Kangal Dog in Literature
Found in travelers' accounts, natural historians' essays, fictional stories, and academic papers.
Here you can meet the Kangal Dog in written word. We will offer quotes from source material, as well as resources linking to books specifically on the breed, livestock protection, and canine history.
New 11/3/2008
Turkish Reflections by Mary Lee Settle
"We had gone through the town of Kangal, where the most famous sheep dogs in Turkey come from, the Kangal dogs, who stand as tall as Irish wolfhounds, and who wear iron collars with spikes six inches long that you can buy in country hardware stores. It is to protect them from the wolves that they are bred to attack on sight. They are half feral and completely loyal to the shepherds who train them.
As we were drving back toward Sivas, we saw ahead a large flock of sheep crossing the road, slowly, as sheep do, anthropomorphically arrogant and lackadaisical. There seemed to be hundreds of them. A Kangal dog sat in the road on either side of the flock to guard them from cars. We stopped. The dog in front of us sat quietly, between the Mercedes and the flock, hardly seeming to see us. She glanced once or twice at us, but mostly she stared at he flock, without moving, so strong that her spiked iron collar did not even make her hang her head.
We waited. Far in the distance beyond the flock another car waited. It was a time of all around patience. Nobody seemed to mind the interruption. The sheep and the shepherd had the right of way. Then I found out why.
When almost the last of the sheep had ambled across the road- two or three were still on the pavement- Yusuf started the engine to ready to move. When the dog heard the engine start, she attacked the car. She leapt over the hood at the windshield, her teeth bared. Yusuf turned off the engine again. The shepherd called her, and she slid off the hood and quite calmly she went back to her post until the last foot of the last sheep had crossed.
The shepherd leaned into the window of the car and apologized to Yusuf. We told him we thought his dog was beautifully trained. He laughed and said, "If you want her, open the door to the back seat and you can have her." She was the size of a small pony. When the last sheep was finally away into the field, the dog went after the flock, without noise; she herded by pointing like a bird dog if a sheep strayed at all. Then dogs, shepherd, and flock went out across the fields and we were allowed to move again."