A Letter to FCI by the President of the Turkish Kennel Club

To the participants at the Kangalkonvent in Germany in May 2008

“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 courteous Mrs von Buchwaldt, our dear friend Elisabeth who organized 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 organized this meeting. Unfortunately, because of my very busy program/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 course 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 extraordinarily 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 regulation, breed show regulations, breeding regulation, stud-book regulation, breeding regulations etc),organize 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 course 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 organizing a similar meeting and to get to know each other in person.”