Libyan Sloughi

The Sloughi is the hound of the Libyan Berber and Bedouin who have always highly treasured the Sloughi's tremendous hunting skills, beauty and loyalty and treated him like family.

In Libya the Sloughi is the only dog treated as family and allowed into the tent. For the Berber and the Bedouin it is a noble animal compared to the other impure local dogs. A Bedouin would go without his own blanket to provide his Sloughi with warmth in the cold desert nights. Puppies were often breast fed by Bedouin women to help nursing bitches. A lost Sloughi was mourned like family. Sloughis were often decorated with jewelry and amulets. Their legs are sometimes ritually branded by their owner, and the ears are cropped up to prevent them from being torn to pieces when hunting jackals.

The Sloughi is an alert watch dog, which remains aloof and cautious with people it does not know. Sloughis take time to warm up to strangers allowed to enter the house, and it is always best to let them do it at their own pace. With its owner the Sloughi is gentle, affectionate and very loyal. Once it has bonded with someone, the Sloughi does not always change owner with ease. Bedouins treasure this attitude and have bred their Sloughis accordingly.

In the old days, the Sloughi used to hunt desert hare, fennec (desert fox), gazelle, large mountain gazelle, hyena, ostrich, and jackal. Today it hunts mainly desert hare, fennec, rarely gazelle, and protects the goat and sheep herds by hunting their predator the jackal. Like all Sighthounds, Sloughis are open space hunters which rely on excellent vision, speed and stamina to catch their prey. They chase on sight anything that moves, however far away. Although the breed hunts mainly by sight, it also relies on scent and sound to do so.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Sloughi was almost extinct. Political upheavals had disrupted highly sophisticated breeding by leading Libyan families. Epidemic rabies had further decimated the Sloughi population. In spite of dedicated efforts which started at the end of the 1960ies in Europe, North Africa and the USA, the Sloughi is still not very common, and its breeders have an important responsibility in the conservation of this ancient breed.