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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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