Alice White
The Afghan hound is a proud “socialite” who cannot stand familiarity but adores pleasant communication and outdoor games. This is one of the most intelligent breeds, representatives of which you will never see arguing with other dogs over a bone or fighting with their own owner for the status of the head of the house. At the same time, one has only to point the Afghan hound to the game, as it immediately forgets about its own high position, turning into a swift and ruthless hunter, from which not a single animal will hide.
#1 The official homeland of the breed is Afghanistan, from where it came first to England, and then to the rest of Europe.
However, initially, the habitat of animals was not so limited, so greyhounds quite happily lived in the territories of other Asian states, in particular, Iran, India, and Pakistan.
It is not entirely clear how the ancestors of the Afghan hounds entered Central Asia, but experts tend to believe that the animals were brought here by nomads. As an argument, the researchers refer to the ancient name of the breed Tāžī Spay, which is consonant with the word "lazy", which was once called Kazakh (Turkmen) greyhounds. At one time, this dog clan traveled extensively across Central and South Asia, so that it could well spread its genes among the Afghans. Afghan hounds are also credited with kinship with the Saluki, one of the oldest breeds that settled in the lands of the Middle East several millennia BC. There is an opinion that it is the Saluki who is "to blame" for the division of greyhounds into two main types: steppe - with relatively short hair, and shaggy - mountainous.
#2 In Great Britain, Afghan hounds were spotted at the end of the 19th century, arriving there with the military who had returned from service in India.
At first, animals were imported as exotic curiosities with which one could attract attention at all kinds of exhibitions and competitions. For example, in 1907, an Afghan dog named Zardin bypassed the contenders and literally snatched victory at the British Crystal Palace Show. However, the number of dogs grew, and the breeders' interest in them became more professional. As a result: already at the beginning of the 20th century, the Afghan Hound breed had the first standard, the standard for which was the well-known Jardin.
#3 In the 1920s, two elite kennels for Afghan hounds were opened in England: Major Bell-Murray’s establishment and the Ghazni kennel, which belonged to the wife of one of the British military, Mary Emps.
In the first, animals brought from Pakistan lived and bred, while in the second, only "long-haired" Kabul greyhounds were bred. As is often the case, the establishments competed with each other, but soon the shaggy natives of "Ghazni" began to be in greater demand than the wards of Bell-Murray. By the way, later it was the greyhounds from the Mary Emps nursery that were chosen by American breeders for further breeding of the breed in the USA.
