To understand the origins of the Lurcher, it is necessary to understand the role of the working sighthound through the ages.
At the time of the Lurcher’s creation (circa 14th Century) the ownership of sighthounds was restricted to nobility, royalty, the land-owning gentry. For anyone who did not fall into this elite category, owning a sighthound was effectively an admission of guilt – as obviously someone would only own an ‘illicit breed’ if they were in the habit of poaching the game (deer, hare, rabbit) belonging to the land-owners!
The penalty for owning such a dog could be severe and quite inventive (hanging, castration, blinding, being sewn into a deerskin and then hunted down with ferocious dogs!) and so it was sensible to have dogs that were biddable yet clever, fast and effective at hunting – and that possessed the skill and physique of a sighthound, disguised under the hairy coat of a working sheepdog or cattle droving dog.
The original Lurchers therefore, were the creation of an illicit meeting between a borrowed stud sighthound, and whatever scruffy farm dog bitch was available.
Now that owning a sighthound or lurcher is no longer illegal, there is no need to have a hairy, well disguised dog, and lurchers look much more obviously sighthound related, but they still should be a dog capable of heeding the handler's cues, capable of hunting by sight, and willing to retrieve game to hand.
Lurchers dog breeds are bred to do a job and historically, that job varied depending on the species they were hunting and the environment they were hunting in. A dog needed to work with a mixed pack of scent hounds, terriers and ferrets in brambles and thorny cover is a very different dog to the one needed to follow a lamp beam across smooth cropped grazing land. A tall dog hunts taller prey but will trip and fall trying to pick up smaller, faster turning prey – and so Lurchers were purpose bred for the job their owner needed them to do.
So the Lurcher dog truly is the original ‘designer’ dog – designed to fit the needs of a particular owner, quarry and region.