We are Selma and Eddie Kominek, and we live in Durham, North Carolina. I am a first year resident (intern) in neurological surgery at UNC Chapel Hill and Eddie is an electrical engineer who has the luck to be able to work from home for the small industrial software company he works for. Eddie and I have now been married for six wonderful years, and I am so thankful each and every day for him. As you can imagine, a neurosurgical resident and engineer's life can be hectic, but we still manage to find time for show class, shows, coursing, and coursing practice when we can.  However, no matter how busy our lives can get, our Afghan Hounds, Joey , Reza, and Soleil, remain firmly ensconced as the centers of our lives.

We got our first Afghan Hound in October of 2002. How we got to that point is a somewhat interesting story. I had loved and drawn Afghan Hounds in my notebooks since I was in grade school. I only rediscovered this when I was cleaning out my childhood room a couple of years ago and saw an Afghan Hound I had drawn in 5th grade (we already had Phoebe and Joey by this point). However, my father, being more practically minded and having had a German Shepherd as a child, said we could have a GSD or nothing (certainly not some large, long haired sighthound thing, lol). So naturally, wanting a dog, my sister and I chose the GSD option, and we were given Hawk. I trained Hawk to the novice level in obedience, and he taught me so much about loving and caring for a dog. He truly was a great friend and protector, and he would have done anything for my family. I was just beginning my third year of college when Hawk died at age nine and a half in August of 2001. I had no idea I could grieve so strongly and so long for a dog, but I did. It was months before I could just say the name “Hawk” without getting teary-eyed.

It was during this period that I joined a support group for those who had recently lost a GSD. From this site, around January of 2002, I somehow got linked to a Saluki site, and from there, to an Afghan Hound site. My breath caught. This was the breed that haunted my imagination as a child. A breed so beautiful and magical I that I would have felt honored just to be near one. I quietly surfed Afghan Hound sites for the next few weeks, learning about their temperament, coat care, exercise requirements, etc. I literally became obsessed, surfing thousands of webpages that first year alone. I would day dream about them in my undergrad classes, and once again my notebooks became adorned with Afghan Hounds. Then came the book purchases off Amazon and ebay. I bought almost every book written on the breed in the last 75 years, and I still collect Afghan Hound books and magazine articles. Early into this obsession, I started mentioning the breed to Eddie, my fiancé at the time (now my husband J ), and quite honestly, he was not convinced. We had a Siamese cat at the time, Sasha, and I kept telling him how “catlike” the breed was, how gentle, how regal, and yet goofy with loved ones they were. Finally, Eddie acquiesced to visiting a dog show with me in Montgomery, AL, in the April of 2002. A black masked red bitch named Camille caught Eddie’s eye that day, and one long look from her eyes and a needlenose nudging his hands was all it took for Eddie to say, “ok, this is a pretty cool breed…”

So, naturally, for my dream of us owning an Afghan to come to fruition, we now needed a house of some sort, as we were then living in an apartment. I can honestly say that us wanting a dog (me being the main instigator) was probably the main reason we bought our townhouse. The yard is not big, but it is privacy fenced (we road work our dogs with rollerblades daily), and by mid October of 2002 we brought the 4 month old Phoebe, Enchante Let Them Eat Cake, home. Phoebe came from a small hobby kennel in Tennessee. Her mom was a champion, and her father was bequeathed to her breeder, Linda Wright, by the late Joe Klutchinsky of Bokhara Afghan Hounds. Phoebe soon taught us the ways of an Afghan—how we should never leave something edible laying around, how confoundingly intelligent they can be (Phoebe once opened up my bra drawer, took out all of my bras, piled them up high in the center of our bed, did not chew a one, and left them there for me to be impressed by her skills), and that crating an Afghan is really the smartest thing to do when you leave the house for a few hours (a few still life drawings my sister did got shredded literally to confetti sized pieces while I was at class one day). But also, Phoebe taught us the gentle, loving, regal nature of an Afghan. She loved when strangers would “ooh” and “aaah” at her beauty, and would now and then honor a lucky passerby with a quick lick and a wag. We had high hopes for Phoebe in the show ring, but unfortunately, as she matured, it became evident that not only did she not enjoy showing, but that her conformation was simply not competitive. We would later rehome Phoebe to a nice pet home as we could never really get her over travel sickness with any extended trip and she really preferred being the only girl Af in the house. We still miss her, our tulipy-roo.

It was at this point, in the early fall of 2003, that we began to look for a male to show. I had in my mind what I wanted—in some ways characteristics that were 180 degrees from Phoebe. I wanted a big, goofy, confident male with attitude, movement, and I wanted him to be a loveball. Little did I know that we would have every single wish fulfilled in Joey. Joey hails from the prestigious Dragonfly kennel in Monroe, Connecticut, run by Lucia and Thayer Brown. Joey is Dragonfly Neverwinter Nights, and he has quickly taken over as King of the Household. Joey has such strength of personality that he literally lights up a room when he walks in, looks from me to Eddie, and wags his big silly tail in anticipation of something fun. Joey finished his title easily by June of 2006, going BOW at a specialty supported entry in Stl. Louis, the same venue where he got his first "big" win of goin BOS in sweepstakes two years earlier. Joey went on to win some nice breeds while being show very sparingly, including breeds over Group 1 winning Afghans and Breed over two Afghans that would go on to win Awards of Merit at the national specialty. Because of our limited time and resources, he was never really campaigned to the extent that I feel that he deserved. Joey also got a Rally Novice and then a Rally Advanced title, and he had a blast competing in Rally with his "dad." Today he is a clipped down handsome stallion who still acts like he owns the house and we love him to bits.

 In the spring of 2006, we added Reza to our brood, and she is a regal, ladylike, prissy creature that adores us. We also have fallen completely for her and her Afghan antics. She is a rather smart Afghan who catches on very quickly, and we will probably try Rally with her in the next year or two. In the show ring, she is singled out and has at this point five or six major reserves, including a 5 point specialty major reserve at the Tara Afghan Hound Cluib. She does not quite enjoy the ring as much as Joey did--she will put her tail up, but you have to work very hard to make her want to show off. I think in a way she deems being exhibited beneath her. She is very much old type Dureigh in style, with patterning galore.

 Soleil joined the family in April of 2009, and she has been so much fun. We have not  had a puppy in the house for three years, and we both have enjoyed her fuzzy baby ways. She is very promising conformationally and has fabulous free,  open,  springy movement for a pup so young. Soleil has also shown very strong coursing instinct and has done very well at the lure coursing practices we put on before we moved from Birmingham in May and June of 2009. Soleil is also qutie the smarty and by three months of age knew "sit," "down," and is beginning to learn "spin."

We are serious about  lure coursing with our guys, so much so that we have our own coursing machine that we use for practices. We believe that an Afghan should not only be beautiful and conformationally correct, but also be able to prove their soundness, speed, and instinct on the field. Our first Afghan, Phoebe, gained her Junior Courser (JC) title in one weekend of successful runs in the spring of 2005, while Joey decided that sniffing the telephone pole upon which countless other boy sighthounds had peed on that day was more important. Reza has truly proved herself on the field with an American Sighthound Field Assoc (ASFA) Field Champion (FCh) title, a Best in Event along the way to the ASFA title, and both AKC coursing majors in the bag. We plan to start coursing Soleil January of 2010.

Eddie and I have been married since August 1, 2003. He is the light of my life, our senses of humor and out interests mesh so well, and I feel so lucky that both of us share a passion for our hobby of dog shows, and of course, the regal, the unforgettable, the ancient, and glorious breed that is the Afghan Hound.

- Selma