Famous whippets: real dogs that shaped the breed's story

Part 1

What makes a whippet famous

Talk to your own whippet about speed, and you will understand why the breed built part of its reputation on the racetrack. Whippets have the fastest running speed for their weight and size of any dog, and are believed to have the fastest acceleration of any dog. That racing record is one clear path to fame. British nobility and, later, entertainers and writers have kept whippets.

Part 2

Whippets in the royal court

If your own dog could trade places with a historical whippet, a country estate is where it might have landed. Whippets have been kept as companions in great country houses, sitting by the fireside, while working families in northern mill towns raced their own whippets for sport. One country-house whippet named Studley belonged to the Duchess of Devonshire and went picking-up with her; the entertainer Ivor Novello once called him an enchanting bit of beige. A 1758 portrait of Charles Compton, the 7th Earl of Northampton, painted by Pompeo Batoni, shows a dog that breed historian Mary Lowe described as sitting in a thoroughly whippety position, which suggests dogs of whippet type were already valued by the nobility before the breed was formally recognized.

Part 3

Record-setting racing and coursing whippets

Talk to your dog about its ancestors' day jobs, because many early whippets worked hard for their keep. Whippet racing grew up among working-class men in the textile towns of northern England, who raced whippets in back alleys, empty lots, and dusty roads. The dogs chased a waved rag in this early racing format. Whippets were also called snap dogs, a name that came from their habit of snapping up nearby prey. One account describes whippets covering 200 yards in about 12 seconds, and being clocked at up to 37 miles per hour. The breeding history behind racing whippets is traced back to before the 1850s, in the mill towns of Lancashire and the pit villages of Durham, Northumberland, Yorkshire, and Cumbria.

Part 4

Whippets owned by well-known people

You might recognize some of the people who have kept whippets more recently.

• Lucian Freud owned a brindle whippet named Pluto.
• The novelist Sebastian Faulks owned a whippet named Hector.
• Robin Birley keeps two whippets, Chester and Arnie, who sleep on the sofas of his Mayfair club.

Part 5

Whippets in art and popular culture

A painting by Jean-Baptiste Oudry shows two small dogs named Misse and Turlu that were presented to King Louis XV, and they were likely an early form of whippet. The 1758 Batoni portrait of the Earl of Northampton is another early painting that features a dog of whippet type. These paintings predate the breed's formal recognition by the Kennel Club in 1891. More recently, whippets have appeared in fashion photography, including shoots for cashmere brands.

Part 6

Separating fact from folklore about famous whippets

If you read a story about a famous historical whippet, it helps to check where the claim comes from before you repeat it to your own dog. A documented case, such as a magazine profile that names the owner, the dog, and the date of the interview, is easier to verify than a repeated claim with no clear origin. The whippet's breeding history is said to go back to before the 1850s, while the Kennel Club's official recognition came in 1891. When a detail about a famous dog cannot be traced to a named source, it is safer to leave it out of your dog's history lesson than to repeat it as fact.