I do not have a clear opinion on what happened when excluding
different breeds as lhasa apso/shih tzu or Polish Tatra mountain
shepherd dog/Cuvas from Slovakia or Polish hound/Kopov (=Slovak
hound) so it is interesting to know your opinion. I can surely tell
you that in the very begining there were problems with agressivness
of Polish Tatra mountain shepherd dogs, but it has passed away. I
guess it might be a problem at some stage of inbreding in process of
reconstruction as I heard about it also in case of other breeds, also
kooikerhondje for example.

The same about tazi – I do not share a clear view on wether it should
be bred separately in every country of its origin or as one breed. I
guess because of the small number of good tazis it might be better to
consolidate the breed, but I definately stand against registering
tazis as salukis. There are numerous cases of tazis bought as tazis
and when registered, their papers and pedigrees are left away and
they are said to be primitive salukis.

In my previous post I referred to Mr Vladimir Beregovoy, but I have
never claimed he is for registration in FCI. I will write about it
later on as I do not have much time today.

Hortaya and chart polski (Polish sighthound) is not a problem of
excluding one breed from another one. It looks you know the Russian
version of it. More details to it I can write another time if there's
anyone interested.

The Polish sighthound were bred by the Polish noble people mostly in
Eastern part of Poland which now belongs to Ukraine as there were
steppes to perform hunting. When Poland was devided and occupied also
by Russians throughout the 19th century Polish nobles lost their
properties, also the sighthound were stolen or cheaply sold to
landmen. Some of them were brought further to Russia. They were mixed
with anything possible, also with greyhounds and whippets brought by
salesmen from England. They were also mixed with tazi, gorka, krimka
and non-sighthounds as they were good hunters. Some of them were
luckily left pure bred.
Today hortaya is a groups of mixture of various short hair
sighthounds presenting very different look.

Some hortayas are just Polish sighthounds bred with a different name
of the breed. The funny thing is that Russian classical canine
authors say it directly that hortayas are sighthounds brought from
Poland in the 19th century and bred in Russia. It is also clearly
proven that one of the tsars went to Paris to a dog show with Polish
sighthound and the name is used, not hortaya, which is the product of
the communist time (around 1950) when anything good must have been
Soviet.

Martin







--- In vinthund@..., "micaela lehtonen" <qashani@...>
wrote:
>
> "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
>