Afghanistan is as it has always been, a harsh land of bitter division, a land of struggle, heroes and death.  It has, over time, proven itself also to be a land of remarkable and unique creatures, both human and canine.

One hundred eighty eight years have passed since the February morning in 1890 when The Honorable Mountstuart Elphinstone entered the Lahore Gate of Peshawar, the traditional winter home of the rulers of the Kingdom of Kabul.  Elphinstone was the first Englishman to visit Peshawar.  He had been sent by the rulers of British India to win the favor of the incumbent King, Shah Shuja.  The Empire was expanding but British India had yet to reach the Indus, and between it and the land of the Afghan Tribes lay the independent state of the Punjab.  Peshawar was the terminus for all trade routes east to west, and it wore heavily the mantle of history left by Darius, Alexander, Gengis Khan, Tamerlane and Babur.  It abounded with the resulting waves of Persian, Greek, Hindu, Buddhist and Moslem ways of life which trailed these leaders.  On a tour of the city, Elphinstone was literally lost in the bazaar which was awash with all of Asia.  Chinese, Bokhara, Chitrali, Turkestani, Uzbeki, Afghani, Pathan Yusufzai Afridi, Orakzai,and Hazara traders and merchants offered goods, wares and services of every conceivable type and origin.  This cornucopia seemed natural in this land, whose borders were more idea than fact.  This fabled land, spoken of by traders in India as possessing every possible land form and climate, from the icy brutal mountains of the Hindu Kush to the scorching screaming wasteland of the deserts of Baluchistan.  In the north, somewhere, was a border with Turkestan, and far in the waste began Persia, where exactly no one even asked.  Certainly not a pleasant place physically, but one which creates unique creatures, be they man or dog.  In men, the qualities created were iron will, tenacity in battle and love of tribe.  In dogs, hunting in such extreme climes and topography resulted in unfailing sight, endless stamina and the ability to pursue a variety of prey across both rock strewn mountain and burning deserts in all manner of weather.  The strong fronts, solid toplines, powerful rears, huge feet, and punishing jaws of The Standard made success possible and are to be found in no other breed in such a unique mix.

Shah Shuja was indeed aware of the British in India and despite his remote location, and that of his Kingdom, had agreed to meet Elphinstone because of concern of the designs of others on his Kingdom.  Some of these "others" were neighbors, such as the Punjabi's, but more were living within his very kingdom, the multitude of Afghani tribes and clans.  For the English, Shah Shuja's kingdom lay along the suspected path of an idea which would cement The Empire's greatness and wealth, a land route to Europe from India.  The English concern over conquering the desolate wilderness, while large, was all the while second in importance to those concerns of the Kingdom of Kabul's neighbor to the north, Czarist Russia, and the possibility of Russian (or Napoleon's, if his invasion of Russia was successful) intentions to reach the sea.

Elphinstone carried concerns for all this and knowledge of little else with him into Peshawar that day as he attempted to divine the context of it all, based on his observations and his meetings with Shah Shuja.  He was expected to return to India with good news and a strategy for carrying it out.  He knew he was operating in a region which made the socially chaotic India appear as orderly as an English public school.  Charles Miller in "Khyber" (MacMillan, 1977, pp xiv-xv) describes the political landscape as follows:

"If Afghanistan's national boundaries were uncertain, Shah Shuja's rule was even more so. Afghanistan could be seen not so much as a state than as an uneasy state of mind - a murkily defined patchwork of ever-shifting regional and clan alliances.  The country seemed to reenact the Arabian Nights.  Its princes lived in Babylonian opulence and wove tortuous Machiavellian plots against each other, while it's ragged masses slit one another's throats to avenge real or imagined insults, or simply for the hell of it.  Shah Shuja held precarious sway over a fickle, rapacious citizenry of unlettered, bearded sharpshooters and knifemen whose allegiance was split up capriciously among several of his own relatives, each seeking the throne himself.  Indeed, at the time of Elphinstone's visit, a tatterdemalion but well armed military force, mobilized by Shah Shuja's half-brother Mahmud, had captured Kabul and was marching toward the Khyber Pass to lay siege to Peshawar."

Over the next one hundred years, The British Empire and Czarist Russian would invent and engage in "The Great Game", and Afghanistan would be the playing field.  Play in the game was fierce as invasions and occupations would cycle like the tide against routs and massacres for both the British and the Afghanis.  The Great Game played itself out through periods of active war, quiet espionage and multifaceted subversion.  By the turn of the 20th century it all seemed to have come full circle back to the beginning, with Afghanistan unconquered and ungovernable and still largely unknown and little understood, with British India still looking at it's western borders and wondering.  Today the remains of that one hundred years can be found in the irrefutable reputation of the indomitable tenacity of the Afghani tribesmen in battles since and also in the British Regimental Crests painted on the rock walls of the road from Peshawar to the Khyber Pass, honoring the dead, the wearers of the Victoria Cross and the survivors.

Libraries around the world overflow with detailed histories of 19th century Afghanistan, all of which are superior to anything which could be created here.  Sufficient time has passed to permit scholars and historians, both eastern and western to review events and add their perspectives.  As we move forward yet another one hundred years, to the present, another century is about to close, indeed, a millennium, and still Afghanistan remains at war with itself, aided overtly and covertly by neighbors to the east, north and west.  Another invasion was only recently risked.  It, like all the others failed, bringing with it the destruction and suffering which always accompanies and outsiders' enthusiastic abandon in subordinating the conquered.  But as with past invasions, Afghanistan threw off this latest invader, and as another period of "peace" was to come in the early 1990's, Mr. Miller's description of 1809 could easily have come from a popular news magazine of today, subject only to a few name changes.

It is this ravaged land and rancorous history that gave birth to our wonderful hounds.  Indeed, their very presence in the west is a result of "The Great Game" as all the original imports to London were made by serving officers of the British Army and their wives.  Major & Mrs. Bell-Murray and Major & Mrs. Amps come immediately to mind.  From the whirling mass of tribes and clans fermenting internal subterfuge to neighbors on three sides plotting their own agendas for Afghanistan, comes our breed, like the region, so utterly unique, so striking in appearance, with a clouded history and a troubled future.  What is this dog and why does it look so different ?  Why does it behave like no other ?  Are it's carriage and gaze to the distance really so different, or is it a romantic rationalization for our lack of understanding of such a "foreign" place ?

Strangers on the street today invariably recognize Afghan Hounds as "show dogs".  Like so many diplomats past and present, these individuals rarely ask important follow-on questions relating to who or what the dog really is and what it was bred for.  They simply call it a show dog because it's expedient.  Since their arrival in the west, Afghan Hounds have been on constant display, usually in the show ring.  They seem to have attracted persons out of the mainstream, those for whom expedience matters little, as proven by the ownership requirements of grooming, patience and special understanding.  This dog doesn't bring your slippers, he eats them.  WHY ?  Because he wants to !  Like the tribesmen who bred his ancestors, he will not be dominated and generally will conduct himself in a manner which he believes to be in his best interest at the time.  For such behavior he is often punished by a new owner.  The same person who, once obsessed with "the look", never bothered to ask the follow-on question.  This intractable Afghan Hound is often not punished directly by beating, but simply by being turned out of the home which had previously promised to care for him, just as many nations have announced their intentions of looking after Afghanistan, only to abandon them when expedient.  As Afghanis have suffered homeless on the streets for centuries during seemingly endless wars, both of domination and of the internal variety, so our dogs suffer on the streets of the west and languish in rescue shelters.  Homeless, hungry and living amongst the rubble of war or abandonment, the integrity of both Afghani man and Hound remains resolute and defiant.

As larger nations have historically pulled at the various tribal groups in Afghanistan with specific geopolitical motives in mind, so today we find groups of Afghan Hound enthusiasts drawn to specific aspects of this amazing creature while ignoring those portions of the whole considered less desirable.  As the ruling classes disdained the "unlettered bearded sharpshooters" that were the tribesmen, preferring to conduct all activities with the Shah and his family, so today we find the show obsessed crowd disdainful of many of the "hound" aspects of the Afghan Hound.  Like the tribesmen, this is a rough animal.  It was bred to cover some of the most hostile ground in the world, relentlessly at high speeds, and to maneuver at will in response to it's prey's flight.  Killing is the end game.  Killing is easy and plentiful in Afghanistan.  It has become one of the land's legacies.  Intelligent and efficient killers in battle often emerge as heroes in the battles of men.  The bravest warrior became tribal leaders, the top killing dogs emerged as the Alpha Dog of the pack, and were prized by their respective tribes.  This instinct of pursuit and killing remains strong in our dogs today as anyone who has seen their Afghan Hound in the presence of small mammals knows.  Disdain is a two way street, and it was the warrior tribesman who likewise traditionally disdained the political machinations and obsessions with material beauty of the ruling class.  Such obsessions often bringing another war or attempted invasion in which the fighting was left to the tribesmen.  Families were lost and bitterness grew until finally the various factions who called themselves rulers all found their backing suspect.  Opposing the show obsessed owners today are the tribesmen's counterparts who own and breed their Afghan Hounds to live exclusively in pursuit of prey in the killing fields.  They disdain anything which speaks of the beauty, regal nature, and innate abilities in the show ring in Afghan Hounds which the breed carries like no other.  Nothing matters but efficiency.  In this world The Standard is a concept and a document of the show ring and those organizations whose charter is the support of the ring, with no apparent relation to the field Afghan Hound and his prey.  An ancient argument of form versus function.  The gap continues to grow until today we see form in the ring and function in the field and little chance of the two factions discussing a middle road.  What good is a beautiful graceful Afghan Hound that can't or won't hunt ?  What good is the greatest hunting Afghan Hound in the field if it doesn't have the look or construction of an Afghan Hound as dictated by The Standard ?

Outside forces pulling at Afghanistan.  Hundreds of years of documented history exist and still it continues.  Time passes, suffering continues, national development is denied by wars, and during the lulls no progress can be measured.  Meanwhile, nothing remains static, in the world of geopolitics or dogs.  We have seen the breed evolve from two major "types", desert and mountain, into what is euphemistically called "the modern Afghan Hound".  Meanwhile there remain diverse forces pulling at the breed from the perspectives of ring and field.  As there always is, a small group attempts to remain centrist in the argument, breeding the "whole" dog of both form and function, but judges in both ring and field become more focused on their particular specialty.  The resulting pull is three dimensional.  The larger parallel here can be seen in Afghanistan today, as the Pathan Taliban, with the full material support of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, moved to fill what they perceived as a vacuum during the pause of civil war following the ejection of the Soviet Union.  The Taliban played little or no role in this long struggle.  Opposing them is Ahmad Shah Massoud, a Afghan-Tajik who was the defense Minister in the Rabbini Government, which was formed as a result of an externally encouraged compromised during this same pause in the civil war.  Massoud is also the tribal leader most responsible for driving the Soviets from his land.  He was not, however, the primary beneficiary of US and other western nations support during that effort.  That was the clan of Gulbhuddin Hekmatyar, another Pathan then supported by Pakistan but since abandoned for failure to align his philosophy with his benefactor.  Abdul Rashid Dostam is an Afghan-Uzbek and was a General in the Army of the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime, beaten by Massoud and the others.  Today, in the struggle against the Taliban, he is allied with Massoud and the others.  Today, in the struggle against the Taliban, he is allied with Massoud, and supported by Russia and Iran, while Pakistan and Saudi Arabia continue to back the Taliban.  As in the 19th century, the west today watches, but without the audacity of the Victorian British, dabbling and trying to make sense of the maze of alliances.  In the 19th century it was trade routes, today it is the routes of oil pipelines which cause the interest of those outside of the country.  Miller's "murkily defined, ever shifting patchwork of regional and clan alliances" continues.  Likewise with those who would define the Afghan Hound.

Geopolitics, economics, religion.  The announced reasons behind intervention and attempts to alter what Afghanistan is continue to run in the circle of "The Great Game."  Enemies last decade are allies presently, subject to tomorrow's unknown events, which may cause yet another shift.  The foreign remain much the same as they have been throughout the past two hundred years; Afghani tribes and clans, Russia, Persia (Iran), the Indian subcontinent and The West.  Still, the tribesmen remain, each a member of a distinct grouping, defiant with weapons in hand, willing to die to keep control of some of the earth's most desolate and unfriendly land.  Continuing generations of visitors continue to describe him as fierce, proud and regal, while beneath it he is probably penniless, hungry and tired.  But even as Kabul has laid waste again, the fighting continues, and the support for additional fighting continues to arrive from outside of Afghanistan's borders.  Meanwhile, in much more pleasant surroundings far, far away, the dogs taken from this hostile place continue to fascinate us with their appearance, attitudes and physical abilities.  We, like those supporting the tribes and neighbors in conflict, focus on that aspect of the dog we find most pleasing, trying to ignore those which we find unpleasant.  If we try to take the breed back to the earlier desert and mountain types, we shall bemoan our regression, but we remain unable, or unwilling, to publicly agree on what this dog should be.  The proof in this lies in that fact that today we're presented with American, UK, Dutch, Australian and other "types" of Afghan Hounds, just as the foreign participant in the ongoing war Afghanistan have "their" tribes.  As is usually the case in geopolitics, each of us knows we've made the right choice.  The stakes were and remain high in The Great Game; possession of Afghanistan.  In The Great Game of The Breed, the stakes are no less total; defining the breed will become.  History has shown us that the involved factions in both efforts will stop at little to achieve their ends.

Many thought "The Great Game" was over when the British left Afghanistan at the turn of the century.  We thought so again after the First World War, and again after the Second World War and again after the collapse of the recent Soviet occupation.  But "The Great Game" remains, and the players and roles continue to shift.  Meanwhile, our breed's evolution continues in the ring, in the field, in the kennels of breeders and in the homes of pet owners worldwide.  "Looks" and fads in the breed come and go as do political events west of the Khyber.  Taking into account the vastly disparate levels of importance in the condition of man and dog, there remains something at the core of things Afghani which seems to defy solution.  Unsettled as conditions are within both the nation of Afghanistan and the breed, the resilience, determination, and tenacity, along with some other mysterious trait found deep within both the tribesman and his hound, and unexplained to the rest of us, seems, based on history, to guarantee their future.  It's most likely a future of continuing conflict just as it is certainly likely to be one which will be characterized by endless examination of the soul of the character of the tribesman and the Afghan Hound, and what each has been placed here to accomplish.

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