This "duke's" mixture portrayed the sleek, muscled and racy Greyhound, admired for its speed for thousands of years. Tombs of Egypt from the Fourth dynasty, between 4000 and 3500 BC, show drawings of dogs similar to Greyhounds and Salukis, making it obvious that dogs of this type were much esteemed during this era. During the ensuing centuries, Greyhounds proved to be in great demand as an item of barter, and spread through the Near East and Europe. They were developed to standard in England, where they became a status symbol. A Welsh proverb states, "You may know a gentlemen by his horse, his hawk and his greyhound." The source of the Greyhound name is accredited to various plausibilities: from as simple an explanation as the breed's early colors or the Latin word gradus, i.e., swiftness; to the Old English grech or greg meaning dog; or a corruption of "gazehound" or "great hound."

The dog was a favorite of English nobility, who limited ownership by the common folk under the Laws of Canute formulated in 1016: "No mean person may keepe any greyhounds, but freemen may keepe greyhounds so that their knees be cut before the verderors of the forest, and without cutting of their knees also, if he does abide 10 miles from the bounds of the forest." In wide flat expanses, a hunter was handicapped—no brushy forest to conceal the human presence or to hamper the animal as it attempted to bolt. With its powerful eyesight and great speed enabling him to overtake the quarry, the Greyhound proved an invaluable aid. One of them, "Bang" by name, jumped an astounding 30 feet while coursing a hare.