A breed standard that calls for a dog to be at least 28 inches at the withers makes the Borzoi second only to the Irish Wolfhound as the tallest sighthound breed in existence (the operative word being “sighthound”).

Almond shaped eyes placed frontally on their head gives the Borzoi a 270-degree field of sight, quite striking when compared to a human’s measly 180 degrees. An incredibly wide field of vision gives a Borzoi what’s known as a” visual streak” (a line of vision cells) across their retina, with the highest acuity being in a circular area known as the “fovea,” or the area centralis. It’s a pretty nifty aspect, if not a unique one, to sighthounds and hunting breeds that rely on it to notice prey from a distance.

Image: Borzoi by Russian artist, Oksana Kravchenko. Find and support her work here