The Sloughi is an ancient, elegant, lightning-fast North African sighthound, bred to course game across the desert and deeply bonded to its family while reserved with everyone else. It is profoundly sensitive, and that sensitivity, combined with a hard-wired coursing drive, means ordinary training mistakes hit this breed far harder than most. Almost every Sloughi problem comes from harshness or from trusting a sighthound's recall too far. Here are the five mistakes that cause the most trouble, and what to do instead.
1. Any harshness at all
Raised voices, corrections, or rough handling produce a shut-down, fearful Sloughi that recovers very slowly, sometimes losing trust for weeks. Owners expecting a tougher hunting dog overcorrect and do real damage. Use reward-based training exclusively, keep your voice calm and gentle, and build the dog's sense of safety, because nothing erodes a Sloughi faster than harshness.
2. Going off-leash in unfenced areas
A single pursuit can end with the Sloughi lost or killed on a road, because at full coursing speed it is gone before you react. Owners who trust a calm house dog outdoors are gambling with its life. Use securely fenced areas only for off-leash freedom, keep a long line in open ground, and treat this as the non-negotiable safety rule it genuinely is.
3. Expecting gregariousness
The Sloughi is reserved with strangers by nature, and owners who push it to greet and be handled by new people trigger withdrawal and stress. The reserve is breed character, not a flaw to fix. Respect it: let the dog warm up at its own pace, allow strangers to ignore it until it approaches, and never force social contact on a naturally aloof hound.
4. Using a standard collar
The Sloughi's narrow, tapering sighthound head slips straight out of an ordinary collar, and a loose dog near prey is a disaster. Owners who use a standard collar risk exactly that. Fit a properly adjusted martingale collar, which tightens just enough to stay on without choking, and check the fit regularly as a basic safety measure for this breed.
5. Relying on recall near prey
The Sloughi's chase drive cannot be reliably trained out, and owners who depend on a recall near wildlife set themselves up to fail the moment something runs. The instinct simply overrides the cue. Manage the environment instead: keep the dog leashed or fenced around prey, build recall for everyday use, and never bet the dog's safety on it near moving game.
What works with Sloughis
Train gently, keep off-leash to fenced areas, respect the reserve, use a martingale, and manage the prey drive. The common thread is trust and gentleness: the Sloughi cannot absorb harshness and cannot recall off a chase, so a calm, reward-based relationship plus secure, fenced-only off-leash work are the whole foundation. Build the dog's sense of safety first, respect its reserve, and the deep devotion underneath emerges.
TailorPup's Sloughi plan starts with trust and respects the breed's sensitivity and prey drive.
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Related: How to Train a Sloughi · Recall Training · Leash Pulling · Puppy Training Basics