pursue deer from above, which actually gives the prey the advantage because they are better at running downhill over broken ground, Macrae says, you release it from below its quarry. “When slipped from below, the deer is more or less exhausted before the dog comes up to him, and the dog is all the better for getting a little warm by the time the deer turns from the hill.” Don’t be too close, Macrae also advises, or too far away. “Unless a dog can take a deer in three or four minutes, he will not take him at all,” we learn.
But the breed was dying out at this time, and it was only saved because the English got involved – leading figures such as Sir Walter Scott and even Queen Victoria were champions. It was around this time, says Deerhound Club president Mary Girling, that the ‘Scottish’ moniker was dropped from the breed name. In the US, however, it still retains its Scottish appellation, because so many Scots emigrated to North America, taking their dogs with them.
Indeed, across the pond in the old colonies, where, unlike in Britain, large and dangerous predators still roamed, the deerhound’s ability as a hunting animal was still greatly appreciated in the late 19th century. “He can run fast enough to catch an antelope, a jack-rabbit, coyote, wolf, deer or elk,” says Van Hummel. “He will tree a mountain lion or a black bear, and will even fight a grizzly long enough for you to climb a tree or get off a good distance.”
Theodore Roosevelt, US president in the first decade of the 20th century, writes extensively about deerhounds, greyhounds and other similar dogs. And it appears that despite his reputation as a conservationist, Roosevelt especially loved the dog’s courage and ability to hunt that most reviled of creatures – the wolf.
Roosevelt writes gushingly, for example, of the Sun River Hound Club of Montana, whose greyhounds and deerhounds reputedly killed 146 wolves in 1886 alone. One story he repeats concerned two deerhounds cornering a large wolf and striking him “like stones hurled from a catapult, throwing him as they fastened on his throat and strangled him before he could rise”.
All of which makes deerhounds sound like the most unsuitable pets, but speak to anyone who’s ever owned one (and if they’ve had one, they’ve probably had a dozen), and you’ll wonder if Roosevelt didn’t dream up this tale from his fevered imagination.
Is the Scottish deerhound a good pet?
They are sweet-tempered, charming and tolerant pets, according to Mary Girling, who acquired her first deerhound in 1969. She currently has “two ancient ones” and a youngster which are allowed to run free in the meadow she owns where she lives on the Essex coast. After exercise, they settle down to sleep on a sofa or by the fireside. “They are happy to be couch potatoes,” Mary says.
But why such devotion to the breed, I wonder? Mary has owned them for more than half a century. She explains how their ears are said to be “like a mouse’s coat to the touch” and their lovely eyes don’t stare back at you too boldly. “Part of their appeal is their faraway look.”
But they are big dogs weighing up to 40–45kg, and – as with many breeds of a similar size, such as the Irish wolfhound – their popularity has been slowly falling in recent decades. The Deerhound Club has 600 members, and about 300 births are registered on an annual basis, which is just enough to keep the breed from becoming a mere footnote in Holinshed’s histories. Prices, as with many dogs, have risen astronomically – Mary paid £25 for her first one, but they are more like £2,000 these days.
Vanessa Lucas, the Deerhound Club’s honorary secretary, is a relative novice compared to Mary, having only been an owner for the past 23 years. “I’ve only got four dogs at the moment,” she says, before admitting, “They are very addictive.
“What do you get back from a dog?” she adds. “You get up in the morning and you think, ‘Great, I’m going to take the dogs for a run on the Downs’. What a great start to the day.”
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