How This Regal Canine Could Help Save the Mongolian Steppe
On the Mongolian steppe, there are predators, there are prey, and there are the bankhar. These large, powerful dogs weigh up to 125 pounds, with shaggy, thick coats that give them a bear-like appearance. For 15,000 years, bankhar dogs have been the guardians of the steppe.
In these grasslands, sheep and other livestock kept by traditional nomadic herders are under constant threat from wolves, eagles, and even snow leopards. For millennia, the bankhar safeguarded both animals and the family’s livelihood. In acknowledgement of their importance, bankhar dogs are the only animals that nomadic herders name. The bond is so special that herders believe humans can be reincarnated as bankhar, and bankhar as humans, another unique honor.
“What our ancestors used to tell us, and what our elders used to say to us, and what we believe in the community, is that having a bankhar is spiritually beneficial,” says traditional nomadic herder Nasantsetseg Battulga, through a translator. “There are four people in my household but, if we add our two bankhars, we consider ourselves a family of six,” she adds.
That special connection between herder and bankhar dog was nearly lost, along with the bankhar itself. Soviet-era socialist campaigns that sought to collectivize herds and encourage families into more sedentary patterns of subsistence had no place for the dogs. Let loose, exterminated, and turned into fur coats for fashionable Muscovites, the bankhar all but disappeared. The dogs survived only in isolated pockets scattered around the country.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/03/how-this-regal-canine-could-help-save-the-mongolian-steppe/
https://www.bankhar.org/bankhar-dogs/
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Boiled animal innards, rice and noodles. Spending the day active. Sounds like a natural diet is a lot more healthy than the typical American dog's China-produced commercial dog food and a day lounging on the sofa or floor.
Amazing doggies!
