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FLOCK GUARDIANS AROUND CENTRAL ASIA
By David Hancock

   The imposing dogs of the flock guarding or mountain dog breeds from around the world have long found favour in Britain. Impressive breeds from Portugal in the west to Hungary in the east and from Turkey in the south to Germany in the north have found their way here. The shepherd's mastiff from Tibet is established here. The flock guardians found near the Himalayas, the Bhutia and the Bangara Mastiff are unknown outside that area, as is the Vikran of Pakistan. And the huge and often quite fierce pastoral dogs around central Asia, especially those of Russia have yet to attract favour abroad. Russian breeds like the Borzoi and the Samoyed have long been admired here and are now very much part of our dog show world. But the flock guardians or Owtcharkas from Central Asia, the Caucasus and Southern Russia, now the Ukraine, despite appearing at World Dog Shows, do not feature here. Their three distinct breeds are strapping, assertive and very protective dogs of some stature but not exactly pets in our sense of the word. There were plenty at the World Dog Show held in Helsinki in 1998; some were very resentful of other dogs, many being muzzled, even in the ring. Several were 32 inches at the withers. These distinct breeds are powerful, assertive and very protective dogs of some stature but not exactly pets in our sense of the word.

   The Caucasian Sheepdog is very much like the Karst or Istrian sheepdog, the Sar Planninac or Macedonian/Illyrian sheepdog and similar to the brindle form of the Spanish Mastiff. There are, not surprisingly given the distances involved, different varieties of the Caucasian dog: the massive thickset type from Checheno-Ingush, NE of the Caucasus, the taller lighter type from Azerbaijan in the south-east towards Azarbayjan-e-Sharqi in Iran, the smaller squarer type of Dagestan, east of the Caucasus, and the big rangier Kangalian from the border area between Georgia and Turkey. Some experts claim that the best and most uniform specimens actually come from Georgia. Their restriction to these remote areas has led to these dogs being largely unknown in the West. They are becoming better known in eastern European countries and in the USA, where they became recognised, as the breed of Caucasian Mountain Dog, by the United Kennel Club in 1995. They are known as the Nagazi in Georgia and the Gampr in Armenia.

   If you lined up a Caucasian Owtcharka, a Carpathian Shepherd, a Karst, a Sarplanninac, a Spanish Mastiff, an Estrela Mountain Dog, an Anatolian Shepherd Dog, a Roumanian Sheepdog and a Tibetan Mastiff, in a brindle or wolf-grey coat, you could soon see how function decided form in such breeds, as well as how very similar in type they are. This, despite the immense distance from the Atlantic in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east. If you lined up parti-coloured specimens of the Rafeiro do Alentejo from Portugal, the Pyrenean Mastiff, the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, the Anatolian Shepherd Dog, the Greek Sheepdog, the Mioritic Shepherd and the Bucovina Shepherd of Roumania, again the similarities would be startling. But the same similarity is true when you regard the black and tan varieties of the Tibetan Mastiff, the Bankhar of Mongolia and the Central Asian Owtcharka, despite the latter's shorter coat and docked tail. 

   To do their work as flock guardians, mountain dogs or steppe dogs have to have thick, weatherproof coats, size and substance, great stamina and robustness and a strongly-developed protective instinct. Making use of this natural guarding instinct, the owtcharka type has been crossed with a St Bernard to produce the Moscow Guard Dog, a huge imposing protection dog, now becoming favoured in Russia. In Afghanistan, a longer, thicker-coated shepherd's mastiff is of this same owtcharka type, one of which called Khelat was imported into Britain over a century ago, but regarded as an exotic curiosity rather than a breed to be promoted here. No doubt there are big protective dogs in Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan too, awaiting recognition. A similarity of type would be likely as their function decided form and protection from the elements decided the coat.    

The Central Asian or Mid-Asiatic Owtcharka, also known as the Alabai, needs less coat but all the other attributes to do its work. The breed is found from the east of the Urals to areas of Siberia and south into Mongolia. The best examples today tend to be in Turkmenistan, where it has been recognised as 'a national treasure'; they can also be encountered in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Their coats are shorter, but their skin is thicker than the other owtcharka breeds, and their ears and tails are normally cropped. They remind me of a smooth St Bernard. They resemble too the bigger forms of shepherd's dog once depicted here, when used in times past as a shepherd's mastiff or flock guardian. The Central Asian is is a powerful breed, having been used as a hunting dog on boar and bear because of its bravery and dash. Those with tan markings over their eyebrows have been dubbed the 'four eyed Mongolian Dogs', as has the Bankhar, actually from Mongolia.    

  The third owcharka breed is the South Russian, white, off-white or grey, long-haired, over 30 inches at the shoulder and weighing around 75 kgs. They remind more of the Tatra Mountain Dog of Poland and are similar to the Hungarian Kuvasz and Komondor, without that coat texture, being used, like the latter, on the steppes, only in their case in the Ukraine. This south Russian breed is not one to be trifled with; it is known as 'the white giant' in some areas of its homeland and is often harshly treated. There is an old Russian saying that states that a 'pampered South Russian is a killer'! The military have found uses for them but their export is not encouraged. Despite their reputation for 'hair-trigger aggression', you have to admire a breed that can survive such a hard climate, such fearsome predators and stern handlers, over many centuries. Their aggression may have been the key to their survival.

     Innate protectiveness in dogs does bring with it intense loyalty, as owners of dogs from the flock guarding breeds will know. I was not surprised to learn of the Caucasian Owtcharka, left behind when deposed leader Aslan Abashidze was recently exiled from Adzharia in western Georgia, being reunited with his owner in Moscow after his excessive pining moved all who witnessed it. Abashidze, for all his faults, has been credited with saving this breed from extinction. He was said to have had around 80 of the breed, subsequently auctioned off by the Georgian dog breeders' federation. The breed is reported to have guarded the Soviet side of the Berlin Wall.  Their sheer size and immediate suspicion of strangers has led to their employment as guard dogs within Russia. I believe it is incorrect to describe such a breed as aggressive; the flock guarding breeds are overtly protective, of their owners and his property, a most valuable instinct for shepherds and drovers to utilise. 

  Kohl, in his Journeys in South Russia of 1842, when describing the shepherds there and their dogs, wrote: "The shepherds make their evening meal round a blazing fire, with their twenty watchful dogs encircling them...Between every two shepherds three or four dogs are placed, also at equal distances from each other. In order to make the dogs stay on their respective posts, a piece of an old cloak or sheepskin is laid on the spot...as each knows his own, he is sure to lie down wherever he finds it." Kohl visited Scotland around 1844 and described a drover's dog seen there as a 'wild, shaggy wolf-dog'. Such a dog was often described as a shepherd's mastiff.

 In his Researches into the History of the British Dog of 1866, George Jesse quotes a Mrs Atkinson as saying of the flock guardian of Tartary she saw near Omsk in West Siberia: "As I looked at her I thought I never saw anything more beautiful; she was a steppe dog; her coat was jet black, ears long and pendant, her tail long and bushy; indeed, it was a princely animal." All over Tartary too, these huge flock guarding breeds were valued. One old saying there stating that: "To ask an Usbek to sell his wife would be no affront, but to ask him to sell his dog, an unpardonable insult". Not a very modern view!

    Time and time again you will find writers on the English Mastiff linking them with an origin from the Tibetan "Mastiff", perhaps because one ingredient in the rebuilding of the 19th century Mastiff was a 'Tibetan dog' of uncertain breeding. But I believe all such big mountain dogs or shepherd dogs share a common origin and came south with migrating people, ending up in the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Balkans and the foothills of the Himalayas. I can find no evidence of the Tibetan Mastiff existing before the Kuvasz, for example. It disappoints me therefore to see the St Bernard being bred more like a mastiff than a mountain dog. Historically, the hospice dogs were much more like the other mountain breeds and did not feature the massive head, loose lips and excessive dewlaps of the modern pedigree St Bernard. I can never see the rationale in extolling the proud history of a breed and then perpetuating that breed in a different mould. Huge dogs have a magnanimity, a munificence and a majesty all of their own and simply don't need exaggeration to promote themselves or win our admiration.

                   The Tibetan Mastiff has recovered from the absurd claims of Victorian and early 20th century zoologists, natural historians and even some archaeologists that the breed represented the original mastiff, whence came all mastiff-types in the West. They are bred now to resemble what they have always been big strong livestock protection dogs, thick-coated, strong-muzzled and physically extremely robust. In their The Tibetan Mastiff – Legendary Guardians of the Himalayas of 1989, Ann Rohrer and Cathy Flamholtz wrote: “The Tibetan Mastiff holds a very special place in the hearts of the nomadic sheepherders. Perhaps they, above all, can truly appreciate the breed. The nomads, with their black yak-hair tents and large flocks of sheep, goats and yaks,

resemble whole towns, temporarily halted in their eternal wandering. They live life on the move, roving from one highland pasture to another.” In this informative book, the authors describe the caravan dogs, used to protect a convoy of goods for trading, including livestock. They point out that: “Appearance was of no particular importance to the caravan man. In order to effectively perform his job, however, the caravan dog had to have certain attributes. Imposing size, heavy bone, power and agility were musts. However, size could never be so exaggerated that it interfered with function. A giant cumbersome dog just couldn’t keep up with the rigors of caravan travel.” There is a strong message there for all breeders of large pastoral dogs. It is worth a look at one classic example of such a breed to assess its contemporary quality.

    It was good to read, in a critique on the Tibetan Mastiff Club Show of 2003, these admiring words: “It is some years since I have judged the breed in this country and was amazed to see what progress has been made in uniformity of type and conformity to the Standard. Gone are the square, long-legged, plush-coated, Chow-headed dogs of yesteryear…Most were well ribbed-up with length of ribcage and compact loin, giving the desired body-height ratio. There has been a big improvement in strength of hindquarters and set of hocks.” All the points made are of importance to such a breed. The Finnish judge of the breed at Crufts in 2007 made these observations: “The entry at Crufts posed me with many problems as the variation in type was extensive. The dogs ranged from tall and leggy to small and low to the ground. Several were long cast whereas some were too short in body and too high on the leg.” Such comments are worrying; this judge pointed out that similar problems had been encountered but overcome in Finland. When I saw the breed at the Helsinki World Dog Show, I was impressed with the quality there. In 2009, judges of the breed here reported some alarming faults: poor hind movement, clicking hock joints, straight stifles and too long a hock (in other words exaggerated angulation), faulty front movement, weak hocks and too close a movement in the hind legs. A year later, a judge expressed disappointment in the quality of movement, lack of layback in shoulder, weak and close rear movement with the exhibits showing good breed type having less quality than those without. But in 2012, it was reassuring to read a critique stating: “I enjoyed seeing the progress that has been made since I last judged the breed in 2009. Fronts have improved greatly and rear angulation is better. Rear movement is improving, though still some way to lose cow hocks completely.” This is a magnificent ancient breed, developed in the hardest of schools and meriting the very best custodianship.

   The role of these mountain dogs was such that a combination of climate, terrain and function led to their resembling each other. The Bankhar of Mongolia, the Tibetan Mastiff, the Bangara Mastiff of the Bangar district in the Punjab and the Central Asian Owtcharka, in their black and tan livery take some separating. Although on size grounds alone, the Bankhar, which can reach 32 inches at the withers and the Bangara coming in more like 25 inches, could be separated on this alone. The Bhutia Sheepdog of Bhutan is bigger but carries its thick, bushy tail lower - one small indicator of difference! Perhaps, each one of these Asian herders would benefit from the type of work being done to save the Bankhar, led by the Mongolian Kynological Federation and the Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project, a joint US-Mongolian initiative to reintegrate these dogs back into the nomadic communities, where already livestock losses to predators have been reduced - the whole reason such dogs evolved in the first place. My concern however would be that show ring enthusiasts would take up this breed as a novelty-moneymaker only to drop it when demand fell away; in such a way have far too many breeds been sacrificed on the temple of a 'quick buck' for the enterprising profit-seeker. This is a remarkable group of dogs and they deserve the very best custodianship we can arrange, but a lasting one not just a passing whim, like so many that went before!