Learning from Streamer

I’ve been working with Streamer, the tazi-saluki, and I must say that much of what people believe about these dogs is false.

Dog trainers often say you cannot train these dogs, but the truth of the matter is he’s quite soft.  His softness does not manifest itself in cowering before me when he does something to make me cross. His softness manifests itself in attempting to avoid me.

The trick is to have a rapport with this dog before you start making demands of any kind. He is not afraid of people, but he is quite aloof. For him to trust me, we have had to become friends.

When he first arrived at the airport, he glared at me and snarl-barked at me. I’ve never seen an eight-week-old puppy act so primal and so primitive.

He and I never really interacted. He was not supposed to be my dog, but one day in February, he decided that he wanted to be mine, and I’ve been working with him ever since.

I cannot say that everyone should have a dog of this type. This type of dog requires an understanding of what it’s like to have a sensitive and soft dog that is combined with a general primitive dog’s tendency to be independence. Independence combined with softenss is not something that the major schools of dog training are really equipped to understand, and that’s why so many dog trainers think of these breeds as quite incorrigible.

But he’s not really. Because he’s so well-socialized to people and other dogs, he’s actually quite stable. He won’t run over and lick your hand like a golden retriever would, but he’s not nervy or jumpy at all.

As he has matured, he has become more and more less socially open, but his reserved nature is not like the old school chow chow’s.  He just has a small circle of people he trusts.

Working with a dog with this fundamental nature is teaching me many things about other dogs. I am reminded of what falconers require their apprentices to work with first.  They very rarely tell their apprentices to get Harris’s hawks, because Harris’s hawks are cooperative hunters. The usually tell them to get a kestrel or a red-tailed hawk, because they are more independent.

I’m learning what it’s like to have a dog that is not derived from that Western dog concept of an obedient servant.  I’m picking up ideas of that will make it easier to work with other breeds that might be easier to work with.

So I have a leash-broken saluki that walks at a perfect heel.  He sits at the curb when I cross the street. He is a beautiful creature. His feathering is starting to grow in, and he will be a magnificent manly dog when he matures.

I look like a real dog man when I walk this dog. He stares up at me with adoration at a heel, and I start to believe the illusion.

Though I probably shouldn’t.

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Oinky pig courser

Streamer likes to fetch and then zoom around with the oinky pig.

His feathering is coming in nicely too.

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Becoming Saluki-shaped

My saluki-tazi Streamer is turning into a proper sighthound. His feathering grows a little every week, and he’s decided that he absolutely is mine.

The affection one gets from one of these dogs is of a different quality than what I’ve received from other breeds. It’s quite understated but adoring. He looks at me with soft-brown eyes, and I run my fingers through his nascent ear feathers.  He doesn’t even do the whippet thing where they leap around with silliness.

His affection is deep, but it is of a quieter quality. This is a dog that is only seven months old, but he already has that essence of something a bit wilder, a bit different from what I’m used to.

I call him my snow leopard. Part of that joke is that his brindle coloration reminds me so much of that Himalayan pantherine, but he also has that mystery about him.

I have him trained fairly well, but I also recognize that his innate nature is somewhat different from Western sighthounds, herding dogs, and gun dogs. He does not have that desire to gain my approval. He loves me, but he is still distant.

The fact that he is so bonded to me is an odd paradox. He thinks I’m the best person in the world, but he is very much is his own dog.

This is the true appeal of a dog like this.  You don’t get one hoping to have an obedient servant. You get one hoping to become its partner, its human.

And I have become one, and for no other reason than I take him out and run him during these formative months. He was not initially going to be mine, but he made his decision about which of the household he preferred.

So it is a strange thing to have a dog like this. This is a different quality of dog than I am used to.

 

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Streamer is turning into saluki

Six months old, and he’s getting feathering and a runner’s body.

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