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History of... Lurchers

In the 14th, 15th and 16th century the English and Scottish governments banned commoners from owning sight-hounds such as wolfhounds, deerhounds and greyhounds.
Commoners got around this by cross breeding the sighthound with another working dog, usually a collie for its intelligence and speed.
The word lurcher is thought to be derived from the Romani words ‘lur’ meaning thief and ‘cur’ meaning mixed dog breed.

There are a variety of sizes, colours and coat lengths. This is probably due to the mixed breeding of long and short coated sight-hounds with collies, terriers and other working or pastoral breeds.
Lurchers were used for poaching birds, rabbits, hares and foxes. Larger sized lurchers were used for boar and deer.

Today a lot of lurchers have moved away from their hunting history and spend their days as family pets.