The ancient and aristocratic dog breed loved by Queen Victoria and Sir Walter Scott
Once used to hunt wolves and bring down red deer in the Scottish Highlands, the Scottish deerhound is one of Britain’s oldest and most noble breeds. Today, it remains a gentle giant — elegant, devoted and unmistakably aristocratic.
With just 146 puppies registered with the Kennel Club in 2024, the Scottish deerhound remains one of Britain’s rarer native breeds — and one that feels most at home in the open countryside its history is rooted in. Large, powerful and unmistakably elegant, it carries itself with a quiet authority that reflects its long and noble past.
Recorded in Scotland for at least 500 years and originally known as the Scottish wolfdog, the deerhound was first used to control wolves and later developed into a specialist breed for coursing red deer. The Kennel Club describes it as a perfect blend of ‘speed, power and endurance necessary to pull down a stag’, combined with a general bearing of ‘gentle dignity’.
Deerhounds resemble rough-coated greyhounds and are closely related to Irish wolfhounds — slightly smaller, but no less imposing. Males stand at least 30in at the withers and weigh around 45.5kg. Despite their size, they are known for their grace and devotion — although you would certainly notice if one attempted to climb onto your lap.
The breed fell out of favour in the early 19th century, when many of Scotland’s great estates were divided into smaller holdings focused on stalking and shooting — pursuits better suited to tracking dogs such as collies. A Victorian revival followed, led in part by Queen Victoria, who kept deerhounds at Windsor alongside Prince Albert. One such dog, a bluish-fawn named Keildar, was used by the Prince Consort for deer stalking in Windsor Park.
Their quiet nobility has long inspired artists and writers. Sir Edwin Landseer painted several deerhounds, including Maida, the favourite dog of Sir Walter Scott, who described the breed as ‘the most perfect creature of Heaven’. Maida, a gift from the Chief of Glengarry, appears in Scott’s Waverley novels and was depicted by Landseer ‘with much spirit indeed’.
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), with his faithful dog in an early 19th-century engraving by W. Holl after J. W. Gordon.
The breed’s history extends even further afield. General George Custer, the American Civil War cavalry officer, owned deerhounds — including Tuck, who is said to have died at the Battle of Little Bighorn. According to the Scottish Deerhound Club of America, she would nudge his hand insistently while he wrote, demanding attention.
General George A. Custer with his scouts in Montana Territory, early 1870s, during work on the Northern Pacific Railroad.
More recently, the breed found a place in popular culture: in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black’s animagus form, Padfoot, was portrayed by a deerhound named Kilbourne Macleod.
Available in shades of grey, blue and brindle — sometimes with white markings — the deerhound remains an aristocratic icon: a dog of princes, poets and sportsmen, as at home on a Highland estate as by the fireside.
