Page 11 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Special Edition 5

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 1 1

Besides my admiration for the fine colour, the cheerful spirit, the sweet disposition, the
beautiful shapes of the sloeqi, I also feel veneration for his antiquity. When I think of sloeqis, I
think of antiquity, of a lost civilisation, of views on life so very different from ours, of a
civilisation, which across the bridge of Greece and Rome nevertheless had our civilisation and
art as its descendant.

The sloeqi is a chunk of history, legendary history. When I think of the ancient Redskins of
North America, I think of the bison, which almost collapsed, the splendidly magnificent
American wild bovine, disappeared almost from the earth; it belongs to it, is for us a creature
connected with the histories of Aimard, Cooper and the authentic diaries of Lewis and Clarke.

And so the sloeqi is one with the ancient Egyptian.

During my travels in Algeria and Tunisia, I got to know and admire them and I planned to
bring them to our country, to breed them, to refine them, always choosing those individuals
for the breeding that were the most beautiful. Also, in the same way, to make the breed as

uniform as possible. After all, the Egyptian and later the Arab paid only attention to two
characteristics: firstly, the colour of the sand, secondly, their good hunting ability. And the
latter purpose went together with the form entirely by chance.

For when the sloeqi is only used for long hunts and for very fast running animals, such as
gazelles, the build was adapted to that purpose and the sloeqi became the extremely slender
but muscular animal we know today. As a result, its chest was shaped over the centuries to
take in a lot of air.

In the shape we can see that from the special depth; in the usage in the fact that the sloeqi,
even after forced running, does not pant like other dogs and does not let its tongue hang out.

The relatively little care that eastern people have for their animals was another reason that
for thousands of years, only the strong were able to overcome in a difficult struggle for

survival, the strongest survived and were able to reproduce and the breed became hardy
against cold, heat, hunger, thirst and tiring as no European purebred dog possesses it today.

Therefore, and actually somewhat beyond my expectations, the sloeqis I imported into
Holland, despite the huge difference in temperature, were always healthy and reproduced
effortlessly.