Page 100 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

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Lhote writes in the chapter La Chasse à la course [68]:

“Coursing with dogs is one of the most popular hunting methods among the Tuareg, who
also use these animals to track game and retrieve injured or with traps captured game. The
dogs (eidi, fem. teidit, pl. tadån, f. pl. tiiadin) are used under multiple conditions against

mouflons, gazelles, antelopes, ostriches, warthogs, porcupines, cheetahs, jackals and also
guinea fowl.”

Here again we have the versatile dog, including the sighthound Azawakh, which is used

not only for actual coursing but also for tracking and trailing!

Lhote further:

“The Tuareg have three types of dog: a sighthound-type dog (oska, pl. oskatin); a dog with a
slightly longer coat (aberhoh, pl. iberrah), reminiscent of the Kabyle dog; a third type that

seems to be a mixture of the two aforementioned (akhami. pl. ikhoûmai). Not all of them are
suitable for hunting, as they may be more or less predisposed, more or less obedient to
gesture or voice, which is the essential quality of a hunting dog.

The best hunters are found in the sighthound breed, but also in the so-called Akhami breed.
The others, for the Tuareg have many dogs, serve to guard the camps or even, as Father de
Foucauld said, to do nothing but bite people!

In general, the Tuareg do not care for their dogs. Few are familiar, many are semi-feral, and

it has to be said that they receive more caning than food. As for the latter, it is usually they
themselves who find it. Anything will do: rubbish from the camp, dead animals and animals
they can catch. At best, they get a little millet porridge and whey. However, some hunters

who have good dogs take good care of them and feed them milk, and when they have caught
a gazelle or another animal, they make them drink the blood and give them some of the
entrails.