" I am sure Ingrid knew
of dividing tazi into further types. The Estonian breeder of my tazi
has told me which type of tazi represents my dog, so as she knew about
it, surely Ingrid did. And the division of tazi into various types is
nothing new."

***Well, it is a new concept in terms of the history of the breed. I
corresponded with Ingrid for several years and while she felt Tazi and
Saluki were two separate breeds, she was not happy about the idea of
divviding different types of Tazt into different breeds.

"The English transaltion has been recently completed by another Russian
specialist in primitive dogs and sent to a small groups of people with
no knowledge of English. I cannot remember his name, but I can look for
it, if needed."

***I've read several translations on the subject - which of them are
you referring to?

"The project of the new tazi standard will be probably adopted soon by
the National Tazi Club in Kasahstan. Unfortunatelly to your statements
it will produce the breed boxes and barriers in order to create
distinctive feature of tazi which may make it possible to register tazi
in FCI as a separate breed. This is what has been decided in the
country of origin of the breed. I guess in opposite to you, I have no
attitude towards it. I just accept it if the Kasahks decide like that."

***We'll just have to agree to disagree there ;) This is a new
invention - in the past hunters made no ddistinction between types and
it is sad that that is now changing.

"You say you it's new to you that tazi is a scent dog. [... and you
point out that I am a new kid on the block :-) ] This is a problem
widely discussed by Mr Sludskiy in his works on the tazi breed. The
books have been published in the 30s and the 60s again, but exclusively
in Russian. Probably the language makes it impossible for you to read
them."

***I'm quite familiar with Sludsky as I translated his paper into
Finnish for a Tazi website a few years back. My point was that though
Tazi (and Saluki) hunt by scent as well, and have for ages (I just
wrote an article on this from a manuscript written in the 12th
century), they are still PRIMARILY sighthounds, i.e, it is their
primary sense in terms of hunting.

"Stil I can tell you shortly that following his ideas based on his
30-year experience, the tazi has been selected by the hunters to hunt
by scent. It was good as the Kasakh hunters were hunting alone, not
always using horses. They were penetrating the bushes with the dog. The
aim of the tazi was to find the game in bushes by scent and then catch
it as regular sighthound in an open field."

***Again the same as with Salukis.

"So you say: "You would do well to research these hounds more..." I
would say to you - cool down, there is always something YOU may learn
as well."

***You misunderstand me. I have never claimed to be fully taught in
these things - the fascinating thing about these hounds is that you
are never fully educated, there is always more to learn :) What I mean
is that you need to research COO Salukis more and when you do you will
see that the alleged differences are not differences but similaritis.

"If you like I can send you links to some text on scent hunting with
tazi, but they are in Russian."

***If you might have something I am unfamilar with it would certainly
be interesting. Fortunately I have collagues who are Russian and so
usually get my hands on most treatesis in the subject when they crop
up :)

Micaela