Valley Farm Kennel brochure

The borzoi is somewhat short in the neck and although all the standards call for the usual sloping shoulders, it always looks to me as if the shorter neck was the result of straight shoulders, and very few borzois that I have seen extended run with that closeness to the ground so noticeable in the well-built greyhound. Perhaps their very pronounced depth of chest has something to do with this jumping action when extended, but to my mind the borzoi is liable to he a somewhat upright-shouldered dog. The chest is narrow and the fore legs straight and, when seen from the front, not heavy-boned, but flatter in bone, viewed from the side. The back is arched, not with a hump but with a symmetrical outline, and with the loin well cut up. Females do not show this so much and are usually flatter-backed. There is not the wealth of muscle along the back one sees in the English greyhound, but the borzoi should be well supplied and should be strong in loin and hind quarters. In the position of the hind legs the borzoi frequently differs from the greyhound in having a cut-in from the hock to the foot. He stands more on his hind legs. This is a formation effected by the whippet racing men, who believe it tends to speed. The hocks are strong and the feet must be good in the pad, with toes close and well arched, the center toes being longer, forming what is known as the hate-foot.

Now we come to coat and color. There are preferences and individual choices here, and with the exception of the coat being woolly, you can please yourself as to flat, wavy or curled. On the head, ears and fore legs the hair is smooth and short; the neck and chest

At the kennels of the Grand Duke Nicholas, at Perchina,
south of Moscow. The buildings at the right and left are for
Wolfhounds.

should be well coated, the hair having an inclination to curl about the frill. On the rest of the body and tail it should be plentiful. The tail feather is longest toward the end, and slightly bushy like a collie's, and the tail is very apt to be carried straight down between the hocks when the dog is standing.

Alaska, bred by H. I. H. the Grand Duke Nicholas.

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