"I guess, it has much in common with the fact that new countries joining
the FCI (Kasahstan, Usbekistan and maybe Turkmenistan in the future)
are willing to have their own national breed wich would make their
national feelings complete. It has a lot to do with people's ambition,
not much with the canine genetics."

***Absolutely, I agree completely with this. It's understandable but
no less destructive. I wish they would be able to instead take pride
in the shared heritage of the Tazi and in so doing preserve it and the
breeding traditions that have sustained it for so long, rather than
adopting the Western practices that have gotten many breeds in
trouble.

"Therefore I am far from critisizing anyone trying to establish tazi as
a separate breed. It only makes the canine world more interesting and
colourful."

***Well, the separation of the chart polski and the hortaya is exactly
a good example of this problem.

As interesting and diverse as a multitude of breeds may look on the
surface, it is actually the antithesis of diversity.

"There are some pairs of very similair breeds existing in the FCI
register. Let's take lhasa apso/shih tzu or Polish Tatra mountain
shepherd dog/Cuvas from Slovakia or Polish hound/Kopov (=Slovak
hound). I cannot see any reason why canine ambition of Middle Asia's
nations should be blocked just because the Europeans have different
opinion. Let's say it clearly - tazi belongs to them, not to us."

***The brreds you mention are good examples of the folly of creating
impenetrable breed barriers where none have existed before, thus in
time creating genetic bottlenecks that have been and will be to the
detriment of many breeds. The Western model doesn't work and it is a
pity tha, rather than taking pride in their own breeding traditions,
some seem determined to instead repeat the mistakes we in the West
have made. The Tazi belongs to them, yes, but the path they are
choosing is ours, and it has proven to be a bad one. Traditionally
they have done these things so much better than we have - it is a
shame that they would abandon that working formula for one that does
not. Those traditional and healthy breeding traditions belong to them
too - they would do well to hold them in higher regard. That would be
true canine ambition, as you call it - fixing and refusing Western
dogma that has proven less than fruitful.

"I have reffered to Mr Beregovoy."

***Vladimir? He certainly is not in favour of separating these hounds
into several breeds - in fact, he is not in favour of registries.

"I guess you right there was no distinction in the past, as long as
modern canine science entered Middle Asia."

***Modern canine science actually has already found the Western way
lacking - cutting egde canine science is in favour of inclusion rather
than exclution.

"But also in the past there were thousands of tazis hunting as it was
one of main ways of getting food. Now people go to the supermarkets and
get their food using their credit cards, not their sighthounds. :-) The
middle Asian countries have modernized in comparison to what they were
150 years ago and that is one of the main reasons the tazi population
is declining. I guess we should not expect there will be more hunters
to use tazi as hunting dog."

***It's true that few people rely on their Tazis for meat nowadays,
though such people still exist as well. Still, rather than promoting
exclusion and putting work into starting on the Western way, officials
could do much to encourage hunting and where possible at the very
least open field coursing - that would be a way of marrying
competition with preservation. However, even though the Tazi is moving
partly into the realm of companion dog and lure-courser or even racer,
it need still not be divided into several breeds.

"If we expect that all tazi
are working dogs in the future empazising the rights of tradition, it
would be more or less as expecting that every owner of German shepherd
dog buys a herd of sheeps for his dog just in order to keep tradition
alive."

***I don't think anyone expects such a thing and if we're talking
about breed barriers, function, whether hunting or as a compaion, is
not contingent on erecting breed barriers between geographical
populations. A culturally diverse Tazi can just as easily be a
companion/lure-courser, etc. as a segregated one. The difference is in
the genetic longevity.

"To summ up I find it nice there are people who try to preserve the old
hunting tradition but one should not believe that the purified version
of tazi preservation will be the only one. Keeping taigans in Kirgistan
has been relatively popular and it is not because hunting with them has
been more popular, but because some people see it as a national
identity sign. This aspect has not been widely discussed by those who
are so much orientated on pure version of breeding taigans only for
hunting purposes."

***I don't know whom you discuss with, but certainly the people I
converse with on the subject are quite aware of the pride factor - it
is one of the corner stones of preservation, but it cannot stand on
its own. While in an ideal world all sighthounds would be able to
perform their original function, and while the vestiges of sighthound
hunting are crucial to the true preservation of these hounds, nobody
expects them all to be in that lucky position. That has little to do
wiith breed barriers.

"I guess Sludky had different opinion. At the moment I have problems to
find the correct link to his works, but if it is important to you I can
look for it later. But to reward this, I have found the link on hunting
with tazi at night which points out the scent abilities of the tazi.
http://www.hunter.ru/dogs/articles/tazy.htm"

***Thanks for the link, I'll have to ask to have it translated - as it
is in cyrillics I'm not sure if I have read it or not as I cannot make
out the writer and title. However, Sludsky never said Tazis were scent
hounds, his opinion on that is the same as mine. He pointed out that
they were good at scenting and that some Tazis were more proficient at
this than others. One quote from him: "Among Tazis are those that are
particularly good at scenting, and hunt both with sight and scent.
Such hounds are particularly valued." This is what I was talking
about. While Tazis (and Salukis) are PRIMARILY sighthounds, they do
use their noses as well, but they are not scenthounds per se.

Micaela