The Sloughi is such an interesting breed!

He is one of the dog world’s greatest athletes, and he should appear as such. Slightly higher than long, the Sloughi is one of the few breeds in the world that is significantly taller from floor to shoulder than it is long from chest to rump. An adult Sloughi’s brisket doesn’t quite reach the level of the elbows, something that many people look for when “going over” a dog.  Evident hip bones project above the line of the back to the same height as, or slightly higher than, the withers, something else that sets this sighthound apart from others. A Sloughi in the best physical condition shows muscular definition, of course, but he is always lean, and should never have bulging muscles.

Interestingly, Sloughis and Azawakhs were shown together at European dog shows in the early 1970s, and they were both judged according to the Sloughi standard of the day because the Azawakh was initially thought to be a variety of the Sloughi. Sloughi fanciers, however, never regarded the Azawakh as a Sloughi if only because its temperament was so different (this, in part, was because in its native land, the Sloughi was a “guarding sighthound”).  Wisely, the Wind-hundkommission (Sighthound Commission) in Germany advised against interbreeding the two in 1972 (something the Hon.Florence Amherst had opposed long before that because she had noted that Arab natives were very careful not to mix the two breeds”).  The commission could not ignore the differences in gait, proportions, color, and temperament between the two, and the breeds’ respective origins justified a separate standard for the Azawakh that was accepted by the FCI in 1980.

Image: Sloughi/Dreamstime