Page 117 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Issue 15

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 1 1 7

Philipp U. Weber, page two

puppies who are not yet accustomed to the car might be intimidating, but two or three
puppies together in a crate should survive the journey without any emotional shock. My
animals tend to go to sleep in the crate and arrive at the other end fresh and cheerful as if
they had slept through their time on the sofa. Having travelled with them on the hunt,
they are pretty hardened fellows! But even with less experienced dogs, I have never found it
necessary to administer tranquillisers. You can take small puppies with you as hand luggage
or have them taken.

As there is no canine organisation in Saudi Arabia, it will not be possible to create an FCI
pedigree for imported Salukis. However, the oral tradition is still very much alive among the
Bedouins, so that one can easily establish a lineage of at least two to three generations for a
quality animal, a factually correct pedigree will be possible. With some effort it would
certainly also succeed in obtaining such a document from a tribal Sheikh or, in individual
cases, perhaps by a well-known member of the Royal Family. I have so far paid little attention
to such confirmations or to the registration regulations that apply in Europe, as I primarily

intended to collect suitable breeding material for my own hunting use and was rather
skeptical about the other ‘sales’ of these products. My dogs are too good for me to be turned
into a fashion item.

Regarding the term "short-haired Saluki", it should be noted that the Saudi Arabian Salukis
which are otherwise quite uniform in type show great variations in their coat. Even within a
single Bedouin tribe, even within a single breeding line. Where it gets cold in winter, e.g. in
Iraq and in the northern Arabian plateau of Nejd, one sees predominantly or exclusively long-
haired animals, although they are rarely as luxuriantly haired as is usual in Europe. (Such a
fur coat would lead to a life-threatening heat accumulation. A gazelle hunt takes 15-20
minutes at a speed of around 50 km/hr, with peaks of 70 km/hr!). Very beautifully feathered
animals can still be seen with the Mutair, who live in the area west and south-west of Kuwait.
In contrast in the South, and especially around the large sandy desert of the "empty quarter",
where it stays fairly warm even in winter, at least during the day, there are exclusively short-

haired Salukis, such as with the Al-Murra tribe. In the wide intermediate space there are
flowing transitions, and a large part of the