WHY NOT CROSSBREED THE AFGHAN HOUND
Page 2
By Steve Tillotson, 2013
Having established and articulated the crossbred origins of other breeds, including the Afghan hound, let's move on to discuss some practical issues related to the question
1. WHAT IS A "BREED"
A distinct "breed" is just that - distinct. For example, while there may be some similarities between breeds such as the Afghan hound and the Saluki, they have distinctive breed-specific characteristics that differentiate them. The anatomy of the two hounds may appear similar at first glance, but the Afghan is larger, stronger boned, it's hip placement is lower giving it tremendous agility and turning ability, it carries a heavier coat, its head is a different shape, it's eyes are a different shape, its expression is different. I'm not going to compare point by point the two breeds. I am just mentioning a few of the obvious differences.
What ensures an Afghan remains distinctly Afghan is purebreeding. Same thing for the Saluki. Once you introduce an outcross from any other breed you break that original line of purebreeding. You cannot "undo" crossbreeding. Like in the case of the Irish Wolfhound/Deerhound crossbreeding relationship, you can major on one breed or the other to "emphasize" breed specific traits, but you never eliminate the genes from the other breed in a crossbred mating. The Deerhound has a longer unbroken record of purebreeding than the Irish wolfhound because we know exactly when and how the Irish wolfhound was bred and what its modern origins are. The history of the Deerhound fades into myths and legends the farther you go back, and like most breeds, we can't define its origins. If you were to breed the Irish wolfhound bloodlines into the Deerhound you would change the Deerhound forever. Even if you subsequently did multiple breedings back from that hybrid into pure Deerhound stock, those new offspring will always carry genetic material (which includes Great Danes, Mastiffs, and other breeds) inherent in the origins of the Irish Wolfhound.
In a way, the Irish wolfhound history is a valuable lesson to anyone considering crossbreeding into the Afghan hound for whatever meritorious reason. The Irish wolfhound is a magnificent animal, no doubt about that. He is strong, brave and has a wonderful temperament that make him an ideal family member. I am informed (but I don't know, so I do not make this next comment authoritatively) that traditionally, the Deerhound is similarly strong, brave and of good temperament, but apparently is inclined to chase after other animals, not necessarily in a bad way, maybe just a quirk/feature of its long history of being a coursing and hunting hound. I am also informed that Deerhounds can on occasions be a bit sharp with Children. I emphasize I do not mean to bad mouth the Deerhound, but these last two attributes are what I have read in Deerhound breed books and writings of Deerhound owners. So, we have two breeds (Wolfhounds/Deerhounds) that to the uninitiated (like me) look kind of similar, the former being a larger version of the latter. I am sure that statement will get me in trouble with both breeds, but it's important to make such stupid over simplified statements to articulate the danger of confusing "two distinct breeds" (Wolfhound and Deerhound) and thinking of them as one breed of two different sizes. They undeniably are two different distinct breeds. The Deerhound has been kept that way for several centuries, and the Irish Wolfhound has been kept distinct since it was rescued 120 years ago.
Does the above not signal a "danger" of "loss of identity" of a breed/s by outcrossing. So then perhaps that is my first point. A breed is specific, it is individual, it is distinct, it is individual. Crossing an existing breed with another breed will jeopardize the specificity of the original. Effectively, no mater how skillfully any such crossbreeding was arranged, it would change the Afghan hound for ever, it would no longer be an Afghan hound. It would fall into the category of a new breed, altered as it would be, by crossbreeding.
We know it is possible to crossbreed successfully (example Shetland Sheepdogs and Irish Wolfhounds), but such crossbreeding is not just done for the heck of it. In both cases there was a "driving need" to crossbreed, and as mentioned on page 1. This leads me to the next question in considering crossbreeding - Why do it?
2. WHY CROSSBREED?
2.1 (Difficulties of Reconciling Differences within a Breed, yet alone Crossbreeding)
There has to be justification, rationale, and purpose to any such decision to crossbreed an existing breed and destroy its original genotype. In the case of Shetland Sheepdogs that justification was a need to improve size and the dogs herding ability. In the case of the Irish Wolf dog it was a case of survival. In another breed I have some experience of the Irish Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier, I worked with a well-known ISCWT breeder in the UK decades ago to investigate a health problem, endemic in the breed. With the breeder's intimate knowledge of the breed, and its history, and by constructing a pedigree database, we were able to trace back to the origins of the endemic health problem. It turns out that a particular ancestor was the carrier. The difficulty is that the ISCWT is a modern breed developed 50/60 years ago I believe, and it is pretty much inbred to the problematic ancestor. So, how do you eradicate the endemic health issue? One thought was by importing dogs from the USA where the breed developed to its own local criteria, different selective breeding criteria used compared to the UK. However, the fact remains that even USA ISCWT's have the problematic ancestor in their pedigrees. Maybe they have a less incidence of health issues (I really don't know, its over 20 years since I was involved in his project), but there is one distinct and controversial difference between USA and UK ISCWT's, that is its coat/texture. Again, I am having this discussion based on an experience/knowledge of some 20 years ago. At that time breeders told me they can't use American Wheaties because that will change the coat from the harsher/functional coat of the UK breed into the softer/glamorous coat type that Americans have (apparently) bred for over the last several decades. So even an "outcross within a breed" can have a major impact on the characteristics of an existing breed.
2.2 (Crossbreeding with Native Hounds)
One alternative to crossbreeding would perhaps be to import some "native afghan hounds" from Afghanistan. The difficulty is that as far as I know Afghanistan has never had a Kennel Club, and without a country of origin (COO) export pedigree, the AKC and English KC would refuse to register the import. Further, because there is zero record keeping on dog breeding in (some countries) the COO, there is no assurance whatsoever that any such import is in fact a pure bred Afghan. So crossbreeding to COO hounds may be problematical?t.
2.3 (Health Considerations)
I mentioned earlier that there needs to be a "driver" for changing an existing breed by crossbreeding. A driver such as a health issue might be sufficient cause. However, I am not hearing any concerns of sufficiently serious problems, endemic to the Afghan hound that require such drastic action? Having owned Afghan hounds myself for the best part of 4 decades in both the UK and the USA and some of my UK hounds were offspring's of Scandinavian imports, I have not encountered any particular or serious health issues with my hounds. Of course there are problems such as a variety of Cancers, Laryngal Paralysis, Thyroid, Arthritis etc. But the existence of these problems does not appear to be endemic within the breed, and it is possible in some cases to breed around some of these health issues by carrying out health checks prior to doing a breeding. Frankly, it seems to me that compared to many other breeds, the Afghan hound is one of the more healthier breeds. I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but the above is my current understanding. So, seemingly, there is no health driver to encourage us to outcross to a healthier breed.
Supposing there is a health issue that encourages us to outcross, then we would need to identify a suitable breed to outcross to. It would surely have to be of the Greyhound family, and a sizeable breed. I mean, we can't breed our Afghans into Yorkshire terriers. Even if we can find a suitable candidate breed, I doubt it will be entirely clear of health problems. So whilst we might reduce any supposed health problems in Afghans, there is always the danger of inheriting new health problems from the donor/crossbreed.
3. BREED STANDARD
There exists "breed standards" which breeders supposedly follow and strive to breed dogs as close to the model outlined in thee breed standards. On the negative, in my cynical view and with knowledge of the history of breed standards making committee discussions, the breed standard isn't really a representation of what the breed was 100 years ago, it is really a representation of what the dominant breeders of the 1940's "wanted it to be". The degree of compromise, horse-trading, prejudice, self-interest that went into formulation of breeds standards is documented and a matter of fact. The message is, 70 years ago blood, sweat and tears were involved in getting a group of breeders to "agree" on a breed standard. Even when this was achieved in England, the USA then decided to dispose of the UK Standard and write a new American Breed Standard (and that's fine, America is fully entitled to have done that). However, whilst the two standards are largely complimentary, there are differences between the UK/US standards. You cannot judge the breed in one country by the breed standard of the other. You have to use the breed standard in the country you are judging, that's the law (well KC regulations anyway). Visitors to the AHT website will also be aware of articles about the era of the late 20's through to the late 40's where there was a huge disagreement over breed standards in the UK. Two competing clubs (AHC and AHA) produced competing standards, exhibitors from one club, shunned shows by the other etc. So the history of the breed standard is littered with disagreement and conflict and coloured by self interest and prejudice. Hardly a healthy track record to take forward into discussions for changing a breed standard to reflect the changes bought about by crossbreeding. Believe it or not, there are people who have said to me personally 'over my dead body" will I allow any changes to the breed standard. It is written in stone, beware all who dare to change it..
4. EXPERIENCE IN CROSSBREEDING
There is significant experience of crossbreeding with native hounds existent and articles on this topic are available on the Internet. In particular I recommend -
Kalagh Tazi Ortrud Roemer-Horn, Expedition to Afghanistan - Carlotta Wolseley-Lahchiouach, Chipak from Afghanistan - Daphne Gie, Daruma Afghan Hound Switzerland
and Desertwind Afghan Hounds USA. The people involved have been actively breeding or crossbreeding native hounds for many years. You can view pedigrees and photographs of their achievements on their websites and in the articles published on AHT. So it's clearly possible to crossbreed, however, achieving it in the show world of dogs is an entirely different thing. Links to all the above are at the bottom of this page.
4. IS CROSSBREEDING ACHIEVABLE
A political dimension revolves the continual war by the anti-dog people against "pedigree dogs". I'm not going to get into that topic in this article but suffice to say the "antis" advocate crossbreeding as a catchall "fix" for what they perceive as the problems with pedigree dogs. The National Kennel Clubs lack the financial muscle power to match the huge funding the "antis" are causing ever more restitutions to be placed on pedigree dog breeding. Unless the world of pedigree dogs is able to find a satisfactory response to the antis campaign, it may well be, down the line, that crossbreeding is imposed upon the world of pedigree dogs.
Aside from the "anti's situation above, my personal opinion is NO. Firstly, nobody (other than "anti's) is indicating any reason or need to crossbreed, so there is apparently ""no driver for change"". Secondly as I have tried to indicate in this article, there are very many issues that make crossbreeding highly problematical.
Finally, and as the saying goes "if its not broke, don't fix it". That seems to be where we are today in 2013
Steve Tillotson, 2013
Afghan Hound Times
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