“One Taz is able to feed the whole village”, nothern peoples used to say about Taz dogs. Hunting greyhounds have always been considered one of the seven prides of Kazakh people but starting from the 50s their population became to decrease. Today, there are just 300 Taz dogs left. Just like 300 Spartans.

This pureblooded Taz dog have cubbed and has 10 cute puppies.

These puppies are just one week old!

They take care of them as if they were infants! Only in a year, it will get clear which of them will be strong and which are weaker.

Taking care of little puppies is rather expensive but this man living in the surbubs of Almaty believes it to be his mission.

The Taz dog is a 100% Kazakh breed of dogs.

This man is a breeder and president of the Taz Dog National Club. He’s been dealing with this breed for over 20 years and has come here to check out the puppies.

He thoroughly examines each puppy.

These people are all dog breeders and every time they meet they can’t stop talking about dogs.

He took photographs of each puppy and wrote down some information about them.

He decided which dogs shall be mated (just like a god) but this is the power he has due to his knowledge.

By the way, there is no such a breed as the Taz dog officially. To register a breed, a lot of work has to be done. In this respect it is Turkey which wants to register this breed as a national breed.

To combine their dogs, knowledge and love for breeding, they opened a kennel 6 years ago in Kargaly Village, the Almaty Region.

This man is one of the few responsible for financing.

Nomad people liked this breed and let these dogs enter their homes. At the same time, Taz dogs are unpretentious and not food-grubbing. Kazakh people determine the quality of the dog also by the way it eats. The more careful the dog is, the better.

Each dog needs about 500 g of meat or 400 g of dog food a day. If they feed it bread and water, which is widespread in other villages, the dog may get sick.

They live in comfortable doghouses here.

It should be clean…

And warm!

This dog is the pride of the kennel and his father was well-known too.

These young dogs are beautiful too.

These are a male and a female Taz dogs and they are very promising. Breeders hope these dogs will have good puppies together.

However, it is not love, it is hunting which is a real passion of this breed.

They jump into the rear of the car every time they see it because they know that they are going to hunt!

After a short discussion, they decided to hunt for foxes.

They stopped by at another village to take a few horses for their hunting.

Sula was the first to smell a fox.

Everything happened really fast when those good-looking dogs turned into pitiless hunters.

The Taz dog may run as fast as 80 km/h giving not a single chance for a fox to escape.

Catching the fox, they immediately kill it.

There were times when these dogs saved people from starving.

See how the dog is looking at its owner? It’s waiting for a signal to hunt. Without this signal, it will never start attacking.

It takes these dogs some time to analyze the command and act which differs this breed from other dogs. They are more independent, can think by themselves and are not trainable. This is not the type of dog to bring you your slippers.

Hunting with Taz dogs implies having no arms.

Many years ago, Kazakh people used to take hunting birds too but modern Taz breeders prefer not to because birds might attack the dog or the hunter which is dangerous.

The hunt is over so they can go home.

This dog’s waiting for another hunt.

Location: The Almaty Region

via voxpopuli.kz