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Italian Greyhound — BetterBred Breed Page – BetterBred.com
BetterBred Breed Profile

Italian Greyhound

Temperament: A sighthound in a tiny package - sensitive, affectionate, and surprisingly athletic. Italian Greyhounds bond strongly with their people, can be timid with strangers, and retain real sighthound prey drive despite their size. They need warmth, soft places to sleep, and careful protection from leg injuries given their fine bones.
Height: 13-15 inches (33-38 cm)
Weight: 7-14 pounds (3-6 kg)
Life Span: 13-16 years
Outlier Index ?
0.27
Born before 2016: 0.29 Born after 2024: 0.26
Avg Genetic Rel. ?
0.00
Born before 2016: -0.02 Born after 2024: 0.02
Internal Relatedness ?
0.04
Born before 2016: 0.04 Born after 2024: 0.05
Italian Greyhound
#NameGender OIAGRIR
1 Whisperun Unbridled Passion F 0.27 0.00 0.05
2 Nautica Wildhart Whiter Shade Of Pale F 0.36 -0.06 0.10
3 Nautica Wildhart Barcelona F 0.22 0.04 0.13
4 Sobers Zeus M 0.42 -0.10 0.13
5 Nariba's Juliana of the Brazos F 0.17 0.02 0.00
6 Faux Queue Its All About Me At Ojibway F 0.33 -0.04 -0.11
7 Ruscelli Storyteller F 0.22 -0.09 0.22
8 Shadowland Izat Spellbound M 0.49 -0.06 0.01
9 Shadowland Izat Magic Moment F 0.66 -0.14 0.09
10 Izat Shadowland Raindrops on Roses F 0.27 -0.02 0.07
Italian Greyhounds are an ancient breed, with depictions in Mediterranean art going back more than 2,000 years. They were developed in Italy as miniature sighthound companions, particularly valued by noble women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, though they retained enough speed and drive to hunt small game. Today they are primarily companion dogs but compete successfully in lure coursing, agility, and conformation. The breed has been present in Europe and the United States continuously through the modern era, though regional populations have diverged somewhat.
Autoimmune disease is the breed community's primary concern. Conditions reported at elevated rates include Addison's disease, immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (IMTP), autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA), and masticatory muscle myositis (MMM). Epilepsy also occurs. Leg fractures due to low bone density are a significant concern given the breed's fine build, especially in young dogs. Research has found that homozygosity appears to increase autoimmune disease risk in the breed.
VGL has reported Italian Greyhounds carrying an average of around 7.67 alleles across the 33 STR loci, with an effective allele count near 3.33. The breed has reasonable overall diversity, but the distribution is uneven - a subset of common alleles dominates and rarer alleles need deliberate preservation. The US/European divergence also means cross-continental pairings can be an effective tool for broadening diversity in either population. VGL testing has found Italian Greyhounds with observed heterozygosity slightly below expected, giving a small positive inbreeding coefficient. American and European Italian Greyhounds form distinct genetic clusters, meaning the two populations have effectively diverged and carry somewhat different genetics. Research on the breed has found that more homozygous individuals are at elevated risk for autoimmune disease - direct support for diversity-conscious breeding.

Average metrics by birth year for dogs with recorded birthdates in the BetterBred database.

A 3D genetic map of enrolled Italian Greyhound dogs in the BetterBred database, based on allele-sharing distance across 33 STR loci. This is not a complete picture of the breed — it reflects only dogs whose owners have enrolled them. Drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · hover for dog names (public profiles only).

Historical founders — oldest 25% of enrolled dogs     Current gene pool — most recent 50% of enrolled dogs
Building plot… this may take a minute for larger breeds.

The Dog Leukocyte Antigen (DLA) region controls immune function and is the most polymorphic portion of the canine genome. Every dog carries two sets of DLA haplotypes — one from each parent — which almost never recombine across generations. Frequency percentages reflect how often each haplotype appears across all allele copies in the breed, not the percentage of dogs carrying it.

Class I Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
1044
21.2%
1052
21.1%
1053
12.8%
1008
12.8%
1059
10.9%
1040
8.5%
1016
5.8%
1030
1.9%
1054
1.8%
1048
1.2%
1012
0.7%
1051
0.5%
1058
0.4%
1056
0.3%
1169
0.1%

Class II Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
2017
23.3%
2034
21.2%
2036
11.4%
2029
10.9%
2035
9.4%
2039
8.5%
2031
5.8%
2032
3.4%
2023
1.9%
2015
1.2%
2037
1.1%
2003
0.6%
2033
0.5%
2040
0.2%
2102
0.2%
2038
0.1%
2027
0.1%
2067
0.1%
2081
0.1%

Class I & II Combinations

Class IClass IIFrequency
1044 2034
21.6%
1052 2017
21.4%
1053 2036
11.7%
1059 2029
11.1%
1008 2035
9.6%
1040 2039
8.5%
1016 2031
5.9%
1008 2032
3.5%
1030 2023
1.9%
1054 2015
1.3%
1048 2017
1.3%
1053 2037
1.2%
1012 2003
0.6%
1051 2017
0.5%
1054 2033
0.5%
1058 2017
0.5%
1056 2017
0.3%
1040 2040
0.2%
1053 2102
0.2%
1169 2039
0.1%
1053 2038
0.1%
1052 2081
0.1%
1052 2067
0.1%
1052 2027
0.1%
1012 2039
0.1%

The Canine Diversity Test from UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory is the foundation of BetterBred’s breed management tools. Testing your dog adds to the breed database and gives you access to the full suite of breeding analysis tools.

Order from UC Davis VGL →
Nautica Wildhart
Georgia, United States
Rhamah
Georgia, US
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BetterBred does not personally endorse or recommend any listed kennel. Visitors are responsible for conducting their own research, including verifying health testing records and speaking directly with breeders. List your kennel →

OI
Outlier Index

The Outlier Index (OI) measures how unusual a dog’s allele combination is relative to the tested population of its breed. A higher OI means the dog carries alleles at lower frequencies across the breed — genetic variants that are underrepresented in the population as a whole.

Dogs with high OI are genetically valuable because they carry diversity that most other tested dogs don’t share. Breeding them thoughtfully into the broader population helps redistribute lower-frequency alleles rather than allowing them to become even rarer over generations.

The breed average shown here reflects all dogs tested in the BetterBred database. The senior and youngster comparisons show whether diversity is trending up or down in recent generations.
AGR
Average Genetic Relatedness

Average Genetic Relatedness (AGR) measures how similar a dog’s DNA is, on average, to every other tested dog in the breed. It reflects the dog’s mean kinship — how closely related it is to the population as a whole.

A lower AGR means the dog is more genetically distinct from the majority of the breed. Dogs with low AGR carry alleles at lower frequencies across the tested population, making them higher-priority candidates for inclusion in a well-managed breeding program.

AGR is conceptually related to mean kinship used in conservation genetics for managed species populations. A declining AGR average in younger dogs suggests the breed is successfully redistributing genetic diversity across generations.
IR
Internal Relatedness

Internal Relatedness (IR) measures how much identical genetic material an individual dog inherited from both parents. IR is a useful indicator of inbreeding: lower IR generally reflects lower inbreeding, and it is widely used and reported in the scientific literature.

A high IR is not the cause for alarm it might appear. Elevated IR can often be resolved in a single generation by pairing with a dog whose ancestry is less represented in the breed. It is a signpost, not a sentence.

BetterBred reports IR for reference, but it is not our primary breeding guidance tool. OI and AGR together give a more complete and actionable picture of a dog’s genetic value to the population.

AGR tells you which dogs are genetically unusual relative to the population. OI tells you which dogs are most valuable to preserve. OI specifically weights mid-frequency alleles, identifying dogs whose ancestry is underrepresented in a way most likely to benefit the breed.