why-animals-do-the-thing:

ladyofthefanart:

why-animals-do-the-thing:

Here’s another similar ask on the subject that came in:

“

You recently got into a discussion on dog body types and obesity and ended up comparing the body of a healthy azawakh and an overweight one, but in the picture you used for the healthy dog you could see its ribs. So I was wondering what about the breed or any type of dog could lead to that being a healthy appearance. Is is something with what the dogs were originally breed for or maybe the environment? (it was also mentioned that azawakhs are capable of withstanding extremely high temperatures)
“

These are the dogs involved in the question, for those just tuning in:

Correct weight azawakh above, obese below. 

I asked @desertwindhounds to answer this for me because she’s got a huge background in sighthounds, both from her own breeding and extensive research. Here’s her take:

“

Azawakh have what is known as very ‘dry’ musculature and skin. The muscles are very flat and the skin is very thin and tight, and their coat is typically very thin with very short hair. Combined with the lack of body fat, what you get when you are looking at many Azawakh is the same effect as a human body builder (without the deliberate dehydration.) This is an endurance runner, not a sprinter with big bunchy fast twitch muscles like a racing greyhound. The look is simply the way the dog is constructed.

The purpose of fat and muscle is not to ‘cushion the bones’ on any dog, muscles move the dog and fat provides insulation or energy storage. You do NOT want a layer of fat on a working sighthound, it insulates the body. Running produces a lot of heat and some of that is dumped through the skin, a fat layer prevents that and the dog will overheat. Most sighthounds appreciate a bed to lie on, but something I have never seen in a country of origin dog, which don’t typically have cushions or blankets, they sleep on the ground, in a basic shelter, or in a den, is pressure sores. COO Azawakh have a large variety of appearance, and many do not have the extremely dry look that is appreciated by Western breeders. It’s a matter of personal preference in Western breeding. 

 Note that the coat has a good deal of influence on how thin and dry the dog looks. A smooth Saluki in hard condition with no body fat and a very short coat can have a similar dry appearance. A feathered Saluki in the same condition would not, because the coat is long enough to smooth out the appearance, it hides the extreme contours. With coated sighthounds like Borzoi or Afghans you’d never see that degree of dryness, the hair hides it. Sighthounds also have much thinner skin than other dog types, and a good sighthound will have very tight, elastic ligaments, including the layer under the skin (if you pull the skin up on a sighthound, it should pull back strongly), so the skin will actually ‘cling’ more tightly to the dog, emphasizing the musculature. 

 It is really difficult to explain this to someone who is freaked out by the appearance. It helps to get your hands on such a dog. They do NOT feel frail or sickly, they feel solid and muscular, dense, and they should have plenty of muscle over the loin and along the withers. It feels, frankly, like running your hands over a human marathon runner with little body fat. Same thing, actually, except that humans are constructed in such a way that they don’t have a lot of pokey boney bits that are visible.
“

This is something you can also see in the Akhal-Teke horses. My friend and I often discussed the fact that one of my character designs was unrealistic because ‘any animal that looks “shrinkwrapped” with visible pokey boney bits is unhealthy.’

This is not so. You see conformation like that of the Azawakh and the Akhal-Teke in basically any larger animal that’s bred to run long distances for long periods of time, over harsh terrain, in warm weather, and live on sparser rations.

Akhal-Tekes are NOTORIOUS in the equestrian community for their strange shape and are often called the ‘sighthounds/greyhounds of horses’. Like the Azawakh, the Teke is supposed to have thin, tight skin and tight, elastic ligaments, and that’s why almost all Akhal Tekes have the muscles on their ribs appear far more pronounced than other similarly-built horse breeds like the Thoroughbred and even the Marwari, who’s closer in conformation to the Teke than any other horse breed. The weirdly long back and very narrow loin and croup are a product of breeding for speed and stamina in sparse conditions not unlike the ones Azawkh and other sighthounds come from (namely, southern Turkmenistan). The chestnut horse in the bottom picture above is probably not a pure Teke specifically because the back isn’t as long and the legs and chest are layered with thicker muscles rather than thin wiry muscles like the topmost picture and the ones below.

Whenever you CAN’T see an AKhal-Teke’s ribs (you can see them here if you look close, however this horse appears to be young and therefore not quite as muscular, and the dapples on its coat help to hide the faint shape of its ribs) and its barrel doesn’t have that extreme upward slope around the stifle (the ‘tuck’ discussed in the dogs) it’s generally an indication that the horse isn’t in great shape, because their physical appearance is a direct product of breeding, AND their environment–and this lean and trim physique isn’t at all uncommon in animals bred for endurance roles in harsh environments.

But to anyone who isn’t well-versed in the breed, like my teacher who owns Thoroughbred racehorses and has never seen an Akhal-Teke in her life, these horses look bizarre, emaciated and deformed. Just like most people would probably consider any animal with visible ribs unhealthy, but that’s because I feel a lot of times people go by human standards of ‘healthy physical appearance’. Generally, if you can see that many bones on a human, they’re underweight, even if they’re really just in trim, good shape. But you can’t use those same standards on an animal, and of course, again, there’s no substitute for actually being in front of the animal and being able to feel it. Akhal-Tekes are REALLY sturdy horses. Most horses don’t want to budge when they’re in the cross-ties and you need them to scoot over, but if you push your weight against their side enough eventually they will move to avoid losing their balance. Tekes just kind of….stay where they are. Like a rock. Which goes to show that there’s a LOT of raw strength in these ‘sickly-looking’ animals.

Sorry for hijacking your post about dogs. The discussion about sighthounds just really reminded me of this.

No need to apologize – this is great information! I knew of Akhal-Tekes from the photos of the famous “golden horse” but I didn’t realize they had such interesting conformation.