| The Afghan Hound is a very one of the oldest, if not the first
sighthound dog breed. Distinguished by its thick, fine, silky coat and its
tail with a ring curl at the end, the breed acquired its unique features
in the cold mountains of
Afghanistan, where it was originally used to hunt hares, and gazelles
by coursing them.
The temperament of the typical Afghan Hound can be aloof and dignified,
but happy and clownish when playing. The Afghan Hounds' intelligence and
reasoning skills have made it a successful competitor in dog agility
trials as well as an intuitive therapy dog and companion.
Sighthounds are among the oldest recognizable types of dogs, and
genetic testing has placed the Afghan Hound breed among those with the
least genetic divergence from the wolf on some markers; this is taken to
mean that such dogs are descended from the oldest dog types, not that the
breeds tested had in antiquity their exact modern form. Today's modern
purebred breed of Afghan Hound descends from dogs brought in the 1920s to
Great Britain, and are a blending of types and varieties of long haired
sighthounds from across Afghanistan and the surrounding areas.
Some had been kept as hunting dogs, others as guardians.
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
