Page 34 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Issue 15

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 3 4

He writes in short excerpts: " ... Of course, this does not mean that I did not attach any
importance to breed affiliation. On the contrary, I always kept strictly to purebred
representatives of the Arabian greyhound breed found in Saudi Arabia ... Since the source
animals I used were widely known for their quality, ..."

Professor Quaritsch replied to Mrs Helly Vogt: "1. it is clear from his statements that Dr.
Burchard has not yet understood the basic principles and characteristics of European and
Anglo-Saxon dog breeding."

It is a classic: both sides are talking past each other with the best arguments. Whereby
Quaritsch first of all means a basis based on breeding according to a standard. A
distinction must be made between a landrace from a region of origin and an artificial
breed bred according to a standard*.

Shortly afterwards, however, Professor Quaritsch is fundamentally wrong when he says:
"For it may well be (is even probable) that in Saudi Arabia the bloodlines of the sighthounds,

which are distinguished by the FCI as Sloughi and Saluki, have merged.”
A little further down, he also remarks on such "mixed types", as they also exist in Saudi
Arabia. This is an intellectual assumption from the Western perspective on the emergence
of standard races. A closer look at how a landrace develops or could develop reveals a
different basis.

In a further letter from Prof. Dr. Quaritsch to Mrs Barbara Berghausen of the DWZRV, he
writes: " ... From the entries it can be seen that both Salukis and Sloughis can fall from the
Dasman-Jet connection. ... " - This refers to the litter from which Laba'an II as well as
Thabya (II/III) came, Laba'an II is smooth, Thabya (II/III) is feathered. The remark is
probably to be read ironically, but is also not without a certain amount of sarcasm.

Burchard describes the special situation of the landraces on the Arabian Peninsula, where
some tribes or even some families have a preference for either smooth or feathered
Salukis, which he also explains by the practical necessity that feathered types have the
local disadvantage of getting caught in undergrowth, whereas smooth types do not.

However, as special landrace conditions prevail on the Arabian Peninsula, smooth and
feathered Salukis exist side by side, but are similar in basic type, one can certainly speak
of a separate ecological landrace, as we have already explained above.

*Editor’s note: while some are, not all standards of dog breeds are artificial.