A blast to the 80s opens our post about the “whip.” Scroll down to see and hear this audio gem:

Specifically, we’re talking about the “whip” tail in dogs. As the word implies, this is a long, thin tail that tapers off at the end like a whip. It’s typically carried out stiffly straight and pointed, and as often as the word appears in glossaries, encyclopedias, and books on dogs, there is actually only one breed whose AKC standard actually calls for a “whip” like tail (and it’s not the Whippet).

Care to guess?

It’s not the Whippet, it’s the Pharaoh Hound! “Tail medium set – fairly thick at the base and tapering whip-like, reaching below the point of hock in repose.”

We could arguably be accused of quibbling over semantics since the Whippet’s AKC breed standard reads: “The tail long and tapering, reaching to at least the inside of the hock when measured down along the hind leg.” If “long and tapering” sounds like a whip tail to you, it does to us, as well, but we figure the people who wrote the breed standards had their reasons for not using the word “whip” in their standard, and we always defer to the breed experts.