Lotta Brun has asked me to contribute a regular round-up of UK Saluki news as reported in the weekly canine newspaper Our Dogs for which I am a breed correspondent, and this I am pleased to do.

A major concern for British Saluki exhibitors at the moment is the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the south of England.  The venue for two of the major events scheduled for the international Festival of the Saluki, planning for which has taken over three years, is currently in the centre of a 10 kilometre surveillance zone established on August 3^rd for 28 days following confirmation of an outbreak of Foot and Mouth on farm premises in the Guildford area. Movement in this zone is limited and events prohibited and, if extended, it will force the relocation, cancellation or postponement of the Saluki or Gazelle Hound Championship Show and Richmond Championship Show; both scheduled to take place at Loseley Park, Surrey towards the end of the first week of September.

During the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth in the UK in 2002 Crufts was postponed until May and other events such as the annual Saluki Rally had to be cancelled.  Given that postponement of two of the major events of the Festival is not feasible because of the travel arrangements made by overseas visitors, the committee of the SGHC and organisers of the Festival will no doubt be very anxious about developments in the Foot and Mouth crisis. However, at the time of writing (10th August) there are signs that the outbreak is being contained and restrictions in the affected area are being relaxed. Therefore it seems unlikely that the surveillance period will be extended, which is good news for the Festival organisers.

Another matter of concern to Saluki exhibitors which has been discussed in breed notes in recent weeks is the drop in breed entries at UK Championship Shows. Since 2000 entries have been relatively stable, averaging 71. However, this average represents an appreciable drop of around 25 from 1990 and an even greater drop since 1986 which saw a peak when Saluki entries averaged 109. In this same period the number of Saluki CCs allocated by the Kennel Club also dropped by 25%. 

The downturn in entries, which has been consistent for over twenty years, has progressed in a series of stages with entries levelling off for several years before dropping to a new lower level.  The trend seems unlikely to be reversed given a general feeling, also aired in recent breed notes that exhibitors are increasingly voting with their feet as the only way of effectively protesting about questionable judging.

After years of repudiating complaints by exhibitors, the Kennel Club took the unusual and long overdue step of acknowledging in its Kennel Gazette (August) that there are indeed people, some of them KC members, whose blatant and  questionable practices show scant regard for the spirit or letter of its regulations. The KC has therefore issued a code of practice and written to a number of high profile people appealing for some form of self regulation before it becomes necessary to impose controls.  This is the first time that the KC has broken what was described in an Our Dogs editorial as the ‘conspiracy of silence and compliance’ which allowed these practices to thrive. It remains to be seen whether the KC will act to curb those who have until now acted with impunity and reverse the trend in entries.

Helen Graham - daxlore@wanadoo.fr