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It's a legendary dog. How many breeds do you know which
are thousand years old? The sheepdog is at least 400,000..
Its life was all hard experiences, a severe climate and
the everlasting enemy - wolf.
Climatic conditions of a huge Asian region vary but not
to such extent like in the Caucasian region. Besides,
Asia is turned out to be more isolated and its dogs are
of more pure breeds than in different regions. It would
be possible to assume that the Middle Asian Sheepdog has
the exterior very close to that of ancient dogs. In these
terms, the Middle Asian Sheepdog is of great value for
us.
In 2000 BC Asia was well developed both socially and
economically. Here started the epoch of cattle breeders
and nomads. Their life was unthinkable without a working
dog. The dog was loved and worshipped
According to a legend a king-conqueror Kir I from of
Ahamediny's dynasty in Iran was brought up by his adopted
mother called Spacka. In Persian "Spacka" means
"dog".
By the way, Slavs used to have two words for the dog.
One of them was applied to any representative of dogs
and quite often had a negative connotation while another
one had Persian origin and meant a vicious wardog. The
dog was loved and treated well both in the Turkic and
ancient Iranian civilizations.
The turning point in the history of the Middle Asia was
the Arab Conquest (651 DC), which brought a new religion,
culture and made the region a part of the biggest Middle
Ages state - Arab Caliphate. Arrival of Islam changed
sharply the attitude to dogs: the holy animal turned into
a grubby creature.
In the middle of the eleventh century on the territory
where ancient Turkmen lived (the Syr-Darya region) the
Seldguk-clan came into power. They converted to Islam
and moved to Iran and the Asia Minor with their vassals.
In the 14-15th centuries the Seldguk's descendants - the
Osmans started the Osman Empire. Thus, the Anatoly carabash,
a direct descendant of the Middle Asian dog, moved with
ancient Turkmen-nomads.
Another brunch of the Middle Ages nomads, that were the
ancestors of the Osetins, was known in Western Europe
as the Allans. It was the Allans whose dogs are associated
with the origin of many Mastiffs in Western Europe.
Then there was a powerful state of Timur. At the turn
of the fifteenth century Uzbek nomads invaded the state
and started a new dynasty. Different tribes related to
those that moved to the south created the Kazakh khanate
in heaths. A new epoch began in the history of the Middle
Asia. It was the epoch of a relative isolation, endless
wars, fights, which led to political, economical and cultural
recession.
There is a good point in this mixture of nations. The
civilization of the region was largely a civilization
of nomadic tribes. No nomad would have lived without a
dog. It protected his domestic animals from carnivores
and robbers, helped to run the cattle to a new place.
Now, just think of how many nomadic tribes crossed the
Great Heath during its history, how many of them settled
down and assimilated with tribes arrived there earlier.
Every new wave of migration brought dogs with it that
were different from those living there. Migrants mixed
with local dogs and their generations were selected naturally
according to their ability to survive in severe conditions.
A man's requirement was all time the same - perfect work
without any failure.
Thus through hundreds of years on the huge territory
of the Middle Asian region there was formed a perfect
breed - the Middle Asian Sheepdog. As a reflection of
the very complicated history of the dog there some inbreed
types but nowadays to trace their relations with particular
tribes and regions is impossible.
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