The name of this dog is derived from the Romany word for a thief lur’. Historically, it is a poacher’s dog, ready to chase anything edible, especially rabbit and bare. It has also been recorded as the Didycoy Dog, or the Poacher’s Dog.
The Lurcher is an anomaly. Known since the 17th century, it is one of the most popular dogs in rural Britain, with well over 5,000 examples in existence, and yet its status has never been formally recognized. This is because it has never been bred to a fixed type and is therefore excluded from the showring.
In general terms, a Lurcher is a dog that results from a mating between a sighthound and a working dog. Usually looking like a lanky, shaggy sighthound, the typical Lurcher is based on a cross between a male sighthound and a female sheepdog. One of the most popular crosses is between a Greyhound and a Rough Collie. There is also a smaller version based on a cross between a Whippet and a Border Collie, or between a Whippet and a Shetland Sheepdog. In Scotland a favoured cross is Greyhound and Golden Retriever. In the Midlands there is much interest in a Whippet and Bedlington cross.
Many breeders prefer to let the sighthound element become more dominant and make a back-cross to the sighthound, creating a dog that is three-quarters sighthound and one quarter sheepdog.
The thinking behind these crosses is to obtain a combination, in one animal, of the speed of the typical sighthound and the intelligence and stamina of the typical sheepdog. It is this magic mixture that gives the Lurcher its special appeal. Unfortunately, its precise appearance has been of less interest, and has never been stabilized, with the result that the show-dog world has studiously ignored it. To recognized dog judges, the Lurcher remain a mongrel, but this has not deterred the Lurcher enthusiasts, and in 1971 they began to organize Lurcher shows themselves at which their dogs could compete without bothering about fixed standards. In defiance of the show-dog world there are now over 50 such Lurcher contests held annually.
In personality, the Lurcher seems to have acquired the best of both its parent breeds, being described by modern authors as calm, dignified, friendly and affectionate. It would, however, be hard to guess this from descriptions of the dog recorded in earlier centuries, when it was looked upon as an ‘illicit breed’. In 1790, Thomas Bewick, for example, refers to it in the following words: ‘its aspect is sullen, and its habits, whence it derives its name, are dark and cunning. But this is the type of comment that says more about the dog’s owners than about the animal itself.
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