Alabai rivals horse for national affection
Agift for foreign leaders, a subject of presidential poetry and the inspiration for a new statue in the capital — the alabai shepherd dog’s stock has never been higher in horse-loving Turkmenistan.
For as long as anyone can remember — or 4,000 years, according to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov — this barrel-chested, large-skulled breed has been at the side of nomads and their flocks in the desert country.
Outside Turkmenistan, the dog that reaches up to 85 centimeters in height and has a tough, wiry coat is known as a sub-breed of the Central Asian shepherd dog.
In Turkmenistan the dog is listed as national heritage, and its status is growing every day thanks to Berdymukhamedov, who is using the alabai to help foster a sense of national pride.
In a tome on the alabai, published this year, Berdymukhamedov wrote that Turkmen ancestors “saw in the horse our dreams, and in the alabai our happiness.”
In September he presented cabinet members with a poem about the dog as a “symbol of achievement and victory” that has since been converted into song. And earlier this month he unveiled a plan to build a statue to the dog — potentially as high as 15 meters — in the capital Ashgabat. This was an honor previously only accorded to horses.
According to long-term watchers of country, Berdymukhamedov’s frequent appearances on state media with alabai are more than just a personal quirk.
Like the Akhal-Teke horse, a national breed reputed for its grace and beauty, the alabai “assists the state in solidifying the idea of the territory of Turkmenistan as firmly Turkmen,” said Victoria Clement, a historian and author of the book
“Learning to Become Turkmen.”
While alabai are commonly kept as house pets in Ashgabat, it is the rural half of Turkmenistan’s 5.5 million population that has the deepest connection with the dogs, which are also used by border patrols and police.
Ashir-aga Ishanov, 73, was frightened of the alabai as a child until his shepherd grandfather reassured him it would never harm a human. One night when their desert camp was surrounded by a pack of howling wolves, he witnessed the combative qualities of the dog.
“My grandfather and I jumped out of the yurt and saw a wolf grab a sheep,” said Ishanov, who revealed his alabai rushed after the wolf and took a chunk out of its neck, causing the pack to retreat in fear. “I was overcome by the courage of our dog.”
Attempts to export the alabai are criminally punishable — a Kazakh ambassador’s effort to smuggle a dog out of the country in 2005 caused a diplomatic scandal. But some lucky foreigners have received the dogs as gifts. Berdymukhamedov handed Russian President Vladimir Putin an alabai puppy as a 65th birthday present in 2017.
The alabai is trained to fight from a young age and breeders clip the dogs’ ears and cut their tails down to stumps in preparation for battle.
The battles are stopped “when one of the dogs shows fear,” said Dovlet Kurikov, who served for more than a decade as head of Turkmenistan’s leading alabai association. During a tour of kennels at his home, Kurikov pointed proudly to a 100-kilogram dog called Gaplan, which won Turkmenistan’s national alabai fight championship in 2018.
Such champions can fetch over US$25,000, Kurikov said.
(AFP)