page_title: Azawakh
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Azawakh / Origin
context_page_description: The Azawakh is a breed of dog from West Africa. It is also used as a sighthound, they have been relegated to a secondary function of camp guardian due to the lack of game in the region. With ancient origins, it is raised throughout the Sahelian zone of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. This region includes the Azawagh Valley for which the breed is named. While commonly associated with the nomadic Tuareg people, they are also bred and owned by other ethnic groups such as the Peulh, Bella, and Hausa. The Azawakah is more related to the Sloughi than it is to the Saluki.
context_section_description: The breed originated from the pariah dogs of sub-Saharan Africa—also called bush dogs or basenji—and is also closely related to the Sloughi of the Maghreb. Despite morphological similarities, mitochondrial DNA evidence shows that it is only very distantly related to other sight hounds. Azawakh have a rare glucose isomerase allele (GPIᴮ) that occurs only in foxes, jackals, Italian wolves, Sloughi dogs and a handful of other quite unrelated rare dogs found mostly in Japan. The presence of the GPIᴮ suggests an ancient differentiation of the Azawakh from other dog populations. Petroglyph rock art dating from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago during the Green Sahara (also known as the Holocene and Neolithic Subpluvial) shows cursorial dogs in conjunction with hunters. Archaeologists have found dog bones buried in Holocene settlements in the Sahara. At the close of the Holocene Wet Phase in the 4th millennium BCE, the Sahara returned to desert and created a formidable physical barrier to travel. Together, this evidence suggests that the Azawakh population has a unique genetic heritage and that it has been largely isolated from other dog populations for millennia.
  In the common era the Sahel dogs are almost totally isolated from northern dogs by the Sahara, but the ties to the pariah dogs to the south are extremely close. Azawakh are virtually indistinguishable from the Sahel pariah dog population from which they are drawn. In addition to a basic physical structure, the Azawakh share a number of unique traits with the pariah dogs:
  intense suspicion of the unknown
  strong guarding instinct
  pack hunting behavior
  complex social hierarchies
  unique vocalizations
  extra pre-molar teeth
  strong instinct to dig up big dens
caption: Azawakh among the Tuareg
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