Borzoi

Borzoi

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The Borzoi is a breed of dog also called the Russian Wolfhound. They have medium-length, slightly curly hair and are similar in shape to Greyhounds. They are a member of the sighthound family, The plural Borzois may be found in dictionaries. However, the Borzoi Club of America asserts Borzoi is the preferred form for both singular and plural. At least one manual of grammatical style rules that the breed name should not be capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence; again, breed fanciers usually differ, and capitalize it wherever found.

Appearance: Borzoi can come in any color or color combination. Their coat is silky, flat and should never be woolly. In its texture and distribution over the body, the Borzoi coat is unique. The undercoat thickens in winter or cold climates but is almost totally shed in hot weather to prevent overheating. They were not originally a heavily coated dog.

This breed is a large variety of sighthound, with males frequently reaching in excess of 100 pounds (45 kg). Males should stand at least 28 inches (about 70 centimeters) while females shouldn’t be less than 26 inches (about 66 centimeters). However size is not their most essential feature if it comes at the expense of grace, elegance and agility.

Temperament: The Borzoi is an intelligent, active, independent dog. They are gentle with people and have gracious house-manners, with a natural sensitivity and respect for humans. Borzoi should never display dominance over people. However they are sometimes nervous around children and need to be reared with small children if they are to be the pet in a family which includes youngsters.

Borzoi can do extremely well at obedience work with the right kind of training, but it is not an activity that comes naturally to all of them. They are fast learners who quickly become bored with repetitive, apparently pointless, activity, and they can be very stubborn when they are not properly motivated. Like the rest of the sighthounds – but unlike most other breeds of dog – many Borzoi are not strongly driven by food rewards. 

An experienced and patient trainer will recognize that this is not a sign of stupidity, and will simply find other ways of keeping them interested. Borzoi cannot understand or tolerate training based on negative reinforcement or punishment, and will be extremely unhappy if raised voices and threats are a part of their daily life. For puppies, firm but gentle discipline, with lots of praise and reward for the right behaviour, works well. Adults that have been raised in this way will rarely need to be disciplined at all.

Borzoi are dogs used to pursue, or “course,” game and they have a strong instinct to chase things that run from them. They are built for speed and can cover incredible distances in a very short time. They need a fenced yard if automobile traffic is present within several miles of their home because their instinct to chase such things as rabbits, squirrels, or even leaves blowing in the breeze can cause them to ignore the danger created by automobile traffic. They do not have strong territorial drives compared to breeds such as Mastiffs and German Shepherds. They are definitely not to be thought of as a “fighting” or “guard dog.”

Against wolves and other wild canids, the Borzoi has specialized instincts. When used to course wolves in 19th-century Russia they were worked in a team of three dogs, and were not expected to kill the wolf, but only to grip it behind the ear and hold it until the hunter arrived on the scene (see below). Borzoi should not generally be territorially aggressive to other domestic dogs. They are quite capable of defending themselves against other animals, but lack the body weight and fighting instincts to combat a mastiff or similar hefty breed.

It is quite common for Borzoi at play to sometimes spontaneously join forces and course (run down) another dog, seizing it by the neck and holding it immobile. Young pups do this with their littermates, trading off as to who is the prey. Older dogs will even do this with strange dogs in dog parks, and care should be taken to see they are properly socialized with other dogs at a young age. It is a hunting behavior, not a fighting or territorial domination behavior.

Many Borzoi can be raised very successfully to live with cats and other small animals; some, however, will possess the hunting instinct to such a degree that they find it impossible not to chase a cat that is moving quickly. The instinct is triggered by movement and much depends on how the cat behaves. Most Borzoi learn very quickly by observing human behavior that the cat is a member of the family; and being very sensitive dogs, they will never forget a cat-scratch once they have experienced it.

Health: Like its native relative the Hortaya Borzaya, the Borzoi is basically a very sound breed. OCD, hip and elbow dysplasia have remained almost unknown, as were congenital eye and heart diseases before the 1970s. However, modern breeding practices have unfortunately introduced a few problems.

As with other very deep-chested breeds, gastric torsion is the most common serious health problem in the Borzoi. Also known as bloat, this life-threatening condition is believed to be anatomical rather than strictly genetic in origin. Bloat and road accidents are by far the most frequent causes of premature death. Many Borzoi owners recommend feeding the dog from a raised platform instead of placing the food-dish on the ground, and making sure that the dog rests quietly for several hours after eating, as the most reliable way to prevent bloat.

Less common are cardiac problems including cardiomyopathy and cardiac arhythmia disorders. A controversy exists as to the presence of progressive retinal atrophy in the breed. A condition identified as Borzoi Retinopathy is seen in some individuals, usually active dogs, which differs from progressive retinal atrophy in several ways. First, it is unilateral, and rarely seen in animals less than 3 years of age; second, a clear cut pattern of inheritance has not been demonstrated; and finally, most affected individuals do not go blind.

Correct nutrition during puppyhood is also debatable for Borzoi. Some breeders believe that highly concentrated, high-energy kibble diets disturb the growth rates in the long bones of the limbs, causing unsoundness and increased tendency to joint problems and injury later in life. The issues involved in raw feeding are possibly particularly relevant to tall, streamlined breeds such as the Borzoi. These dogs naturally experience enormous growth surges in the first year or two of their lives, but do not carry large amounts of body fat or muscle, and therefore have a rather different physiology to other dogs of similar size. Laboratory-formulated diets designed for a generic “large” or “giant” breed are unlikely to take the needs of sighthounds into account.

It is interesting to note that the Hortaya Borzaya, undoubtedly a very close relative of the Borzoi, is traditionally raised on a meagre diet of oats and table scraps. A lean body weight in itself is nothing to be concerned about, and force-feeding of healthy young Borzoi is definitely not recommended. The Hortaya is also said to be intolerant of highly concentrated kibble feeds.

Life expectancy is 10 to 12 years, females usually living longer than males. Exceptional individuals have lived to be more than 16 years of age. Dogs that are physically fit and vigorous in their youth through middle age are more vigorous and healthy as elderly dogs, all other factors being equal.

History: Tradition says that Borzoi were brought to Russia by Kublai Khan. Although this might be true, the original Borzoi stock was crossed with different Russian herding dogs, which explains the breed’s ability to deal with wolves—this was an important part of a herding dog’s work in the past, when wolves were more common.

“Borzaya” (“quick dog”) is a Russian term for various types of native sighthound. The Russkaya Psovaya Borzaya (Psovoi – the longhaired borzoi) is the dog we know as Borzoi. The Psovoi was popular with the Tsars before the 1917 revolution. For centuries, Psovoi could not be purchased but only given as gifts from the Tsar. The most famous breeder was Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich of Russia, who bred hundreds of Psovoi at Perchino, his private kennel. During Tsarist times, several varieties of borzaya were bred; however, after the revolution, many of the Tsarist breeds were neglected.

During the era of the Tsars, the Russians performed “hunting tests” to show that borzoi could actually hold a wolf until the hunter arrived. These wolf hunts were a well-organized ceremony, accompanied by mounted hunters and Foxhounds on the Russian steppe. When the wolf was sighted, the hunter would release a team of two or three borzoi. The dogs would pursue the wolf, attack its neck from both sides, and hold it until the hunter arrived. The classical killing was by the human hunter with a knife. These dogs are bred for team work and enjoy the company of other similar breeds. Hunting groups often consisted of three borzoi, one of which would be a clearly dominant male. After singling out a wolf, the two subordinate dogs would attack the wolf’s ears (or general head) allowing the dominant to reach the throat.

In the 1917 Revolution, hundreds of native Psovoi were destroyed by the revolutionaries. The Tsars had turned them into a symbol of affluence and tyranny, and they were not welcomed into the materialistic world of the Soviet Union. However, the Psovoi survived along with other borzoi variants in the Russian countryside (Hortaya Borzaya, short-haired borzoi; and Stepnoy, a lop-eared borzoi with feathering, similar to the Saluki) .

In the late 1940s a Soviet soldier named Constantin Esmont made detailed records of the various types of borzoi dogs he found in the Cossack villages. Esmont’s amazing pictures were recently published and can be viewed by clicking on the link below.

Esmont was concerned that the types were in danger of degenerating without a controlled system of breeding. He convinced the Soviet government that borzoi were a valuable asset to the hunters which supported the fur industry and henceforth, their breeding was regulated by law. To this day Hortaya Borzaya are highly valued hunting dogs on the steppes, while the Psovoi has become more common as a decorative companion.

Exports of Borzoi to other countries were extremely rare during the Soviet era. However enough had been taken to England, Western Europe and America in the late 19th century for the breed to establish itself outside its native country.

Art: The Borzoi’s elegance has always made it a popular subject for artists, but never more so than in the Art Deco period. French artist Louis Icart is particularly known for his paintings of Borzoi. A famed bronze sculptor of the Art Deco period, D.H. Chiparus, also featured Borzoi in his works.

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