Ireland

The solid red coat is a Victorian fashion; the original dog was red and white.

Irish sportsmen bred setters in the 18th century in red and white, a pattern that was easier to pick out at distance in the field. Breeders then chased the solid mahogany coat for the show ring, and the red and white setter survived only because a few kennels refused to give it up.

The breed outlived its job: the last wolf in Ireland was killed around 1786.

With no wolves left and rural Ireland emptied by the Great Famine, the old Irish wolfdog had all but vanished by the middle of the nineteenth century. From 1863 Captain George Augustus Graham collected the surviving dogs and crossed in Scottish deerhound, Great Dane, and borzoi blood to rebuild the type, founding the Irish Wolfhound Club in 1885. The modern dog is a Victorian reconstruction of a much older animal.