Page 92 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 9 2

Daumas also explains that the hunts usually take place in winter, when the ground is
softened by rain. When the ground is softened, the gazelles are no longer as fast as they
are in the dry summer.

Daumas’ description of the terrain is by no means pure desert. Approaching a herd of
gazelles is done by using trees for cover as well as depressions in the ground. Trees,
however, do not occur in the desert. One must therefore assume a savannah landscape

here.

The form of hunting on horseback is a “chasse à courre”, i.e. with mounted hunters. The
Sloughis work independently of the hunters, the hunters pursue the hunting Sloughis,
they are the beneficiaries of the hunting success of their Sloughis. This distinguishes the

Sloughis from the Azawakhs.

But with this we refute both the opinion of Angela Perri, who claims that a hound is unfit
for hunting a herd of game, and the general opinion of the western world that the hound
hunts “for man”! No! The hound, in our case the Sloughi, hunts for its own pleasure! But
the hunter must not leave the hound alone with the prey for too long, otherwise it will
“cut the prey”, i.e. start to eat it.

Therefore, the hunter is proud of his hound when it reliably leaves the prey untouched,
which is not necessarily to the hunter's credit. Even with western bred and trained
hounds, such eating of the prey can occasionally be observed. The opinion that one can
“train” the dog to do this is often heard, but the success of such often drastic measures
must be doubted.

Traditionally, however, the hunter gives the hound some of the offal of the hunted prey as
a reward. If this were to be permanently absent, would the dog still be motivated to hunt?

Humans and hounds hunt together, humans benefit from the skills of the hound, just as
the hound benefits from the skills of the human. Thus the hunting community is a form of
symbiosis between two species.