Show photos courtesy of Pam Bennett

Serendipity Rogue,

on the move.......

 

Links:

Introduction

Lagos, in ancient Greek, means "Rabbit".  A suitable name considering this web site is about my new foray into breeding the Longhaired Whippet! 

We have owned and bred CKC registered Whippets since 1976, under the prefix Lepus Perm. Reg'd.  Our whippets are athletic, and healthy with lovely happy, outgoing temperaments.  Our dogs excel at Conformation, Lure Coursing, Racing, Agility and of course, just being affectionate, lay in your lap, dogs!

 

 

Lagos Background
In 1993, I was introduced to Walter Wheeler and his Longhaired Whippets.  I was very taken with the thought of a tougher skinned, longhaired variety of whippet.  I am not surprised at the presence of hair modifier and length genes in the whippet because the breed of "whippet" started off in the last several centuries, as a mongrelized small greyhound (Lurchers) which when eventually in the hands of coal miners, and farmers, were undoubtedly crossbred with terriers, spaniels and possibly even farm collie-type dogs.  This would have been the mindset of these folk, to make a dog that was quick, driven and impervious to the elements and less likely to bramble injury.  There are plenty of depictions in art, of greyhounds having had 2 coat types, short and long/curly, plus references to rough/wire coats, not to mention the reference found in an 1841 text that described: "Whippet, a dog bred betwixt a greyhound and a spaniel."  Spaniels in all cases carry some amount of coat or furnishings (feathering of the ears, legs and/or tail).

I am very positive that Walter's dogs were purebred whippets, and that no "sheltie, borzoi or collie type" dog was bred into them during his founding of the hairy phenotype in the mid to late 1970's onward.  He simply used whippets that were born carrying that unusual 1" length of hair or thick, soft "plush" coats.  I have seen whippets like these frequently enough to know that it has to be a recessive code in the genes that expresses itself every once in a while.  I recall when Stuart Harvey of Trenton, Ontario, imported a bitch from the UK in the very early 1990's, and when she arrived, he was dismayed to see she had quite long hair...about 1" long, all over her body.  I saw her with my own eyes.  He spayed her, as he was not able to show her (the hair coat was a disqualification).  THAT is exactly the type of whippet that Walter started his breeding program with.  He managed to inbreed enough to create a longhaired type.  (Long hair can be made longer or shorter, dense or thin, through generational breeding of the length and density phenotypes.  Any breeder of long-coated breeds can attest to this.  I saw this with my borzoi, and many many years ago with German Shepherd Dogs.)

 

Longhaired Whippet Association

The Longhaired Whippet Association is the official, founding registry and world-wide breed club of pure Longhaired Whippets. The stud books date back fifty years to 1958. The LWA was incorporated in 1981 to protect and promote the long haired variety of the purebred Whippet.  Their stud book is only open to LWA Registered Longhaired Whippets, and CKC, AKC or FCI Registered Whippets, when used to broaden the gene pool, so that it remains a healthy and viable density.

Right now, the Longhaired Whippet Association (LWA), is in the process of identifying the modifier genes which are responsible for coat length.  With the help of a DNA lab, they have already identified the actual simple Long and Short haired genes.  Now on to the more complex gene modifiers!  This is a very exciting time in history because we now have the ability to identify and map genes, and their switches/modifiers.  I am very hopeful that the DNA lab will have success in finding these!

Barbara Westermann, of Renaissance LHWs, has taken up where Walter left off (Walter is retired from breeding).  Barb and I have had many chats over the years about the plight of the LH Variety, as the numbers were dwindling, and due to the high inbreeding coefficient, there were some problems that they wanted to avoid.  I offered her the use at stud, of a couple of my CKC male whippets, to use in her breeding program.  She was very pleased to have the use of these 2 top-producing conformation, race and field champion males from two unrelated CKC and FCI whippet lines.

Longhaired Whippet Coat Length

The LHW class are Longhaired Whippets that have length of coat greater than 1", including visible feathering of the front legs, thighs, and tail, ear feathering, and some neck rough.

The Whippets of Longhaired Descent generally tend to be F1 variety, where a Longhaired Whippet was bred to a CKC/AKC/FCI registered smooth whippet, to produce an F1 variety. These dogs generally have a bit thicker, softer coat than the smooth parent, thicker skin, and some visible longish hair on the backs of the front legs, rear thighs and tail, often with a little "corkscrew" of hair on the end of the tail.  If you have ever seen a 2-3 week old borzoi puppy, imagine THAT coat on an F1 (Whippet of Longhaired Descent) variety.  When these Whippets of Longhaired Descent are mature, pass health screening, and are eventually bred to an LWA Registered Longhaired Whippet, most of the offspring will have the longer coat, with a small number possibly having a shorter F1 variety coat.  However, once those F2 generation are eventually bred to LWA Registered Longhaired Whippets, those offspring will have even more coat.  The more coat that you breed to, the more coat you tend to get (there are some articles on coat length genetics on the internet). Modifiers on the genes play a roll in coat length/density and currently the LWA is working with a DNA lab to find these modifiers.  This will help make a lot of headway in identifying CKC/AKC/FCI registered whippets that carry these modifiers, which will make them excellent candidates for breeding into the LWA gene pool!  Here are a couple of coat length genetic info sites: http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/coatType.html  and  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2052.2007.01590.x

Lagos Foundation

I have long admired the nicely furnished, lovely tempered Longhaired Whippets and decided in the summer of 2007, to found my own Longhaired Whippet Kennel, which I have aptly named LAGOS.  What better way, than to take back a stud puppy from Porter's litter.  So I would now like to introduce my LHW foundation bitch:  Serendipity Rogue, known as "Wren".  She is out of LWA registered Ch. Renaissance Lemonville Brooke, CGC by my CKC/FCI registered Male "Porter" (Ch. Prospero Of Wuthering Heights).  Wren is also grand-daughter to BISS winner and dual champion LWA and Ch. Windsprite Princess Peanut, CGC.  Wren is registered with the LWA as a Whippet Of Longhaired Descent.  The LWA has two "varieties" which compete at Rare Breed and LWA Specialty Shows, in their given variety. The BOB winners of each of those 2 varieties then go on to compete against each other for overall BOB.

 

Lagos Activity and Breeding Plans

My LHW whippet is registered ONLY with the LWA as a Whippet of Longhaired Descent and any of her offspring of course will be registered only with the LWA.  I plan on eventually breeding her to Barb's dog "Disney", (Ch. Renaissance Magic Kingdom, CGC, HIC).

 

Longhaired Whippets are shown at rare breed shows, LWA Specialty Shows, as well as performance events such as lure coursing (LWA will begin having Lure Coursing trials for LHWs very soon), rare breed performance club events, Agility Trials (AAC) and racing with CARA for LWA racing titles.  They too, are all 'round performance sighthounds!

My LHW's are naturally reared, just like my Lepus CKC Whippets and Italian Greyhounds.  You can read all about Natural Rearing at my Lepus Perm Reg'd Web Site: http://www.lepus-sighthounds.com/natural-rearing.htm

 

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