First introduced to the West in 1907 the Afghan Hound’s roots date back to the pharaohs of Egypt and is derived from the ancient sighthounds of the Middle East. The Afghan Hound eventually made its way to Afghanistan where it exists in three varieties: short haired; fringe haired and the long thick haired much favored in the West and a darling of dog shows.

Although the records no longer exist, the Afghan Hound made its debut to the western world around the late 1890s. The Afghan dog breed was initially met with little enthusiasm until the appearance of an Afghan Hound named Zardin in 1907 (belonged to Captain Barff) which dog fanciers in Britain were much taken with and felt epitomized how the Afghan Hound breed should look. By the early 1920s the Afghan Hound’s foray into the West was cemented much in part due to the passage of returning British military officers and their families (India-Afghanistan Border Wars)to and fro from Afghanistan with specimens of the breed.

The lineage of Afghan hounds in existence today generally hails from two variants of the breed; the more common line being described as the Bell Murray Afghan Hounds. The Bell Murray Afghan Hound strain are so designated because they were bred by Major and Mrs. Bell Murray in Baluchistan a then independent state south of Afghanistan. After eight years of breed development, the Bell Murrays returned to Scotland with their Afghan Hounds.