#28 whippets are cool
must. resist. the. urge. to. get. a. whippet. in. East. London.
Growing up I never had a family dog. Despite popular contradictions, this wasn’t a pain point for me at all and I didn’t know what I didn’t know - if you know what I mean (i.e. that a dog was a cornerstone experience for many of my childhood friends). My parents both worked full time, and my brothers and I were out at school all day, retrospectively I wonder where we would’ve even fit a dog into our schedule.
We did have a hamster (Hammy) that my younger brother got as a birthday present. He was ginger and white and had one of those cages with tubes coming out of it that I think were supposed to look spacey or intergalactic. Hammy, unfortunately, didn’t live long, despite being bought from a reputable source (the 500-year-old pet shop in the same village as our school) and he was eventually put down after acquiring a small tumour on his belly. I write that quite bluntly but it was pretty traumatic.
Now adults, my brothers each have their own dog (they must’ve had a large four-legged size-hole in their lives when we were kids). One is an extremely anxious but incredibly loved unidentified mixed breed rescued from Hungary and the other is a smaller equally loved energetic Whippet and Jack Russell cross - or at least that’s what the breeder’s said but I think she might just be a full-blooded Jack Russell.
Which leaves just me, dog-less and hound-less, roaming the streets of London completely on my own, sans animal encased in a neckerchief or one to carry down the escalators in my arms to the tube. Sometimes when I’m eating a bagel in the park I see cool people letting their dogs off the lead so they can run around in one big circle and I wonder - am I missing out? Possibly. Could I be shooting the breeze with a stranger right now about my dog’s favourite snacks? Maybe.
However, when my food settles and I don’t have to pick up warm poop with one veerrryyyyyy thin bag protecting my hand I think… no. And I defended that thought until I was recently bombarded with a sudden influx of Whippet propaganda that’s started to change my stubborn mind.
A medium-sized small fast dog, Whippets are a British sighthound that are somewhere between an Italian Greyhound and a big Greyhound. I don’t find them to be as spindly as the former and obviously not as large as the latter. They’re the perfect dog size if you think about it. Described as sensitive, or that they look a bit nervous because of their build, Whippets are devoted and loving and now, thanks to popular culture, cool?
I don’t really know how this happened. As someone who sifts through internet trends hourly, I’ve never come across something that related to pets… probably because a) I don’t own one and b) trend cycles can’t surpass the three-month mark and you have a dog for 15 years, but Whippets, Whippets are everywhere. It’s like the red car theory, I can’t unsee how many Whippets there are… I turn a random street corner and BAM, a Whippet.
In a recent advert for Adidas, the video depicts someone cutting through a busy street as they pass vendors, cars, coffee shops, record stores, and skateboarders while Primal Scream’s famous song ‘Loaded’ plays in the background. The caption on YouTube starts with ‘One block. Three Footwear Icons. A Thousand Ways Styled By You’ demonstrating the undeniable impact of the Gazelle, Samba and Spezial silhouettes on all different aspects of life. A great advert (with supporting billboards across London I can’t escape) the part that stood out to me most however was the pregnant woman being pulled along by a grey-ish brindle Whippet (puppy?) about halfway through the video. A Whippet. When do you ever see Whippets as the chosen dogs in ads? (If this turns out to be an Italian Greyhound my whole piece falls apart).
Another item for the Whippet watch list is Netflix’s ‘Scoop’ - the Billie Piper and Gillian Anderson fronted drama that documents how the women of BBC’s Newsnight secured that famous 2019 Pizza-Express-I’m-unable-to-sweat interview with Prince Andrew. It’s excellent, you should watch it. Amongst the incredible journalism and epic displays of women being great, was Emily Maitlis’ roaming Whippet ‘Moody’ who seems to wander freely around the halls of the BBC offices.
I know that’s only two examples of Whippets in recent media but I can also reinforce this trend with my own research I’ve been conducting as I walk down the street. A lot of people have dogs, and people have always had dogs, but suddenly there seems to be more dogs in London… don’t you think? I know lockdown caused a huge surge in new owners, with people trapped indoors and looking for companionship, but I feel like people have acquired more dogs even since then.
Nights out crammed into busy Soho pubs are punctuated with hairy bundles of paws lazying over a pair of Clarks Wallabees, afternoons in coffee shops feature someone slowly drinking their oat milk flat white with the body of a canine flopped over one arm, and people have backpacks their pets can peek out the top of as they cycle to work. There are dog-friendly offices and dog-friendly hotels - the world has adapted to undoubtedly make space for animals and people are cashing in.
As for the slight increase in my sighting of Whippets, I think cool culture needs a new poster dog to feature in campaigns that showcase what life could be like as a Metropolitan dog owner. In most cases, you would think it would be pretty cruel to keep a big dog in a small London flat these days but that’s not stopped many people adopting their furry friends. As a medium-size small dog though, not only is a Whippet lovely, but it seems that many Londoners find it to be a logical dog option to pair with an evening drinking orange wine or shopping for new socks or running around Victoria Park.
Really glad I could get that off my chest,
Until the next one,
Lory x