Trippy Dogs

February 20, 2007 11:29 AM

Looking Rather Unworldly, the pharaoh hound, believed by some to have originated in Egypt, is the National Hound of Malta and is claimed by the Maltese. This love of hunting is used to advantage in lure coursing, which seems like a blast, for the dogs. They are the only breed in the sighthound group never to place at the Westminster Kennel Club's dog show.
posted by Danf (16 comments total)

Those are gorgeous beasts, and it's easy to see why they got the name "pharaoh hound." Their entire bearing just screams Ancient Egypt. Sad to say, though, if they're typical sighthounds, they're probably dumb as bricks.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:36 AM on February 20, 2007

I was thinking the same thing, FoB. About the Egyptian thing, that is. I know nothing of sighthounds.
posted by brundlefly at 11:45 AM on February 20, 2007

I lived with one for awhile (roommate's) and it was one of the most skittish, spastic, bark for no reason dogs I've ever encountered, and that's after growing up with a miniature greyhound.
I'm sure a lot of that was on the owner, but it seems like a very high strung breed.
Cool looking dog, though.
posted by 2sheets at 11:46 AM on February 20, 2007

I've always wanted a ibizan, which looks remarkably like a pharaoh hound, but I'm told are less temperamental.

Apparently, both can blush when excited. Which I find funny.
posted by quin at 12:21 PM on February 20, 2007

Those dogs are born runners. If they don't get lots of excercise on a daily basis, their temperament will go to hell. They need to run and run everyday or they'll bounce off the walls and destroy furniture and will be spastic.

I don't have any, but I've met a number. I have a couple of sighthounds myself (rhodesian ridgebacks) and they have high energy, too. Not stupid, though. The real problem is motivating them. They usually know what you want of them but don't feel the need to please you. Training is difficult because they bore easily, so you have to train them (with treats!--motivation) in short sessions.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 12:34 PM on February 20, 2007

I played with a pharoah hound when I was at the WKC show this year. Nice dogs. I used to walk deerhounds, and I totally agree with the motivation aspect of training. They are bastards if they can't be bothered doing what you want them to do.
posted by gaspode at 12:38 PM on February 20, 2007

I had never seen pharoahs in my life before a couple weeks ago when I met a couple out on an XC ski run who had a pair. they are really, really cool looking dogs, and these guys seemed very well adjusted to the bitter CO mountain climate.

for the record, to balance out this sort of commentary, I'd just like to say the 'spastic' perception of sighthound breeds is a common misconception stemming from the fact that folks will tend to do things like keep Italian (mini) greyhounds, ridgebacks, pharoahs and/or rescue greyhounds in a 600 square foot flat. sighthounds comprise many of the older known breeds and they have been selectively bred for centuries to run -- meaning if they don't get scads of exercise in a BIG roomy outdoor run, they will act neurotic. continual pacing / barking / obsessive self-mutilation (scratching/picking/chewing) are traits for these breeds when kept indoors without sufficient activity.

my mom kept a saluki and a borzoi on the forty acre farm where I grew up, and they used to follow me and the horses out on multi-mile cross-country training runs. neither of them ever barked, jumped up, or acted crazy/skitzy/temperamental because they had lots and lots of quality outdoor running time. in fact both were the least vocal of any of the dogs we ever owned. these 2 were also by far the best mannered, easiest to train and smartest house dogs we ever had, and my mom has had dozens of dogs of all varieties, mainly herding (australian shepherds, border collies) or hunting (walker hounds, beagles, etc.) seriously, if you want an unholy pain in the ass dog? get a beagle.

I know this is only anecdotal but for sure i've known plenty of rescue greyhounds and you can't just keep them in a flat unless you are a very fit athletic type who can take them on a 5k run every day.
posted by lonefrontranger at 1:59 PM on February 20, 2007

The "sighthounds==lots of exercise" thing is immensely harmful. It's just not true for the most common sighthound, the greyhound. All of the greys I've ever had - and this goes for every other greyhound I've ever encountered or heard of - are absolutely worn out after a 40 minute walk. Let them off the lead for a run, and five minutes later you've got a dog that wants to do nothing but lounge about for the rest of the day.

I've spoken a lot with the Retired Greyhound charity people in the UK, and they're all of the same opinion: the "needs lots of exercise" myth is the primary reason they can't rehome greyhounds. My second grey was from Battersea Dogs Home, a very famous kennel in London, and they've a whole floor of unwanted greys for that same reason: people think they're a nightmare. It's just not true.

Now, there are temperamental retired greyhounds, sure. But it's not from lack of exercise. It's because they were working dogs before, perhaps mistreated, and now they're pets. It's a transitional issue, not something to do with exercise.

Genetically, perhaps, you can see why this is. Sighthounds originate from Arabia and North Africa, and would hunt rabbit in the desert (they're incidentally the only dogs not considered unclean in Islam, for this reason). Their entire physiology is based around sleeping an awful lot during the hot daytime.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:52 PM on February 20, 2007

The main reason people think sighthounds are dumb is simply that they're not bred to work closely with people (unlike most of the breeds people tend to think of as "smart", like most of the herding and working breeds), they're bred to find and run down game, which is a predominantly independent kind of work. They don't have to be tuned in to their handler to do their job, they do their job more or less alone and with very little training, for the most part, they operate on instincts bred for over hundreds or even thousands of years (breeding which wasn't selecting for anything much except hunting ability). If you see a sighthound doing lure coursing, you'll realize that they do the work they were bred for frighteningly well.

Their intelligence isn't of the sort which necessarily easily lends itself to human training (especially with less experienced and/or unimaginative trainers), since they can be difficult to motivate and aren't normally motivated by the "traditional" dog motivators like food and tug, plus they've never been selectively bred for the things we call "intelligence" in other breeds (like biddability, problem solving, whatever), because those traits aren't what make a good sighthound (whereas they ARE what makes a good herding dog or a good working dog). They are intelligent (and emotional) dogs, they're just not necessarily intelligent in ways some people tend to value.

And as DangerIsMyMiddleName says, they don't need a ton of exercise, they DO need a couple of walks a day and they definitely need a chance to stretch their legs once a week or so, but they're mostly couch potatoes as long as they get that.

Great set of links, Danf. I believe that Pharaoh hounds, like Ibizan hounds, in addition to blushing, can also jump immense heights from a standstill.
posted by biscotti at 3:13 PM on February 20, 2007

I've always wanted a ibizan, which looks remarkably like a pharaoh hound, but I'm told are less temperamental.

Don't do it. Not unless you got 9ft high fences and the ability to tune out their piercing incessant barking.

Biscotti nailed it.

My old neighbors had 5 ibizan hounds. FIVE. Those things can jump higher than deer and if something snaps their little brains into prey drive you won't stop them. They just BOING-OING-OING right over fence and run like the wind. My neighbor showed the things and had to top off the six foot fencing with electric fencing. Even then occasionally one of them would just BOING-OING-OING right over the fence, through our yard and BA-BOING over our fence and on and on. It's crazy.

They are pretty and friendly but not all that bright. They will bark at anything. Even bugs and buzzing flies or bees.

I lived next to the things for six years and they barked at me every time they saw me like they never saw me before. And it is loud and high pitched. Annoying as hell if you can't tune it out.
posted by tkchrist at 3:37 PM on February 20, 2007

Beautiful animals, nice post.

From the subject line, I thought it would be a compendium of odd dogs, including my favorite Dr. Seuss fever dream, the Chinese Crested [img].
posted by sidereal at 4:29 PM on February 20, 2007

Not to be a killjoy on the Egyptian fantasy, but the notion that the Pharaoh Hound/ is either f Egyptian origin or an old dog breed has been dismissed conclusively (note this link is from one of the sites linked above) by the NHGRI Dog Genome Project and other projects - which by the way has been an awesome bunch of research for people interested in dogs, but less-than-awesome for the breeders of many dog breeds.

If I remember right, the conclusions may have been part of the study Genetic structure of the purebred domestic dog, which got more press than most of the other recent dog genetics works - partially for the Pharoah Hound thing, partially because it showed that some dog breeds were actually the same dog (German Shepard and the Belgian Tervuren I think were one pair) and that most surprising, the Shar Pei is the dog who split off from the wolf earliest, making the crazy looking pups the closest dog to wolves genetically.
posted by illovich at 8:32 PM on February 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

There is one school in Islam, the Maliki, that is much more favorable to dogs.

Interesting article here exploring why in all three major monotheistic religions "warm ties between humans and canines have been seen as a threat to the authority of the clergy."
posted by mediareport at 6:24 AM on February 21, 2007

As a rescue greyhound owner, I gotta put in my 2 cents on comments like this:

if they're typical sighthounds, they're probably dumb as bricks.

Most of the sighthounds I've met were quite intelligent; as has been pointed out above, their intelligence is just of a more independent variety. My dog understands well over 30 words and phrases, and is also very tuned in to the humans in the house; when commands are delivered by me, she obeys 95% of the time; when by my wife, she obeys 80%; when by my daughter, 60%. So she's judged the command heirarchy in her doggy way, and reacts accordingly. Also, she very rarely barks, and then only for a reason - like someone in the yard or driveway. And she stops barking when told to.

Also, regarding the exercise issue - if she gets to run flat out for 5 minutes a day she's happy, and she'll sleep the rest of the day. Running is what she most wants to do; other kinds of play are less important. If she doesn't get her run, then she'll have a burst of energy/insanity/mayhem in the house to get it out of her system. But that's all she seems to need. Otherwise she sleeps as much as the cats. If I take her for a long walk of more than 30-40 minutes, by the end she's dragging her feet and trying to lay down the second I stop walking. They're world class sprinters/couch potatoes.
posted by JAHxman at 7:26 AM on February 21, 2007

All the greyhound people got here before I did, saving me the trouble of testifying to my favorite breed.

I have a greyhound. She spends twenty hours a day asleep. This is not because I drug her, or because she's stupid, it's because greyhounds are sprinters, and at her age a brisk walk for a couple of blocks satisfies her. I have volunteered with greyhound adoption for nearly ten years in various organizations and greyhounds are not dumb, they're just different.

My dog's not stupid. She is simply independent, and decides whether or not my request is worth complying with. She knows numerous tricks and I have frequently shamed people with 'smarter' breeds into silence with her perfect obedience while their dog is bouncing off the ceiling like a loon.

That said, as a rescue she is afraid of some of the most peculiar things that six years of living with them has not eradicated: bags, traffic cones and statues, to name a few. If you spent your formative years in a concrete box and then moved into civilization, you'd have some quirks, too.

Hoorah for Battersea Dogs Home! We worked with them to bring some UK greyhounds to the states, since the stigma against greyhounds isn't as intense here.
posted by winna at 10:09 AM on February 21, 2007

The text regarding Islam cited in that article, the "Kitab Hayat al-Hayawan" is not regarded as a reliable source of hadith, or sayings of Prophet Mohammed.

Ok, I'll take you at your word, but the general negativity towards dogs historically in all three major monotheistic religions is still striking and worth noting.
posted by mediareport at 3:41 PM on February 21, 2007