Why the breed exists
The Irish Wolfhound is the best answer this site has to the idea that a breed is a sealed vault. The original hounds hunted wolf in Ireland; the last Irish wolf was killed in 1786, the work ended with it, and by 1836 the breed appeared on a published list of animals that had disappeared from Ireland. From 1863 Captain George Augustus Graham set out to rebuild it, working from the surviving descendants of Irish hounds and crossing deliberately to Scottish Deerhound and Great Dane. The Irish Wolfhound Club was founded in 1885 and a standard written in 1886. The modern Irish Wolfhound is a documented reconstruction — and unmistakably a real breed.
Both halves of that sentence are the point. A breed is a population that people maintain, and maintaining one sometimes means outcrossing on purpose and writing down what you did. Graham did, which is why we can tell the story at all. The honest counterweight is the giant-breed burden: a short lifespan, cardiac disease, bone cancer and bloat are all realities in this breed, and anyone considering one should know that before they fall in love with a puppy. Good breeders raise it themselves, health-test to the parent club's published recommendations, and take dogs back at any age.
The official written standard belongs to the breed's parent club.Read the official Irish Wolfhound standard →
Choosing a Irish Wolfhound on purpose
Every breed has its own list of required health screenings, kept by its parent club and published through OFA. A preservation breeder working in this breed tests to that list and shows you the results — including the ones that didn't go their way.
Carry the messageEvery Bred By Co. piece funds this education work.
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