Appearance:
Referred to as an aristocrat, the Afghan Hound’s appearance is one of dignity and aloofness. He looks at you and through you. He imparts a feeling of collected power, ready and able to spring. The 1952 Crufts Catalogue published the following breed description: “Wherever they are seen they excite comment by their racial peculiarities and dignified bearing. Of the many foreign breeds that have enriched our domestic canidae they are probably the most singular appearance. The longish coats, which extend to the feet of all four legs, the top-knot of long silky hair, the well-feathered ears (pendulous in shape), the smooth face and brow, and the thin tail curving at the tip, are all striking features.”
Another breed hallmark to mention is the smooth and springy gait with a style of high order, as it is stated by the FCI breed standard. The energy conserving reconnaissance trot used for hunting, patrolling and searching, and the flat-out, ground covering, double suspension gallop is characteristic of all eastern sighthounds. Connie Miller, American author and breed enthusiast who originally coined the term reconnaissance trot for the Afghan Hound gait, characterized it as an “over the horizon surveillance” technique for spotting potential prey.
The Afghan Hound is tall, standing in height 63-74 cm (25-29 inches) and weighing about 20-32 kg (45-70 pounds). The coat may be any colour. The long topknot and the shorter-haired saddle on the back are distinctive features of the Afghan Hound coat. The high and proud head carriage, the prominent hipbones, the low tail set and a unique ringed tail are also characteristics of the breed.
No man knoweth whence they came, but there they are and there they stay.
C. Miller and E. Gilbert
History:
The Afghan Hound is one of the oldest sighthound dog breeds and genetic testing has placed the Afghan Hound breed among those with the least genetic divergence from the wolf on some markers; this is taken to mean that such dogs are descended from the oldest dog types, not that the breeds tested had in antiquity their exact modern form.
Although some very qualified people have endeavoured to bring the ancient Afghan Hound history to light, most of this breed chapters stay obscure and fragmentary or appear to be mythological and hypothetical. A comprehensive approach to the early breed histroy can be found on Afghan Hound Times: THE ORIGINS OF THE AFGHAN HOUND by Steve Tillotson.
Once out of Persia, India and Afghanistan, the history of the Afghan Hound breed becomes an important part of the history of the very earliest dog shows and The Kennel Club (UK). Various sighthounds were brought to England in the mid-late 1880′s by army officers returning from India (which at the time included Pakistan), Afghanistan, and Persia, and were exhibited at dog shows, which were then just becoming popular, under various names, such as Barukzy hounds. They were also called “Persian Greyhounds” by the English, in reference to their own indigenous sighthound.
One dog in particular, Zardin, was brought in 1907 by Captain John Barff from Chagai in the northwest corner of Baluchistan province, and became the early ideal of breed type for what was still called the Persian Greyhound. Zardin was the basis of the writing of the first breed standard in 1912, but breeding of the dogs was stopped by World War I and the breed literally disappeared in the Western world.
Out of the longhaired sighthound types known in Afghanistan, two main strains existing in the southern and western desert regions and the northern regions of Afghanistan and the surrounding areas make up the modern Afghan Hound breed. The first were a group of hounds brought to Scotland from Baluchistan by Major and Mrs. G. Bell-Murray and Miss Jean C. Manson in 1920, and are called the Bell-Murray strain. The kennel name for this group was “Cove”. These dogs were of the lowland or steppe type, also called Kalagh, and are less heavily coated. The second strain was a group of dogs from a kennel in Kabul owned by Mrs. Mary Amps, which she shipped to England in 1925. She and her husband came to Kabul after the Afghan war in 1919, and the foundation sire of her Ghazni kennel in Kabul was a dog that closely resembled Zardin. Her Ghazni Afghan Hounds were the more heavily coated mountain type.
At the end of the 1920’s breeders in the UK had bred both types together and the two strains ceased to exist. Only “blended Bell Murray/Ghazni” types existed with one exception. The Dutch kennel “van de Oranje Manege (vdOM) of Mrs. Eta Pauptit, bred only the Ghazni type she imported from the UK. Throughout the 1930′s – 1950′s the UK Afghan Hound was exported to the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Asia and all over the world. Thus, the Afghan Hound today in all countries trace back to these two groups of imports into the UK way back in the 1920′s.
Popular culture:
On 3. August 2005, Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk announced that his team of researchers had become the first team to successfully clone a dog, an Afghan Hound named Snuppy. In 2006 Hwang Woo-Suk was dismissed from his university position for fabricating data in his research. Snuppy, nonetheless, was a genuine clone, and thus the first cloned dog in history.
Because of its distinctive appearance, the Afghan hound has been represented in animated feature films. Afghan hounds have also been featured in television advertisements and in fashion magazines. The Afghan hound is represented in books as well, including being featured in a series of mystery novels by Nina Wright (Abra), and a talking Afghan Hound in David Rothman’s The Solomon Scandals (2008, Twilight Times Books). In the novel Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf uses an Afghan Hound (named Sohrab) to represent aspects of one of the book’s human characters.
References:
Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia
Crufts Catalogue 1952
American Kennel Club
Afghan Hound Times
