Irish Wolfhounds: Soulful Gentle Giants

Love the Breeds returns as host Laura Reeves talks with Jamie Souza Bartlett about Irish Wolfhounds, the gentle giants of the dog world. [caption id="attachment_13583" align="alignleft" width="318"] Jamie grew up with Irish Wolfhounds with her mom, Linda Souza.[/caption] “They're just, they're soulful, they're sweet. They're the gentle giants and I was very, very fortunate to grow up with them,” Jamie says. “Wolfhounds, much like a lot of breeds, were bred for a specific purpose, which was to hunt wolves in Ireland. Eventually, the wolves became extinct in Ireland, and consequently the wolfhounds almost became extinct. And then several years later Captain Graham came along and really found that this was a breed that required rejuvenation and real, real rescuing and bringing back because they're just so wonderful. “You don't own wolfhounds, you're owned by them. It's not an easy breed to have by any means. It comes with its own set of issues. But when you do own them and you're owned by them, there's just really no greater thing in the world. They are so soulful and so wonderful and like, you become part wolfhound.

Feeding

“As a young dog, they eat quite a bit because you're looking at a puppy that is a pound when it's born and it'll be 100 pounds by the time it's six months old. So the growth rate is very rapid and they do eat quite a bit as babies. And then quite quickly, once they kind of reach their full height it curbs significantly because you're not looking at a dog that's like a Doberman or something that's constantly pacing, constantly moving around. They will have bursts of energy. Big burst of energy in the morning, big burst of energy when it gets cold at night, and the rest of the time they’re chilling. So they really don't eat as much as an adult as one would think, considering their size. [caption id="attachment_13582" align="alignright" width="521"] Puppies in the breed grow fast![/caption] “I always encourage anybody to listen to their breeder and their breeding program because different lines tend to evolve differently and grow at different rates. We were always just really careful. We wanted them off of puppy food and anything that was promoting rapid growth as quickly as possible. We're trying to do things that are keeping them from growing too fast, which is kind of like the opposite of what a lot of other people do or they want them to like beef up. Really, that's absolutely what we don't want to do.

Exercise

“We also have a lot of protocols, not just around food, but around exercise. And we tell all of our new puppy buyers like you have to be very, very careful with this breed as they're growing up. And again, the inclination is like, ‘ohh, I got a puppy and I want it to go run around and play with my other dogs and I want it to be jumping around and being goofy’ and it's just a hard no. “Until these dogs’ growth plates close you can do really, really irreparable damage and we tell people don't take them into the hotel rooms and let them jump on the beds and jump down, you don't want all that impact on them as they're growing. Once they hit that two year old range then we'll start putting them out carefully with other dogs. It was one of the great things actually about having whippets. My whippets are fantastic exercising our wolfhound puppies, right, because there was no to low impact, but it helped with their movement. They're running, but kept them developmentally in a good place where they weren't getting injuries to the shoulders or elbows or anything else.”