If I could put words in the African dog’s mouth, they would go something like this: “Well, if renowned football coach José Mourinho can say that he is a special one and Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp can say that he is the normal one, then with my very long ancestry I think I can definitely say that I am the original one”.
It’s easy to imagine these tough, smart, confident and independent dogs that I see along the road in Namibia having their say. They have attitude. As if they are running their own show.
And so they are. They have, after all, been around for the last 7000 years!
Overlooked for many years when they were typically regarded as ‘mongrels, ‘pavement or township specials’ and ‘braks’, they have in recent years been acknowledged for what they actually are: the quintessential dog of Africa with a rich and ancient family tree.
While talking to a friend the other day, he mentioned that when he told his mother that he had acquired yet another dog, she asked: “Is it a dog or is it a brak?” as if they were two separate species. Well, Ma, you’ll be surprised to know that the derogatory Afrikaans word ‘brak’, which is so widely used in Namibia and South Africa, derives from the old high German word ‘braccho’ referring to the dog’s highly developed sense of smell and the French word ‘braque’ for hunting dog.
The African dog has its own pure-bred status honed from years of survival in rural Africa and the African veld. Thanks to the efforts of Johan and Edith Gallant and Dr Udo Küsel, former director of the National Cultural History Museum, the African dog has now come into its own and been given the name Africanis – a term combining the words ‘Africa’ and ‘canis’. Its slender form and resilience have evolved over the centuries, like Nguni cows and Damara sheep, producing a dog that is best suited to the African conditions and climate. Without human interference, the dogs have gone ahead with the more daily necessities of survival. Besides being man’s best friend, they have had countless aeons to perfect walking through thorn scrub, running like the wind and gliding along on hard gravel without effort, as if they have been born into it. Which, indeed, they have.
So, where did the African dog come from, you may well ask. It is believed to have originated from Arabian and Indian wolves. In the book ‘The story of the African dog’, Johan Gallant describes how dogs were domesticated in the Orient 10 000 years ago and were brought to Africa 3000 years later. Nomadic herdsmen crossed into Africa from the Middle East, across the Suez isthmus, with their flocks of sheep and goats in search of grazing or to trade with their neighbours, bringing their dogs with them. The characteristic shape of the African dog is depicted in Ancient Egyptian artwork and hieroglyphic script.
Dogs gradually spread from the Nile Valley westwards and southwards down Africa, adapting physically, mentally and behaviourally, according to natural selection, over the millennia. They accompanied early Bantu groups on their southward migration from central Africa, becoming over time the medium-sized, hardy, disease-resistant breed we are familiar with today.
In southern Africa, the Bantu speaking groups made contact with the hunter-gatherer San and pastoralist Khoikhoi, introducing their dogs and cattle. Although some cross-breeding of dogs may have occurred when the Dutch came into contact with the Khoikhoi in the mid-1600s when they established a farming post in the Cape, their dogs were ill-equipped for the African conditions and it is unlikely that they dramatically impacted the strong gene pool of the African dog. Later on, when other European breeds were brought into the subcontinent, the African dog continued to be an integral part of the African village and homestead, retaining its general appearance and characteristics. According to Gallant ‘These dogs have a 10 000-year-old natural pedigree and constitute a gene pool which has remained undisturbed for almost as long as that. In terms of purity of lineage, they represent the real aristocracy of the dog world . . . ‘.
Whenever I travel to the northern reaches of Namibia, especially to the Zambezi Region, the African dogs always make an impression on me and quickly bring a smile to my face. It may be a group of dog friends on an inspection tour of the neighbourhood or a male, strong and self-assured, trotting to the next village to visit his girlfriend. I can hear him saying: “I am the original one.”
In the 1990s, the Gallants, inspired by the fieldwork of researcher Sian Hall, visited numerous communities and met many people and hundreds of dogs around southern Africa. Collaborating with traditional healer Joseph Sithole, they learned about the common behaviour traits and appearance of the African dog. During their years of research and time spent with many African dogs, including their own, the Gallants established that the qualities of the African dog include intelligence and good-naturedness, and that the dogs are consistently healthy and resistant to parasites. They also came to the conclusion that the African dog deserves not only our attention, but our appreciation, understanding, admiration and love – in return for thousands of years of service and loyalty that it has bestowed on humankind.
Getting to know and love my family’s own Africanis dogs, courtesy of the SPCA, I have to agree. Although I think that each dog, regardless of breed, has its own individual character and that the human-dog relationship is a special one, I can’t help feeling proud that this extraordinary dog originated on African soil.
If you have an African dog, please share the photos with us. We would love to meet them.
.png)
SUBMIT YOUR COMMENT