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No, and it is one of the breed's selling points. Barking in the Pharaoh Hound is rated 2 out of 5, which in practice means a dog that may go days with nothing to say and then delivers one bark, at the door, at a stranger in the garden, with the air of a report filed once and correctly. This is a Hound dog developed in Malta, and whatever its ancestors were bred to do, it was not announcing. That quiet is a real trait, not an absence of personality: this is a medium dog of 45 to 55 lb that communicates in posture, presence and the occasional single bark that owners learn to take seriously precisely because it is so rare.
Puppies are leggy, bright charmers; adults are graceful, devoted companions that gallop gloriously and rest beautifully. Pharaohs are sweet, sensitive and playful for sighthounds, affectionate with family, serenely independent in thought and famously clean and quiet indoors. Owners describe the gentlest of hunters: a dog that has shared homes since antiquity and behaves like it, with perfect, quiet manners. Gentle, quiet and undemanding indoors, explosive outdoors. Short, fine, glossy coat lying close to the skin, with no feathering.
The full record behind the headline runs like this. Barking is rated 2 out of 5 for the Pharaoh Hound; energy sits at 3 out of 5 and trainability at 2 out of 5, and those two numbers decide how manageable the first one is: an energetic, trainable dog can be taught a settle, while energy with nowhere to go becomes noise. The barking score of 2 out of 5 was assigned inside that picture, not in isolation: breeds developed to work at a distance from people often kept their voices, breeds developed underfoot often lost them, and the Pharaoh Hound still carries whatever its own history decided about the value of being heard.
Finding what makes a Pharaoh Hound bark takes some listing, because the list is short. A stranger at the door who does not behave like a visitor. A noise in the night that is genuinely out of pattern. Another animal where it should not be. Because the Pharaoh Hound barks so rarely, at 2 out of 5, its barks carry information other households have to guess at: when this dog speaks, something has actually happened. Owners learn to go and look rather than call for quiet, and the breed's reputation for steadiness, strangers rated Reserved with strangers, dogs rated Usually good with dogs, is built on exactly that economy of voice.
The Pharaoh Hound suits calm households that want an elegant, gentle piece of living antiquity. Sighthounds suit calm households and owners who understand the off switch is built in, per the overview. The train score sits low and means independence, the sighthound pattern: Pharaohs were bred to course alone at distance, deciding at speed without consultation.
The rest of the record rounds the picture out. The record's color line for the Pharaoh Hound reads: The standard accepts a range of colors and patterns, and individual markings vary a lot. The coat is described as Short, fine, glossy coat lying close to the skin, with no feathering, with grooming effort rated 3 of 5 and shedding at 3 of 5. Food for a typical 50 lb adult runs about $33 a month on this site's cost record, and insurance is recorded at $34 to $60 a month, a reminder that the voice comes attached to a whole dog with a decade of budget in it. None of that alters the headline rating, 2 out of 5; it simply keeps the decision about this breed's noise in proportion with the decision about the breed.
Look sideways for a moment at the breeds this record finds most similar: the Ibizan Hound, the Saluki and the Sloughi. Their bark ratings are not identical to the Pharaoh Hound's 2 out of 5, which is worth remembering in both directions: do not borrow a similar breed's quiet reputation, and do not lend this one's volume out. Cross shoppers get more from comparing the full records side by side than from any single number, which is why each name on the shortlist carries its own page on this site.
The one management note that matters with this breed runs the other way: tell your household what a bark means here. In a Pharaoh Hound home, barking is rare enough to be an alarm with a clean signal, and everyone, sitters and guests included, should know that if this dog is barking, someone should go and look. Guard the dog's rest from households that find its silence a toy to be wound up, children teasing a reaction out of it are teaching it something nobody wants learned. The Pharaoh Hound's 2 out of 5 is partly temperament and partly the absence of bad lessons, and it stays that way in homes that treat quiet as the default rather than a trick.
Puppies need socialization, kind handling and normal careful sighthound growth, with secure areas established before the chase instinct fully switches on. Adults enjoy a long, sound prime: keep weight lean, coats on in cold weather and the runs glorious.
Keep the record's figures in view while you decide. Height 21 to 25 inches, weight 45 to 55 lb, lifespan 12 to 14 years, exercise 45 to 90 minutes a day. Barking 2 of 5, energy 3 of 5, trainability 2 out of 5. A small dog's 2 out of 5 and a giant dog's 2 out of 5 are different acoustic events, which is why the size lines belong on a page about noise: pitch, volume and the neighbor's tolerance all scale with the dog producing them.
Puppies of every breed experiment with their voices, and a young Pharaoh Hound is no exception. The Pharaoh Hound's own numbers frame it: shedding at 3 out of 5, grooming at 3 out of 5, and a height of 21 to 25 inches, which is the household this voice has to fit into. The adult pattern, the one the 2 out of 5 score describes, settles in across the first two years as the dog learns which events are routine. Households shape that settling more than they expect: puppies whose barking reliably summons company, play or opened doors keep the habit, while puppies whose calm behavior is what pays grow into the economy of voice their record promises. The breed loads the dice; the first year rolls them. Graceful, gentle and quiet at home in the record's sighthound formula, good with children, usually good with other dogs and reserved with strangers, it rates flats as possible with the program delivered.
That is the core of the breed's vocal life, and its strangers rating reads Reserved with strangers. For the Pharaoh Hound specifically, a Hound dog whose exercise needs run 45 to 90 minutes a day, that plays out in daily routines rather than in occasional big fixes. A Pharaoh Hound with a bark score of 2 out of 5 announces unfamiliar people as a matter of course; whether the announcement is a single bark or a full report depends on the score, the dog and how the visitor behaves. Friends who visit often graduate quickly to the greeted list. Strangers who behave strangely, lingering at the fence, staring in at the window, get the extended edition whatever the score says.
Read two lines of the record together: barking at 2 out of 5 and apartment suitability rated With enough exercise. In the Pharaoh Hound's case the setting matters as much as the rule: this is a breed with moderate energy and a bark level of 2 out of 5, so its voice is heard against a fairly specific home backdrop. A low score with a good apartment rating is the easy yes. A high score means the honest answer depends on your walls, your neighbors and your willingness to run the management program on this page every day. What never works is hoping the dog did not get the memo about its own breed: a Pharaoh Hound will be exactly as vocal as its record says, in whatever building it lives in.
Last updated: November 11, 2026