Explore Saluki’s essence and discover the key movement indicators: grace, symmetry, speed, endurance, strength, and nimbleness.
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Can you select the fastest Olympic athlete in the 3,000-Meter Steeplechase without seeing them run? Of course not, but you might be able to predict the winner using certain physical criteria.
When we evaluate Salukis in the ring, we try to determine which dogs meet the Breed Standard most closely for the best ones that day. By logical extension, in meeting the Standard, that Saluki should be able to run and hunt successfully.
“The whole appearance of this breed should give an impression of grace and symmetry and of great speed and endurance coupled with strength and activity to enable it to kill gazelle or other quarry over deep sand or rocky mountains.”
As the Saluki is intrinsically a hunter, we believe the Standard helps us choose the best without them actually chasing a hare or gazelle. To fully comprehend the concept of movement in the AKC Saluki Standard, it’s important to know something about the creation of its British predecessor—the first Saluki Standard in Western countries.
Salukis were a rare breed in England until officers returned home from WWI service in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Sinai, and Syria. Owners of Salukis were just building up momentum to start a club when the discovery of Tutankhamun’s unopened tomb in late 1922 sparked the frenzy known as “Egyptomania.”
This hastened the Kennel Club’s recognition of the Saluki or Gazelle Hound (as they were then called) in July 1923. The breed’s Standard was authored by people who’d hunted with Salukis in the Middle East, and coursed hares in England, as well as the most prominent Saluki scholar.
The Standard was deliberately written broadly enough to include the range of body types from their regions of origin—an area of approximately four million square miles and larger than the continental United States. That 1923 Standard was adopted verbatim by the fledgling Saluki Club of America in 1927.* Our AKC Saluki Standard remains the oldest unchanged Standard in the Hound Group.
In the 1920s, other sighthound Standards in Britain didn’t mention movement at all—only giving a physical description of the dog standing. It’s likely this seeming “omission” was because the athleticism of a galloping hunter was self-evident from the breeds’ names: Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound); the well-known Greyhound; Irish Wolfhound; Scottish Deerhound; and Saluki or Gazelle Hound (perhaps also a factor was that indoor show rings of the day weren’t large enough to properly gait a sighthound).
“The whole appearance of this breed should give an impression of grace and symmetry and of great speed and endurance coupled with strength and activity to enable it to kill gazelle or other quarry over deep sand or rocky mountains.”
So, we are looking for bone and muscle structure capable of hunting. Fluidity, efficient speed, and nimbleness (“nimble” being one of the British meanings for “active”). Even without text specifically describing gait, there is the clear implication in that last paragraph that we are to be evaluating athletic (hunting) potential.
And Salukis didn’t just hunt gazelle (which have different sizes). The “other quarry” included hare, wild ass or onager, Arabian fox and wolf, golden jackal, and even the houbara (a low-flying bustard). Saluki hunting style depends entirely on the quarry; long, straight runs to exhaust gazelle and onager; rapid turns and navigation through brush for hare; and nasty, running fights with jackals and wolves. A Saluki (or indeed, any sighthound) is bred to have the trifecta of speed, strength, and agility for successfully pursuing and catching running game. To do this, its movement must be efficient with no wasted effort.
Without being able to actually take Salukis out to the open field to see which one excels, the grace and symmetry seen in a ring stack and gait may be our only predictors of that ability to course and catch game on difficult ground.
A stacked Saluki displays the dog’s symmetry, balance, proportion, topline, front and rear angulation, feet, hocks, and depth and breadth of chest. All of these are indicators of the ability to move soundly at speed. Conditions such as cow or sickle hocks, bowlegs, toe-in or “East-West” feet, sloping or dipping topline, extreme angulation, etc., may play a part in un-sound movement (although we must allow for a good dog misbehaving or the handler’s poor stacking).
The ring trot further assesses the Saluki’s “… grace and symmetry… speed and endurance… strength and activity… to kill gazelle or other quarry over deep sand or rocky mountains.”
All the dog’s motion should be directed forward in single-tracking, with no deviations of crabbing, prancing, flipping, paddling, or moving too close in the rear. Saluki movement is not pounding or the Tremendous Reach And Drive (TRAD) desired in other breeds. If we see ideal movement in the ring, this is a sign of breed type and a potential predictor of the ability to efficiently pursue game. But Saluki hunting is not just running fast. It is turns, leaps, and reaching their necks over to bite quarry—and all this over uneven terrain. The ring trot, no matter how excellent indoors or on grass, cannot predict the mental and physical ability needed to navigate obstacles at speed.
As an aside, the hunting Saluki only spends a comparatively small percentage of his/her day at a full gallop. In their centuries-old, desert lifestyle, when outside of camp, they trot alongside camels and horses for hours at a time. This is not the ring gait, but rather, a head-down, energy-saving trot along the easiest part of the track.
Whether we look at Olympic runners or Salukis, it is impossible to select the best without the test of speed. But since we can’t lure course or hunt in the ring, the conformation and movement we observe is an important indicator of a good Saluki. Grace, symmetry, speed, endurance, strength, and nimbleness.
Saluki Movement – Grace & Symmetry – Speed & Strength
Featured photo by Brian Patrick Duggan: Athletic Salukis should be able to expeditiously navigate obstacles at speed.
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