Cats and other small animals

Always remember that your saluki is a hunting dog by nature. The instinct to hunt is still very strong and to the saluki, small animals are a source of intrigue and are, essentially, prey to be chased and killed. You can teach your saluki to be accepting of cats and small fluffy dogs but always remember that while they might be friendly to a particular animal whom they know that unfamiliar animals may be viewed as prey.

Bicycles and Joggers

Both activities may be very provocative to a saluki.  A jogger may seem threatening – in the wild another animal does not advance directly at speed unless they are a predator – so your saluki may bark at them. Both cyclists and joggers run away, so the natural behavior of the saluki is to chase them. Teach your saluki from an early age that bicycles and joggers are not prey items to be chased. Reinforce this constantly throughout their lives.

General Behavioural Advice

Salukis are a sensitive breed and may not deal with all situations without becoming stressed. It is important that your saluki understands you and that you and your family are consistent in what you expect of your dog. All family members need to learn to project a calm, assertive energy so they are all viewed by your dog as the pack leaders. Dog trainer, Cesar Millan explains: “The first energy that a puppy experiences after birth is mom’s calm assertive energy. Later the puppy will follow a pack leader who projects the same calm, assertive energy out of association. As pack followers, dogs return a calm submissive energy that completes the pack balance. It is important to understand that most dogs are born to be submissive, because there can only be so many pack leaders.

“When a naturally submissive dog lives with a human that does not lead, he or she will attempt to right the pack balance by filling what they see as a vacant pack leader roll. This is how behavior problems develop. We must remember to reward a calm, submissive state, and to not nurture unwanted energy, like anxiousness or fear. Additionally, though, we must be consistent in our own energy.

“Just as a dog with no clear rules can become unbalanced, a dog whose human has unbalanced energy can become confused and anxious. It the human is exhibiting anger or fear or another weak energy state, the dog will sense that, and react in one of three ways. He will either try to correct it, avoid it, or mirror it. If the human is constantly going back and forth from calm to anxious to calm to angry and so on, the dog will have no idea what he is supposed to do and will act out unpredictably as well. To establish yourself as the pack leader, you must always project a calm, assertive energy. This natural balance (calm, assertive leadership with calm, submissive behavior) nurtures stability and creates a balance, centered, and happy dog.”

Feeding Advice:

What to Feed Your Puppy

This is the subject of much debate in the dog world.  Vets will almost always recommend that you feed a complete, dry food. The main reason is that inexperienced owners may not feed a balanced diet and the puppy may end up with a health problem due to an incorrect diet or too many supplements. Dry food has all the required nutrients and vitamins your dog requires but in our opinion it is lacking the most vital ingredient of all: fresh, natural, raw energy that cannot be replicated in processed food. In the wild, dogs hunt and kill their own food. To our knowledge dogs have never learned how to cook! It begs the question why so many people feed dogs every day on food that is not natural for a dog and yet are careful about their own.

We give our puppies and adults a variety of foods including raw and cooked meats, vegetables, fruit, pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, yoghurt, cottage cheese, eggs, hard cheese and a variety of other foods. Most dogs enjoy a varied diet or at least some additions to their staple, daily food. The foods to be avoided, which are toxic to dogs, are grapes, raisins and chocolate.

Adults: All our own dogs are fed on raw, minced beef, raw minced chicken and green (unwashed) tripe mixed with Royal Canin Club Trad dinner (made with dehydrated pasta, rice, vegetables and dry meat kibble) which has been soaked in hot water or gravy. Frozen tripe, minced chicken and minced beef in ½ kg packages are available from supermarkets, pet stores and dog food suppliers store or butcher may be able to supply you. You can store a quantity of meat in your freezer and defrost the required amount each day.  

Green tripe is rather smelly to deal with, however it is, in our opinion, one of the very best things you can feed your saluki, particularly a young puppy - PLUS the dogs love it!. However, we have to consider some alternatives if you don’t have a ready source of green tripe.

Other foods: Looking at some modern convenience foods, it must be remembered that with some of these diets your dog may well need his teeth cleaning regularly as they do not require any chewing effort. They may present a perfectly balanced nutritional diet but we believe that our dogs find this type of food boring if fed monotonously day after day. It is always important to remember that no matter how convenient they are to feed, they are all processed food and do not contain the natural energy and nutritional value provided by raw foods.

Vacuum sealed cooked meats and brawns. Usually packed in large plastic sausage shaped roles about 2lb in weight and offered in a variety of flavours. Our dogs have tried these and we found them fairly good, if a little ‘mushy’. Chop up and serve with soaked meal as above.

Tinned dog meats. The better quality brands are very good, but do steer clear of the cheap sloppy type as these seem to go straight through and come out a similar consistency at the other end!. You will have to feed more tinned meat than fresh meat on a weight for weight basis as they seem to contain a fair amount of water. At least 2 x 12oz tins will be required to keep weight on an adult. Mix with soaked meal as before.

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