Clubs hope to save Afghan hounds

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33815, 11 April 1975, Page 5

Clubs hope to save Afghan hounds

Since Afghan hounds have become popular as show dogs in Britain too many have been bred, with tragic results, Mrs Sheila Gilleney, a world authority on breeding and judging them, said vesterdav.

Afghan hound dubs throughout the country have now set up rescue teams to save unwanted, half-starved dogs which wander the streets. The United States and Australia are also going through a “population explosion” of the breed. “I hope it does not happen in New Zealand,” she said. Mrs Gilleney is in Christchurch to judge at the Canterbury Afghan Hounds Club show at McLean’s Island on Saturday. The show has a record number of 103 entries. “People in Britain have been buying Afghans expecting to make money out of them by breeding and showing them,” she said. “If not successful they lose interest in the dogs and J am very concerned about it.”

In many shows in England i there would be about 70 eh-i tries in a class and a total of about 700 in a show, she added. Yet 10 years ago the Afghan was a comparatively, rare breed. Many owners did not realise the difficulties of keeping Afghans until it was too late. The dogs needed a great deal of exercise and Were a bit of a problem in that they would “dash off J and come back only when J I good and ready,” she said. Their long silky coats, i needed about four hours! Igrooming before a show and! !about an hour’s work every! (day. They were fussy feed-i iers and required about 1| to! 21h of meat a day. The average litter was be-! tween eight and 10 pups, but; some of Mrs Gilleney’s bit-! ches have had up to 141 pups, which meant supple-j merit ary feeding. One bitch! i could not rear so manyI alone.

“The Afghan is not everybody’s dog,” she said, “but I love them and could never be without one.” She was completely entranced by her first Afghan, which was judged the best bitch the first time shown. Carloway Kennels “That was the incentive to breed and start the CaJoway Kennels for Afghans in England, after I got a very • good dog, and now there are Carloway Afghan all over the world,” she said. It is the elegent beauty of the Afghan, combined with a fine temperament, that appeals to Sheila Gilleney. I “When well groomed for a jshow they are quite ! magnificent and such regal idogs,” she said. “They are (very faithful and very much la one-family dog. They love ■children and a typical Afighan is very devoted to its I home, but will have no ! truck with strangers. You [have to wait for an Afghan to accept you rather than you accept it.” Though not naturally vicious, they are good guard dogs and Mrs Gilleney be’lieves they would “go” anylone who tried to break into I their home. When Mrs Gilleney married Commander Michael Gilleney about 10 years ago, she gave up breeding Afghans extensively and settled with her husband at Malta. Now they have one Afghan dog and two bitches at their 400-year-old palazzo, built by the Portuguese Grand Master Martino Garxes. The old palace, which they have renovated inside but left in its original form outside, needs no central heating or air-condi-tioning. The interior walls are 4ft thick and the outside walls 9ft thick. The floors are marble or stone. In the surrounding grounds they have 20 acres of vineyards.