Page 129 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Issue 15

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This means: Sighthounds from Saudi Arabia can only be recognised in the FCI area
as Saluki (feathered or unfeathered) if they have the morphological and other
characteristics required by the FCI standard. If unfeathered sighthounds from Saudi Arabia
also show characteristics of the North African Sloughi or there are some puppies in a litter
that belong to the FCl breed Saluki, others to the FCI breed Sloughi, it is not possible to be
bred with purebred animals - "purebred" always in the sense of the FCI standard and
constant inheritance of its characteristics.

2. The Saluki and the Sloughi are clearly differentiated morphologically and can be easily
distinguished by a judge familiar with the breeds. Since feathered and unfeathered Saluki
differ only in the coat, anatomy and expression are completely identical, it is correct to speak
of varieties of the same FCI breed. Distinguishing the uncoated Saluki from the Sloughi is not
a problem for the judge as long as the animals are purebred. "Mixed types" (of course) cause
difficulties, but these should not be blamed on the judge, but the breeder and the origin of his

animals. It would be completely wrong to conclude that because there are such mixed types,
"the transitions are fluent" or that this is what the Salukis or Sloughis in Saudi Arabia look like,
and other such cynologically irresponsible nonsense.

3. What Dr. Burchard writes under 3. amounts to denying the FCI the right to establish
standards for Oriental sighthounds, which clearly differ significantly and do not include "his"
sighthounds or the population found in Saudi Arabia.
However, it has happened very often in Cynology, that only one appearance variant of a dog
population has been singled out and the "standard" was written according to it alone. All
other dogs, i.e. those closely related dogs that did not belong to this variant and therefore did
not correspond to the standard, were excluded from club breeding and were therefore not
recognised as a "breed", even though they may have belonged to it from a scientific point of
view.
For example, of the sighthounds of Afghanistan, only one variety, the so-called Mountain

Afghan Hound, was taken as a model for the standard and bred according to it. The
the so-called Steppe Afghan Hounds, which tend towards the Saluki, are not "Afghan Hounds"
in the sense of the standard, although they are much more common in Afghanistan than the
very rare mountain Afghan hound.