Page 54 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 5 4

In her article, Maria Guagnin also refers to a remark by Angela Perri (see above), according
to which aurochs and wild camel belong to the megafauna and are therefore not hunted
by dogs, as are animals in large herds such as Oryx antelope. These two factors could, in
their view, limit the usefulness of hunting with dogs or even render it useless. This
assumption is rooted in modern thought, which stems from utilitarianism. The example of
a hunting pack of wolves in the winter of Canada that attacks a herd of bison and kills a
bison impressively refutes this thesis. General Daumas also describes how Sloughis attack

a larger herd of gazelles.

The wolves proceed as follows: The herd is surrounded and worried. Worried by the
wolves, the bison start to run. As the wolves follow the bison, it becomes obvious which
animals are weaker, either because they are sick or young. They may be separated from

the herd or fall behind. This separated animal or animal separated from the herd is
attacked directly.

This observation was also made by Clutton-Brock in 1980 [37]: “However, the question of
the dog becoming a pet of the hunting dog type is certainly to be found before a sedentary
culture. Gatherer-hunters and later nomads depended on close observation in nature.

Hunting communities exist in large numbers in the animal kingdom and the beneficiaries of
a kill by lions or other hunters are large in number. Thus it seems conceivable that both the
early dogs / wolves and humans profited from each other's prey, depending on the balance

of power in which they encountered each other. Or that the timing of a rift after eating
leftovers benefited the other.”

Nature is bigger than the sorting machine of utilitarianism would suggest. So hunting with
dogs on megafauna or on large herds of animals cannot be excluded and is even
historically documented in many places (Général Daumas etc.), as we will see below. At the

same time, this does not bring us any closer to an explanation of how domestication can
occur!

Maria Guagnin remarks:
“Similarly, the gazelles in Figure 8 are shown with a dog biting their neck of each. Ibex and

particularly gazelle are extremely quick prey. Human hunters use dogs to mitigate the
disparity in speed between them and these animals (Smith 1978).”