Turkey and Greece have had “hard feelings” since at least WWI. Often, the hostilities are over the air space around a chain of islands lined up along the Turkish west coast: Greece claims 10 miles of air space while Turkey recognizes only six miles. The two countries have had infamous dogfights between warplanes over the Aegean Sea, but over the summer of 2016, a new kind of dog fight erupted between the two countries, this one quite literally over a dog.

When Greece registered a small watchdog as the “Hellenikos ichnilatis” or Greek Harehound with international cynology, associations, it was reported by Turkish media. Doğan Kartay, the head of a Turkish nongovernmental organization working to preserve local canine breeds, disputed Greece’s claims about the origins of the breed and said the breed is actually a native of western Turkey called the Zağar.

Kartay claimed that while the Zağar dogs may be common in Greece, it’s only because the dogs were smuggled out of Turkey by Greek thugs and their Turkish accomplices, and then adopted the breed as its own. “It is understandable that Greeks kidnapped dogs especially those in the Trakya region to preserve the dying breed in Greece,” Kartay told the Doğan News Agency. “Their deeds might have been an act of care for those animals. However, the theft of zağar’s identity, one of the few pure breeds originating from Turkey, is unacceptable.” He added that gangs in Greece profited from the sale of the breed for high prices in Europe. “This is a cultural theft and our state should do something about it,” he said.

No word on what, exactly, has been done about it, or who in the the right. We did notice that in an abstract written by Orhan Yilmaz, the author indicates that the “Chaser Dog of Zagar” was the last registered dog breed by the Turkish Standards Institute, though we didn’t notice a date.  We hope it gets revolved so that this outgoing, confident scenthound gifted with an extremely good sense of smell gets an “official” country of origin.

Image of the breed known by some as the Zagar, and by others as the Greek Harehound – found on Pinterest and happily credited upon receipt of information