He was the Royal Dog of Scotland, but the late 1700s nearly brought his breed to an end. Highland Chieftains had assumed such exclusive proprietorship of the Scottish Deerhounds that it was rare to find a good one south of the River Forth, and by 1769, it was hard to find one at all.  The collapse of the clan system after Culloden 1745 didn’t help, nor did changes in the hierarchy of royalty and nobility, which had protected the Scottish Deerhound.  It wasn’t until around 1825 that efforts to save the breed were made, in large measure because of Archibald and Duncan McNeill.  This magnificent creature is still at risk and appears on the Kennel Club’s list of Vulnerable Breeds. There were only 267 registrations in all of the United Kingdom in 2015.

  Scottish Deerhound by Gill Evans. This print is available here and here