Page 134 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

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In this example, however, we see that selection for a certain characteristic opens
Pandora's box, so to speak, and that great changes in individuals can be achieved in just
a few generations. But the question remains, why did it take so many thousands of years
with domestication? This idea of a deliberate and willful selection by man cannot have
produced these original breeds or types of dogs, to which the Sloughi also belongs!

Kurt Kotrschal does not fail to criticise the FCI's breeding system. It was not until 1983

that Raymond Triquet defined ten major groups as “the totality of breeds which have a
certain number of hereditary distinctive characteristics in common” - i.e. purely
according to their appearance.

Kotrschal writes: “One does not even have to look very closely to realise that this

classification cannot correspond to genetic kinship. ... It is a historically conditioned,
inconsistent classification, which in any case serves mainly to organise pedigree dog
breeding and showing. ... Where the responsible breeding associations are weak, but the
financial interests and human vanity are strong, the dogs and their owners fall by the

wayside in this system, because the health of the dogs then plays only a minor role in
breeding. ... Essentially healthy dogs, on the other hand, can be found in those breeds that
are bred with care and according to strict criteria and on a broad basis for health, and in
associations that attach importance to temperament and working ability rather than pure

beauty, such as the Spitz-like Eurasiers and also more and more other breeds in whose
breeding reason and rational thinking are not completely ignored. ... Genetically, by the
way, the German Shepherd is to be classified among the Molossians, although he does not
look like one” [84].