History of the Dogs

Many people inquire why the Boz are larger than the average Kangal.  I believe that it might be due to the fact that the area in which isolated pockets of these once plentiful HUGE Livestock Guardian dogs are found is the Toros or Taurus Mountain range.  The Taurus Mountains are one of the last strongholds of the Anatolian Wolves, Leopards, Lynx and Bear.  Until the late 19th century, and up to the mid 20th century, Hyena, Lions and Tigers also roamed the Taurus Mountains until they were hunted to extinction.  For the Nomads, having a Huge and physically capable Guardian Dog to protect their flocks was probably a necessity to their survival.

These dogs have many names, depending on the region or peoples describing them.  Called Guregh or Boz by the Nomadic Shepherds, or mistakenly Kangals by some others.  Some call them by the area or city from which they came, Urfa, Tuzkoy, Konya or Denizli.  Basically they are a Landrace or Regional Varient of the Yoruk, and some say that they are what most of the Yoruk used to be like before many of the Nomadic Shepherds were forced to settle.

One of the Ancient tribes of Nomads that made up the current population were the Bozoklar (Brown Arrows) people, and referred to as the BOZ  by the Ottomans.  There is also the Boz Mountain or Mountains which are part of the Toros or Taurus Mountains from which they come.  In the ancient language of the Nomads, BOZ translates to "Big Strong Fighting Man".  Boz is the name adopted by the majority of the breeders in Turkey that breed this Landrace Regional Dog.

The Taurus Mountains was home to the Halaf peoples that had been there since the stone age 12,000-15,000 years ago.  First documentation of the domestication of sheep, and protection dogs with curled tails goes back to 6,000BC in the same mountains.  Since then, many migrations of peoples, livestock and dogs have come through the area, but the same Nomadic Pastoralist have persisted until today, with their evolved breeds of sheep, and their huge dogs to protect them.  As many of the Livestock Guardian Breeds from the area, the Boz Shepherd has had selection for Guardian Characteristics for around 8,000 years while performing the same duties as protectors of the flocks. With this consistant selective pressure toward Guardianship, this has become deeply ingrained or inate in them.  Six to Eight week old puppies will face down danger to defend their owner, something that is nearly unheard of with most breeds.  This is the story of the Boz Shepherd, a dog almost lost to industrialization, war, forced settlement and a shift away from the Nomadic Shepherds way of life.  

In recent years, Akin Tulubas has traveled throughout the South and Southeast regions of Turkey in search of dogs of this type.  Urfa, Tuzkoy, Denizli, Konya, Nevsehir and other areas of the Taurus Mountains are were these dogs come from.With the Boz as his passion, he has become a preservationist.  When he finds quality dogs that meet the type, he works to purchase or trade for some of them.  When unable to do this, he will place a male or female with the shepherd.  This dog will be raised as a working guardian for the purpose of breeding to the shepherds unrelated stock.  When the puppies have proven themselves as Livestock Guardians, he will return to select a dog for his breeding program.  In areas that have lost all their great dogs, he will give dogs to the shepherds for testing and breeding.  With doing this, he has an estimated 2000+ dogs placed out with shepherds from which he can select offspring from.  Few breeders have this resource for the purpose of preserving or improving a breed.  

Akin Tulubas also works to preserve the Turkish Tazi and Turkish Kangal.  He has organized and developed the Turkish Coban Kopegi Club in Turkey, and organized and judges dogs in 5-6 dog shows annually where Turks bring Kangals, Akbas, Boz and Malakli dogs to help promote responsible breeding and preservation.

Please also visit Boz Information/Breed History for the Boz Shepherd.

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Excerpted from the article "New Finding Puts Origins of Dogs in Middle East", written by Nicholas Wade, published by The New York Times, March 17, 2010.  For the full article visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/science/18dogs.html?pagewanted=all

"Borrowing methods developed to study the genetics of human disease, researchers have concluded that dogs were probably first domesticated from wolves somewhere in the Middle East, in contrast to an earlier survey suggesting dogs originated in East Asia.

In South East Turkey, where the Boz are more common, the lines between Tazi and Shepherd dogs are not as distinct. The speed, agility and style of gaits of the Boz seem to mimick the Tazi.

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Excerpted from http://www.anatoliandog.org/isik-003.htm

"Speed The information we have about their speed comes from the timings reported when they chase along with the cars and trucks in the open spaces. They can reach 65km/hr (40mph) and keep this speed for 1 km. (.6 miles), 50-km/hr (31mph) speed for 2km (1 mile) and 40km/hr (25mph) speed for 5km (3 miles) can be maintained. Unlike English Greyhounds, Tazi are best at long distance running. The lines that are specialized in hare hunting are faster than Tazis specialized in Gazelle (Ceylan) hunting. The long distance runners used to be abundant in Adana, Urfa, and Mardin where Gazelles were abundant until the 1960s. Tazis are better at taking sharp curves compared with English Greyhounds. Unlike racing horses or most of the dog breeds, when tazi gallops all four feet are suspended in the air. This is also called a light gallop.

The double suspension gallop can also be seen in some shepherd dogs as well. According to DVM Gurkan Kalayci, the white shepherd dogs of Siirt, a city in the South East of Turkey, were able to reach 65 km/hr (40mph) for about 400 meters (.2 miles).The speed of these dogs was measured when Kalayci was in a military Jeep in 1986-87. When he informed me about these dogs describing them as shepherd dogs, he clearly did not mean Tazis. I consider the source a reliable one and then I can safely assume that some Tazis should be able reach up to 75 km/hr (47mph).

The local shepherds informed Tulubas that the history of their Tazis is as old as the shepherd dogs.  I believe that Ay’s information about the jumping and suspension abilities of Tazis are worth further study.  The behavioral structure of the Tazis and Shepherd dogs do meet under certain conditions. Some shepherd dogs are almost as fast as the Tazis, and some Tazis are thicker boned than the others and aggressive. These deviations do not fit into the general temperament description of both types of dogs, but the models developed to understand the facts better are good for scientific studies to make generalizations. Perhaps what Kalayci saw in Siirt were Tazi-like shepherd dogs. They had the speed and the guarding and the chasing instinct altogether. Chasing can be considered as a "preemptive" guarding."  (Many of the Boz could fit into this description.)

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Excerpted from http://olions.wordpress.com/2006/09/13/dogbreeds-of-the-ottoman-empire/

"Dogbreeds of the Ottoman Empire:  Using the medium of Ottoman historical records and the observations of early Western travelers in Asia Minor, principally in the nineteenth century, we are able to trace the presence and use of dogs in Ottoman Turkey. These observations clearly establish that the Ottomans recognized several breeds of dogs, protected their purity, and long ago established the precedent for the multiple breed classification of the modern dogs of Turkey.

Evliya Efendi (1614-1682) or, as he is also named, Evliya «elebi, regarded as a usually reliable source by modern Turkish scholars (Shaw, 1976), recorded in his monumental Seyahatname (Book of Travels) that the seventeenth century Ottomans recognized two distinct breeds of agricultural guard dogs (Evliya, 1834).

One guard dog breed was named the Samsun dog. They reputedly originated in the vicinity of Kastamonu, a Turkish city not far from the Black Sea port of Samsun. Evliya described them as,Their keepers among the Janissaries, the elite infantry units of the Ottomans, occupied special barracks and were called samsunji’s. “…large dogs, like lions…”.   The second guard dog breed, which was reputed to originate from the shores of Africa, then a part of the Ottoman Empire, was described as “…large dogs, the size of asses, and fierce as lions.”  On festival days, these great dogs were led in procession by two or three men holding them by chains. On such occasions, the dogs were decked out in satin cloth covers and wore silver collars with iron points.

In peace time, these two breeds were used primarily by the Court and the Janissaries as livestock guarding dogs on the mandras or sheepwalks. We may infer, however, that they also doubled as combat dogs in time of war as some of them wore armor in parades and, as Evliya notes, they could “…on command pull a man down from his horse, however stout he may be…”."

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Visit the link http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/2056628/genetics_show_eastern_wolves_are_coyote_hybrids/ for  a genetic study showing Wolf / Coyote / Dog  Hybrids in the South and Eastern US.

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Turkish Dog Federation is currently registering Turkish Boz through WAD in Turkey 

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