Five thousand years ago, when Egyptian civilization was just beginning to take over, swift and elegant greyhounds appeared in the Mediterranean. And those who were lucky enough to visit the Cairo Museum, which contains the world’s largest treasury of ancient Egyptian history, must have seen images of lean dogs with huge erect ears and red hair with white spots. This is the Podenko ibitsenko or Ivyssian greyhounds – the closest relatives of the pharaoh hounds and bassenji.