6th August 2017

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Andrea Ireson and Ruth Dann would like me to clarify their affix.  In a couple of occasions, including the catalogue for the NSC Open Show, it was spelled incorrectly.  The affix is JAZALLE, not to be confused with Jazelle.  
 
In the summary for the NSC Open Show it should have been mentioned that DNA kits were given out.  Please do remember these will be available at the SGHC upcoming championship Show on the 22nd of October.  All you need to do is bring along a pedigree of at least three generations and Peter Yardley will be available to assist with the rest.  We need to secure the future of our breed’s health with the samples that will go to the Animal Health Trust.  No samples will be used without the permission of the owners of the said dogs.
If you are concerned about this I can assure you from personal experience we were contacted by the AHT regarding using DNA that we had stored some years ago through the efforts of Daphne Tovey, when she was in charge of ‘heath’ for the Club. The AHT are storing it on your behalf.
 
Most of the judges for 2018 were printed in ‘Our Dogs’ 18th August. Little has changed as the only two not announced are The Hound Association and Richmond Championship Show.  Reading through Breed Notes by Bill Bunce for American Cocker Spaniels, I thought his comments were totally applicable to Salukis.  With his permission I am reprinting it with slight modifications. “Many of you will note that around half of the judges are not actually involved with the breed. I sincerely hope that this fact will not affect entry numbers to any great extent, particularly after the low turnout at some shows this year. I truly hope that the new judge’s education system will not translate into less and less judges doing more and more judging in the future, otherwise I fear exhibitors may just save their money and stay at home resulting in the loss of classes and/or status for individual breeds including ours”.  
 
Carrying on this theme the following point is being discussed on Lets Talk Salukis, a facebook based interactive group with contributors from salukiphiles around the World. “This maybe a Brit centric, though I think not however after looking through the breed judges for 2018 championship shows it is evident that the majority are not breed specialists and I have to ask WHY, when did Salukis become an "add on" breed, there to make up judges numbers? When did we allow that to become ok? When did we allow this unique and most special of dogs become a cardboard cut out and generic "running dog" for judges without a clue to run the rule over them, who said that was ok? When did we allow people who do not care about our breed , when did we give them the right to judge them. When and how did the breed clubs allow that to happen?”  Any comments on these points?  
 
About 18 months ago I saw a film entitle ‘Queen of the Desert’ starring Nicole Kidman as Gertrude Bell.  Sadly I was disappointed when the film did not appear to have any Salukis included. Last week Michael and I happened upon a television program on BBC4.  It was entitled “Letters from Baghdad” which included excerpts from the 1600 letters sent from Gertrude Bell to her father.  The whole film, while retelling the letters also showed film clips from around the time of the 1st World War in the Middle East.  Brian Duggan in his book ’Saluki The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West’ featured Gertrude Bell.  Our eyes were glued looking for Salukis, hopefully not to be disappointed for a second time, as Gertrude was very well acquainted with some of the Bedouin tribes. We did see a couple of Saluki street dogs in a few scenes but the final scene was a photo of Gertrude’s home in Baghdad with her guards/servants and two Salukis.  The whole program was very interesting as she was such a special person, unfortunately her ending was rather sad as she lost faith in the system she once was a part of.