It is a sad statistic that according to one source, over 50% of the known dog breeds native to India are completely extinct at this time, and a handful are close behind.

Some speculate that a primary reason for Indian dog breeds dying out in India is that dogs don’t seem to play as important a part in the family unit in India today as they do in many other countries. Others point out that Indian dogs that are dying out because everyone wants a Labrador Retriever, or some other popular western breed. As one Indian site says, ” It is a telling tale of the status of dogs in a country that’s never quite grown to accept them. Over the last few decades, while foreign breeds have caught the fancy of animal lovers across the country, Indian dogs continue to be shunned.”

One of these Indian breeds is the Tangkhul Hui/Tangkhul (pronounced tang-khul hoo-ee). a rare breed of spitz from the Urkhul District of the Manipur state of India. This is a very old breed, possibly ancient, and its specialty was hunting wild boar and bear. The courageous dogs were considered indispensable to a Tangkhul hunter in earlier times, and indeed, it was said that if one kept a Tangkhul too long at home without a hunt, the dog would go off to hunt on its own and bring back their kill to their owner. Traditionally, every hunter who owned one gave the dog special name according to its appearance,  and the dog was trained according to its name. ***As an aside, there is a folklore saying that the dogs evolved from an Asiatic black bear because the dog’s muzzle resembles that of an Asiatic black bear.

The Tangkhul Hui is in an endangered state, but many villages of the Urkhul disrict have come together to save this rare breed. One hopes it isn’t too late.

Image found on Pinterest and will be happily credited upon receipt of information.