Hortaya Borzaya
Appearance
The Hortaya Borzaya is a sight hound of a large to very large size depending on breed type. The breed has five distinct types, with at least as many subtypes to each main type. The result of this is a broad variability, adapting the breed to the large variety of geography, climate and prey found across the huge expanse of its habitat.
The short, dense fur can come in almost any color and color combination: white, black, cream of all shades, red, sable and brindle, solid or piebald (with white markings, or white with colored markings). A black overlay and black mask, grey or red tan markings are normal. The nose is black, with light colors a brown nose is not a fault. Eyes always have a black or very dark rim.
Atypical colors and markings, like brown or chocolate, a saddle or dapple pattern, and diluted colors (isabella) with blue or light eyes are not allowed.
Hortaya males range from 26 to 30 inches (65 to 75 cm), females from 24 to 28 inches (61 to 71 cm). The weight depends largely on type and can range from 18 kilograms (Stavropol type female) up to 35 kilograms (Northern type male). In general the Hortaya is heavier than it looks.
When not hunting the typical gait of the breed is a fluid, limber and effortless trot. When chasing the prey Hortaya gallop in extremely fast leaps of great length.
Temperament
The Hortaya Borzaya is of a friendly, but distinctly Asian character. It is never aggressive or fierce towards humans, even though occasionally quite vigilant. Due the rigorous selection on hunting in a team with its owner, the Hortaya belongs to the trainable sight hounds, showing a good basic obedience and high intelligence.
It is very close to wolves in its pack behavior. Thus it is usually no problem to keep even larger groups of Hortaya together in a kennel, Hortaya integrate easily.
As rural people in Eurasia do not at all tolerate dogs which harm their livestock, properly socialized Hortaya do not hunt domestic animals, and can easily be taught which animals are off limits to them.
Health
The dog breed is late in development, very vigorous and longlived. It is not rare that older dogs, retired from active hunting, start their breeding career at an age of 8 or 9 years in perfect health and without any impairment. Breed specific illnesses or hereditary diseases, hip dysplasia and elbow dysplasia are so far unknown. The life expectancy of the Hortaya Borzaya largely depends on its use. In regions where they are hunted on large prey, especially predators, there may be quite some dogs killed young during the hunt. If you subtract these dangers, 14-15 healthy years as an average is not uncommon.
However, great care has to be taken in not over-feeding the Hortaya pup and juvenile Hortaya. The breed was formed on a meagre, extremely basic and low diet with but rare and small amounts of meat, especially high quality meat.
Most of the year Hortaya get little more than the scraps from the table, a gruel of oats, bread soaked in milk and whatever rodents they can hunt for themselves around the house. Only during the spring slaughter/lambing season and the main hunting season they get more meat: the innards and offal from what they hunt for their masters. As a result this breed has practically no tolerance for high quality, high protein dog foods and supplements, and especially the young, still growing dogs will suffer irreversible and lethal damage to their bone structure and cartilage when faultily fed.
Use and activity
In its original habitat, the Hortaya Borzaya is still purely a hunting dog sight hound. It is used on all game living in the steppe, especially for hunting hares, foxes, wolves and Saiga antelopes. It is extremely enduring, capable of working from early morning to late evening. Up to 8–10 runs on game in a day (including tracking prey together with the hunter across large distances) is a perfectly feasible workload. Unlike the Whippet or Greyhound, the Hortaya is not a short distance sprinter. Game is usually chased for distances up to 4 km (2.5 miles) on the open steppe, and a Hortaya can repeat such runs after only a short rest. Unlike most sight hounds, the Hortaya does not hunt using sight alone; it often will track game it has lost sight of using its well-developed sense of smell.
Hortaya hunt singly on smaller game, or as pairs and larger groups on wolves, antelopes and deer. Small game is hunted and killed immediately, larger game is cornered and held in place for the hunter. The Hortaya has a "soft mouth" like the Retriever breeds. After a quick kill, the game must not be rent as native hunters also use the furs. In the CIS hunting sight hounds are regularly tested, judged and graded in so-called "hunt trials".
The first Hortaya have recently been officially exported with full breeding papers to European countries, e.g. Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany (2004), Finland and Switzerland. In 2005, the first Hortaya was also exported to the USA. Some of these dogs participate in racing and coursing, partly out of competition due to the lack of international FCI recognition. Hortaya owned by European owners have shown an aptitude for Agility, Breitensport and have proven to be excellent trail companions for horseback riders. The first registered litter outside of the Hortaya's historical habitat was born in Europe in 2006.
Breeding
Contrary to the practice of Western breeding and breeders of other dog breeds, the Hortaya is not regarded as an unfinished breed which still needs any amelioration or even formation.
The shorthaired sightdog of the southern Eurasian steppes, which today trades under the name of Hortaya Borzaya, was bred in this habitat for thousands of years, is a breed as old as the Tazi/Saluki and only marginally younger than the Bakhmul/Afghan. For newcomers it would be unwise to be deceived by the relatively recent standard.
Analogous to the oriental and Asian breeds of thoroughbred horses the original breeders of Hortaya consider it rightfully as firmly consolidated. An improvement into any direction therefore is not part of breeding Hortaya. This is an important and massive difference to the western way of dog breeding and it has far reaching, very positive consequences for the breeding practice.
As no changes are striven for the breeding methods used among other breeds to achieve them, like incest, inbreeding or linebreeding, are practically non-existent. These methods are seriously frowned upon among Hortaya breeders. It is extremely rare that ancestors appear twice among the first 4-6 generations of a pedigree. In fact, Hortaya breeders try hard to achieve the farthest possible outcross. This is one important reason why the breed is so healthy in spite of its relatively small population.
Another consequence is the application of the breed standard. It does not describe any ideal dog which should be bred for, as it is with other dog breeds. Instead the Hortaya standard is a standard of exclusion: it only and very simply describes the boundaries outside of which a dog would not be considered acceptable. Anything else would be pointless, as it is the active endeavour of Hortaya breeders to preserve the large variety of types and sub-types of the breed, which may seem being totally different breeds to the layman.
Additionally, with the Hortaya it is its hunting ability which is the measure of everything, anything else is quite secondary regarding selection.
Looking at all this it also becomes clear, why an international acceptance of this breed by the FCI is not regarded as being very desirable by the majority of Hortaya aficionados. The breed's breeding practice, its consolidated state and its truly extreme phenotypical diversity do not really fit into the actual breeding and judging practices of today's FCI or of any other major kynological federation. Any international FCI acceptance which would not result in immediate harm to the breed needs major, important groundwork and decades of preparation. Currently the direct and immediate consequence would be the undesirable separation into show and work lines, and into western and original Hortaya.
