Persian Gazellehound or Slughi
From paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Persian Gazellehound or Slughi
This ancient race is one of the most peculiar, most beautiful, and most puzzling of dogs.
His graven image comes to us as one of the earliest of man’s essays in art,
and is so easily recognizable that there is no doubt possible as to the archaic artist’s model.
Possibly no dog known has changed less from our earliest knowledge of it to the present day.
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Slughis peculiarity
The first peculiarity to strike the eye is the curious combination of short,
close body hair, with silky, flowing Afghan fleece on the ears and
long silken feather from the stern.
Otherwise he looks at first glance very like a greyhound.
But, unlike other coursing dogs, the slughi is short and straight in the body,
though very long and rangy of leg.
As he stands in profile the outline of fore legs, back, hind leg,
and ground form an almost perfect square.
A fact tending to show the antiquity of the slughi is that
no combination of known dogs seems to be capable of
producing a creature just like him.
Slughis Colourings
In color they are almost without limit. Cream, fawn, “hound” colors—
that is, black, with tan chops, legs, belly, and feather—seem to predominate,
and while pictures are rather rare and the dogs practically non-existent
outside the Mediterranean regions of Africa and upper India,
we have never seen any that were irregularly pied with white, as are most dogs.
This argues a very dominant character for their ancient ancestors,
for this symmetry of coloring, found in all wild animals, is about the
first superficial characteristic to disappear under domestication;
and when it persists, as in this instance, through countless generations,
we may be sure of a very persistent and dominant character for the original wild stock.
The gazellehound is about the size of a medium greyhound—26 to 28 inches at the shoulder.
The falcon is sometimes used to harry the game until the dogs come up with it.
