One of the most famous of American dog men was George Armstrong Custer.

Custer found particular solace with the dogs. A border-line manic-depressive, Custer found that when he was manic, he could go riding and running with them, and when he was despondent, they were perfect company to lie down with.
Custer did “lie down with dogs,” never once feeling a moment of shame as he cuddled up next to them, their large bodies wrapped around his to keep him warm on the cold Plains.

Custer’s dogs were greyhound crosses — what later came to be called the “American Staghound.” A Staghound, of course is simply a large American longdog — a cross between two sighthounds such as a Greyhound or Scottish Deerhound, though Borzoi, Saluki, Afghan, or Irish Wolf Hound could theoretically be crossed in there as well. Today, most American Staghounds are multi-generation Staghound crosses.

It’s possible that some of Custer’s dogs may have been lurchers. A lurcher is a cross between a sighthound (such as a Deerhound, Greyhound or Whippet) and a herding dog (such as a rough collie) or perhaps a larger terrier (such as an Airedale or Bedlington). If some of Custer’s dogs were lurchers, they are likely to have been Greyhound or Deerhounds crossed with a collie or some other large herding dog. Custer was running in the West where dogs were intact their whole lives, found their own mates, and designed themselves as Nature saw fit.

Custer’s first long dogs, acquired sometime after the end of the Civil War in 1866, were killed (one in a firearms mishap and the other — Blucher– in 1868 at the Battle of the Washita River against the Cheyenne). Custer got other dogs and always seemed to have four or five with him, including a pair that reportedly came from Queen Victoria through Lord Berkeley Paget, the man who supplied Custer (in 1869) with the revolver he used during the last stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The fate of Custer’s dogs after his demise at The Little Bighorn is not well documented. Dutch Salmon, who has looked into it, reports that:
“One hound, ‘Cardigan’, went to a clergyman in Minneapolis, who later had the dog mounted on display in a public building.” Where he was remembered and awed over by school kids which is about as good as a dog can hope for after death.
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Photo is of George A. Custer with the Sioux-Arikara warrior Bloody Knife (pointing) and the Crow warrior Curly (standing), with staghound and greyhound. Montana, Spring 1876.

This information was taken from several different sources with no clear attribution.