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Taigan vs Afghan

Disclaimer: 

Views expressed below are solely those of mine, a concerned  former owner, and present admirer, of Taigans.  

"Afghan Hound" (shortened in many places to "Afghan") is refereed exclusively to the aboriginal breed of swift dogs living and hunting mainly in Afghanistan, locally known as Tasy/Tazy, and under no circumstances not the mainly couch-dwelling "Afghan Hound" known in the West.  (No offend is intended to the latter, now a separate breed of dogs).

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The resemblance of the Taigans and Afghans is strikingly apparent.  They dwell in fairly close and otherwise geographically quite similar regions of Central Asia.   Both are similarly used for similar purposes.  Based on all these, one should suspect a relationship of the two breeds.   It is surprising, however, to learn that this relationship is so poorly studied and has, not probably surprising, become the ground of a quite bitter controversy. 

On the official web-site of the Taigan breeding Club in Kirgizia it is effectively stated that the Taigans and Afghans are unrelated.  Whereas, on my opinion, the existence of such point of view can be explained, it cannot be unconditionally accepted.  The arising of this point of view seems to stem from the fact that Afghan Hounds became known in the West much earlier than the Taigans, and consequently might have been thought to have originated from them.  Making things even worse, perhaps, is a purely coincidental resemblance of the words (pronounced similarly in Kyrghyz, Russian and English): Taigan and Afghan.  

This is what makes, I think, Almaz Kurmankulov to zealously deny the origin of one breed from the other, or even from a common ancestor.  He rather believes that Taigans evolved independently from ancestors originating, probably, in the Altai region, where the Kyrghyz people used to live and explains resemblance of the Taigans with the Afghan Hounds by simply homological convergence.  

Convergence is a well-known headache for taxonomists.  Similar adaptations are known to have independently arisen many times in many unrelated life forms in the course of evolution (he cites such extremes as sharks/dolphins, kangaroo/jerboa).  That's what makes the biologists to revise their classifications of organisms every once in a while. Cladistic taxonomy defines species as presently observable ends of the genealogical tree of the organisms.  Species are reproductively isolated.  There can exist no transitional forms since they're all dead.  

It appears that if one accepts the idea that BOTH Afghan Hounds and Taigans (you can add here Tazy in Kazakhstan) originated from the common ancestor who already had "Taiganish/Afghanish/Salyukish" look to him, the relatedness of Afghan and Taigan and their independent evolution are reconsolidated.   One is just as ancient as the other, having originated from a common ancestor.  

On the other hand, one can hardly exclude interbreeding.  Interbreeding, taking place from old times till now, is undisputed in the case of Tazy and Taigans, and Afghans and Salyukies.   But Almaz seems to be right on the more significant geographical/cultural/whatever isolation between Taigans and Afghans as opposed to Taigans vs Tazy.  Taigans and Tazys were bred respectively by Kyrghyz and Kazakhs.  The two peoples have much common in their cultures, speak related languages of the Turkic family, and live in constant interactions. Contrary, the Afghan Hounds was bred in geographically remote area (relative to that of Taigans and Tazys) by the Afghan nations who speak Persian languages and have quite different culture. 

Longer coats of aboriginal Afghans and Taigans as opposed to relatively short ones of Tazy/Salyuki can, of course, be explained by local adaptations, which can be classified as homologically convergent.  But both breeds do seem to me to have evolved from the common ancestor.   Although this issue clearly requires further investigation.

This page was last updated on Thursday, May 30, 2002