Whippet
A medium sighthound bred by working families in northern England for rabbit coursing and weekend racing. Astonishingly quiet indoors, but it needs a safe place to sprint and a coat in cold weather.
- Weight
- 11–19 kg
- Lifespan
- 12–15 years
Weight and lifespan are reference ranges from the breed guide. They vary by sex, lineage and individual dog and do not predict your dog’s ideal weight or lifespan. Read the care descriptions alongside the individual dog’s history.
Background and characteristics
The Whippet came out of the mining and mill towns of northern England, where families who could not keep a Greyhound wanted a smaller dog that could take rabbits during the week and race on a Sunday. It hunts by sight, in short explosive bursts, and the body is built for acceleration rather than endurance. That explains the two things people find most surprising about the breed.
Indoors it is close to inert, sleeping most of the day under a blanket and rarely barking. Outdoors, its eyes commit before its ears do, which is why off-lead freedom belongs inside secure fencing and nowhere else.
Exercise and play
The exercise formula is two walks of thirty to forty-five minutes plus two or three chances a week to run flat out in an enclosed space. A few minutes of genuine sprinting does more for a Whippet than an hour of pavement. If you have no access to a fenced field or a secure dog park, solve that before you get the dog rather than after.
Coat and everyday care
Coat care is close to nothing: a short, fine, single coat that sheds lightly and carries very little odour, handled by a weekly rub with a rubber mitt. The thin skin and low body fat create different costs instead. Whippets feel cold from mid-autumn onward and need a coat for winter walks; they develop pressure sores and calluses on hard floors, so a genuinely thick bed is not a luxury; and the skin tears easily on wire, brambles and rough play.
Health considerations
The health point every owner must know is anaesthesia. Sighthounds carry little body fat and metabolise some anaesthetic drugs differently, so tell any vet treating your dog that it is a sighthound before a procedure. Heart murmurs and arrhythmias are also reported in the breed, and normal thyroid values for sighthounds sit lower than the general canine reference range, which sometimes leads to unnecessary treatment.
Home environment and care planning
Whippets suit flats and small houses better than almost any other sighthound. Watch out for slippery floors — a dog that accelerates this hard can injure itself on laminate — and for cats and small pets, since the chase response is genuine and not something training removes.