Page 26 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Issue 15

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 2 6

If we recall Erik Zimen, who defines a modern breed as a result of genetic isolation, as if on

an island, this is exactly what we have historically with the various Bedouin tribes of the
Arabian Peninsula and therefore certainly also with the Bedouins of the Sinai. Even if, as
Elizabeth Dawsari writes, an efficient dog from another tribe is added to their own lines at
intervals of several generations to refresh the genes, the basic type is retained within the
tribe. It is not without reason that this has been the case for a long time. Permanent
interbreeding would not have allowed any distinguishable affiliations to tribal cultures; on the
other hand, the problem of inbreeding was avoided.

Turning this into "smooth transitions ... from one type to another" may be due to a lack of
expertise. However, a narrow breeding base is certainly no reason to intervene, to mate
one breed or type with another on a large scale and thus change the basic type in line
breeding over many generations. A narrow breeding base will always have existed in a
shortage situation, as is almost proverbial with the Bedouins, but the breeds there were

obviously efficient, stable and healthy and of the same type.

Here the question must even be asked whether the Sloughi, until it is categorised as a
selected breed according to the standard, is not a separate landrace of different ecological
conditions. According to Zimen's definition, we have an isolated genetic situation that
produces offspring of the same races with almost free choice of mate.

The historical designation of a "breed" is not the same as a breed bred according to a
standard. Historical breeds are to a large extent linked to an origin. This must not be mixed
up!

Map of historical dog races in antiquity, Heidelinde Autengruber-Thüry, in: Hunde in der römischen Antike,
Archaeopress 2021, p. 427. The numbers assigned to dogs in North Africa are: 2=Egyptian dogs, 48=Libyan
dogs (Libyan= Berber), 55=Memphitic dogs, 75?=Tegean dogs, cannot be assigned with certainty.