From the president of the turkish kennel club

Dear friends, dear Kangal fans

By my friends generous appreciation, I have been chosen as President
of our young federation, right after its establishment in September
2006 and the courtious Mrs von Buchwaldt, our dear friend Elisabeth
who organised this meeting, invited also us to participate; I would
like to thank Elisabeth, for her efforts to help the Kangal dog
breed in all ways one can think about and also because she organised
this meeting. Unfortunately, because of my very busy
programme/schedule , I could not come to Germany to attend the
meeting and have the opportunity to meet you all.

Therefore I decided to ask my dear friend and companion Onur, to
read this letter to you;

I am sure he will address you in a much better way than I could have
done.

I firstly would like to tell you a little about our federation;

When establishing the federation we had already fixed our path and
had put our aims/goals; Like it is stated in the paragraph
describing the aims of the federation, the federation’s main goal
is to have the Turkish dog breeds registered by the FCI on Turkey,
starting with the Kangal dog breed, which according to our
estimation is more in danger than the others.

Beside the main goal, of coarse our federation also aims to bring
the cynology up to the standards put by the FCI, like in all other
member countries. As you all know very well, to be able to reach
these goals, we have to get member of the FCI and the necessary
procedure normally takes a long time.

To be able to have our beloved breed registered by its correct name
though, we have to be sure and to show those who claim there is only
one shepherd dog breed in Anatolia, in a very correct and scientific
way, that starting with the Kangal dog, there are more than one
breed of shepherd dogs exiting in Anatolia.

On the other hand, the breed is threatened in several ways;

-The dog fighters claiming to breed heavier and bigger dogs and to
achieve this, cross the valuable Kangal dog with the Anatolian
Mastiff (which actually is at least as valuable as the Kangal dog)
creating a new type;

-The mistakes done on the Kangal festival, especially the wrong,
amateur way of judging the dogs, again encouraging the crossbreeding
with the Anatolian Mastiff even in the villages;

-The ego of the breeders, coming together with the uncontrolled
breeding;

-The economical factor; the decreasing of the breeding sheep
paralelly the decreasing of the dog breeding and possible buyers
preferring to buy big dogs causing the breeders to try breeding
bigger, that means crossbreeding with other molossus breeds;

-Last but not least the TVT (Transmissible Veneral Tumor) spreading
around very fast, not only because of the nature of the disease, but
also because of the ignorance and the carelessness of the dog owners.

To put an end to this cross-breeding of uncontrolled, chaotic
situation, to save the Kangal Dog from getting lost, we have to put
an end to all pressure on the breed.

This is what we are decided to do and when we will be finished with
our work, the Kangal Dog will be safe.

To achieve all this, we have to get a member of the FCI, or with
other words, our membership has to start. And of coarse we have to
work hand in hand, supporting each other all the time

Today we have come to a point which, from our point of view, looks
to be much clearer than it had been in the past few years,
concerning our relations with FCI.

FCI has already assigned a guide to us for the first active years;
Dr. Urosevich has been sent to Turkey several times already and we
are co-operating quite well with him. We hope we will be able to go
on working with him, since he is very willing to help and is
extraordinairly straight forward/ honest.

To have our membership to the FCI started as soon as possible, we
try everything we can do; we translate and adapt regulations
(national shows regs, breed show regs, breeding regs, stud-book
regs, breeding regs etc),organise judge seminars, cynology seminars
and try to make our people understand and consider the cynological
point of view; we also prepare small meetings to explain our people
why we need to get a member to the FCI and what we all have to do to
accomplish this and how do we have to proceed: of coarse adding the
advantages we will all gain not only as breeders and dog people, but
as the Turkish Nation and friends all over the world.

Lets hope that very soon we all will be able to know/be sure whether
our dogs are purebred and true Kangals or whether they re crossbred
and to be able to have them judged according to the FCI criteria
compatible, correct breed standard and know whether they do have
mistakes or they are perfect samples, just like we all wish them to
be.

Doing all the job is great fun for us, but the more important point
for all of us and will be not to get lost in details or get stuck up
in a stupid fight for nothing, so that each of us can be able to
love and enjoy our dogs whatever breed they are called

For all of us our friends and dogs have always been very precious
and they ever will be.

I wish the best of everything for those who came a long way just to
see other Kangal dog friends and exchange their opinion with others.
I hope I will be able to participate the next time any of you
organising a similar meeting and to get to know each other in person.


Elisabeth von Buchwaldt
www.sivas-kangal.de