Page 10 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Special Edition 3
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T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 1 0
Marriage A life with animals
Although it was hardly to be expected, this After a journey of almost a year, the couple
restless artist's soul also turned out to be returned to fatherland. Legend has it that
longing for a home of his own. That is how Le Gras returned with his wife and seven
he married on November 2, 1899, to a Sloughis, all in joyful anticipation. Vogel has
doctor's daughter from the Hague society, been able to confirm this to me except as
Pierette Fréderique Smits. far as the maternal prospects of the dogs
are concerned.
August couldn't have done better. The
young woman had a lack of respect for She was born on October 1, 1900 and
society life in The Hague and felt experienced her first exhibition at the
completely at home in the “Logement Paleis voor Volksvlijt in Amsterdam, where
Pandelaar” on the Brink in Laren. A sparse Father August built an Arab camp in one of
house, in which there was no water, no gas, the side rooms with tents, date palms in
no electricity and of course no telephone. pots and abundant sand on the floor. There
he presented with wife and child in Arabic
They did not stay long in the Netherlands, clothing, surrounded by the seven Sloughis,
because August took his young bride on an with great success the breed so beloved by
extensive introductory trip through Algeria him.
and Tunisia. They visited, dressed in
national attire, sheiks, and tribal elders far In an interesting article in “Onze Hond” of
away as they were in the most remote March 1979, G. de Josselin de Jong writes
areas in the Sahara. They received several about this, that the Saharan female there
valuable wedding gifts, including – such as stirring innocently pulled a stunt that the
Toepoel called it – the noblest of their most sophisticated-selling advertising
sighthounds. Morocco was carefully executive would not have come up with so
avoided because August did not feel at immediately. Tucked away from head to toe
home there. The cynological consequence under thickening burnous thighs and
of this was that all the Sloughis he hermetically veiled, she would have given
imported were real desert dogs for the long the child the ivory-white breast next to the
hunt, sand-colored and completely built passing audience.
and muscular for their daily work: the hunt
for gazelles, hares and so on.
