
Beauty and the Beast vs. Cinderella
If I write while I’m in the Azores, this is the chair I sit in. It’s part of a compact furniture arrangement in the small, questionably opulent Villa Beyonda, the 200-year-old stone house where I spend a couple of months each summer. The back of the chair faces the ocean. This is by design. The view is always a distraction.
I say “if I write” because when you’re on the Portuguese island of Faial in the Atlantic Ocean, no matter what you’re doing, the beauty is an easy, almost hypnotic draw. It’s around every corner, in every vista, and in the very manner of the people who live there. It’s palpable. Because the air is so pure, beauty is literally inhalable. The chair is the launching pad for the subject of this article: The concept of beauty in dogs over a period of time. What it was and what it is.
The caveat: My days as a breeder, exhibitor and judge — 60-plus years to date — have been with hounds, mostly the Afghan. So, the history and specifics I offer revolve around that breed. Do what you can to apply it to other breeds.
The title of this article could just as well have been “The Eye of the Beholder,” since I think we can agree that everyone sees and defines beauty in their own way. Dogs that I see as beautiful may not be beautiful to another person. As they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” or, as Immanuel Kant said more poetically: “Beauty does not lie on the rosy cheeks of a maiden, but in the eyes of a man in love.”
In each breed we have one guideline — the standard. It is the starting point from which we form our own personal concept of what the beauty of each breed is. My question: What happens to the beauty of a breed when we take it from another culture and make it ours? As to the Afghan Hound, I can offer my observations.
Step back to that time — the 1920s and ’30s — when the West found this Sighthound to be of particular interest. Afghan Hounds caught the fancy of the English when military servicemen brought some back as living souvenirs from postings in the exotic East, circa the early 1900s.
Zardin, a dog thought to have been bred in Iran, created a sensation when he was shown at the famous Crufts dog show in 1909.
In those early years the breed also began appearing in America in small, but not insignificant numbers. Two standards were written — the American one being based primarily on the English one, the English having taken their cues from the first “notable” import from Afghanistan, U.K. Ch. Sirdar of Ghazni (shown below), born in 1923. Afghan Hounds were recognized as a breed by AKC in 1926.
UK Ch. Sirdar of Ghazni.
A typical group of early Afghans.
One of the early imports into the United States was a patterned bitch named Begum, represented in this photo, circa 1938:
Begum.
As the breed captured the imagination of the world of dog shows, a methodical transformation began. The beauty of the original beast began morphing into today’s Cinderella-like specimens — one beauty being supplanted by a different kind of beauty. It didn’t take long.
In 1938 a male was born in this country who would be, in my opinion, an indication of the breed’s direction in terms of the show ring and, perforce, the whelping box. More often than not, winners can redirect type. Priorities get shuffled. The breed veers in a new direction.
Bred by Q.A Shaw McKean of Prides Hill and sired by the English import Ch. Badshah of Ainsdart, Ch. Rudiki of Prides Hill would become a top winner in the early ’40s in the hands of his eventual owner, Marion Florsheim, a nationally known aviatrix who flew her own plane and was active in Dogs for Defense during World War II. Rudiki would be featured on the cover of Life magazine, November 10, 1945. With Marion’s high profile and style, the bar for grooming and presentation was raised.
Rudiki’s career was before my time. But a backstage story Kay Finch related to me years ago distills what I’m suggesting. After a pause just long enough to create a sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat anticipation, Marion, in a glittery outfit and a teeny bit late, charged into the ring with Rudiki, leaving behind dissipating clouds of baby powder. “I copied that trick when I took Taejon into the groups,” Kay said. (“Not the glittery dress,” she added. “I had my own look.”) The crowd and the judges loved all of it. A fairy godmother had waved her magic wand, and Cinderella (in this case, Cinderfella) was off to the ball.
More glamour from the 1940s — Louise Synder and her Windtryst Hounds.
Kay and her famous Crown Crest greats dominated the rings much of time in the 1950s — Taejon, Ophaal, Mr. Universe, Ruby, Diamond, etc. — all more heavily coated than the original imports. All presented as only Kay could. Other prominent kennels emerged and competed with long, heavy coats — Majara, Holly Hill, Moornistan, Stormhill, etc. Coat had become king — with a few exceptions. Sunny Shay’s Grandeur dogs continued to maintain original patterning and were competitive often sporting less coat. The Abrams’ Dureigh dogs enjoyed successes with clearly patterned dogs. Others, here and there. However, the widely accepted trend was for more, not less coat. A number of breeders I knew from the ’60s and ’70s thought of a patterned coat as a fault and wouldn’t dream of taking one into the ring.
The age of the super-long coat had arrived and spread like wildfire as the king of dogs’ numbers grew to record heights. (In 1976 in California, a minimum of 163 class dogs had to be defeated for an Afghan male to reach his championship. It took 85 males for a five-point major. Note: Today it takes 10.) All, or mostly all, high-profile breeders of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s held long coats as a priority — Mike and I not excluded, as evidenced by one of our own early contributions to the frenzy of that era:
(Note: Hard to see, he did, however, have pastern breaks!)
Ch. Coastwind Gazebo, circa 1970s.
To be clear: I am not categorically opposed to heavily coated Afghan Hounds! We’ve had our share of them over the years. My requirement (and it’s a big one) is that the dog wears the coat. Not the other way around … and I do appreciate conditioning and presentation. I’m only human.
But at some point, Afghans had crossed a line from which they have yet to return. That line is what I’d call “designer grooming” which was (is) almost blatant in its defiance of the standard. Backcombed topknots, stripped saddles, trimmed feet, stripped necks front and back, highly manicured tail hair, etc. In a word: Bigger and better ballgowns. More sequins. OK, more than a word. You get the picture.
Still, the bigger problem existing in all the peripheral hoo-ha is that a dramatic, long and flowing coat is the first distraction from a multitude of shortcomings a dog may have underneath, and particularly distracting in the show ring, where judges have but a couple of minutes per dog to make their choices. A lot of coat and a bit of flash can be very intoxicating coverups for the ill-informed or insecure, be it judge or breeder.
Afghan Hounds are now on the cusp of becoming a rare breed. Today in California, a male Afghan can be titled by defeating a total of only 26 dogs, which includes the required two majors. Today in California, four dogs constitute a three-point major. In 1976, it was 41.
With entries at the lowest numbers in modern history and sometimes even specialty shows unable to generate majors, now might be a good time to take a step back. To rethink priorities. Look again at the early imports. Something may have been gained in the evolution that came from the population explosion. But the most identifiable characteristic of the breed — the unique coat pattern — became endangered. (A characteristic that, by the way, the standard requires be shown in its natural state.) It’s the first thing you see when you look at the breed. I say (again) to judges: Don’t be routinely dismissive of a patterned Afghan hound — even a highly patterned one. It’s what sets the breed miles apart from any other. It’s a big, big deal.
So, after beating a dead horse again, I close with a nod to the fairy-tale reference … It wouldn’t hurt Cinderella to take off those glass slippers and try on a pair of sensible shoes. Apart from the fact that the slippers weren’t hers to begin with, on the right princess (or prince), the sensible shoes are more appropriate than you might have been led to believe. Beautiful, even.