William Taylor,  the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009, once said ,”Ukraine is a country. “The Ukraine” is the way the Russians referred to that part of the country during Soviet times … Now that it is a country, a nation, and a recognized state, it is just Ukraine. And it is incorrect to refer to the Ukraine, even though a lot of people do it.”

We won’t do it, but we are writing about a sighthound developed in Ukrania in the 18th century, the Hortaya Borzaya (pronounced “chortah-yah borsa-yah). The breed little known outside the remote steppes of the Commonwealth of Independent States is thought by some cynologists to have originated from the Whippet or Italian Greyhound.

One source points to five distinct breed types adapted to local geography and prey, and bred for performance, but the USSR wrote a breed standard for the “Chortaj” (as its called) in 1951. Still, the breed stayed well below the radar because of Soviet occupation, the dog bred and kept by the country folk. It remains one of the few remaining breeds of practical hunters in that part of the world. About 3,500 Hortaya Borzaya exist worldwide, but exportation of the dog to other countries is now being limited, and the only Chortaj seen beyond its borders are owned by Russians living and working abroad.

The Chortaj is recognized by all FCI member countries within the CIS, and by many other European nation where some studbooks are maintained directly by the national member organization of the FCI, but the FCI itself does not yet recognize the breed.  We have to think that once this keen hunter without a mean bone in its body is discovered, it will be hard to contain within borders.

Image found on Pinterest and happily credited upon receipt of information