Read the article here, which I published a few days ago on my Galgo News blog.
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Portuguese Podengo Aida…looking for a forever home.
This sweet little lady is l year old Portuguese Podengo Aida, found on the street and taken in. Sadly she gets upsent when left alone whilst her rescuer is out at work, so she is now with Dogs of Portugal. they have over 700 dogs at the shelter! So Aida needs to get into a forever home soon. You can see videos of her on this link. Please contact Dogs of Portugal direct if you would like to apply to adopt her. -
Renovating a house on Fuerteventura – no chance when the podencos are lost!
I always love receiving stories of podencos which have found loving forever homes. Here’s a rescue and rehoming story with a difference – David Tomlinson’s tale is one which so many Brits moving to Spain and the Spanish Islands experience.‘We came to Fuerteventura (Canary Islands) to renovate an old stone house on a finca, about 20,000 sq meters in the middle of 400,000 meters. We live in a area used during the hunting season (here it’s Bank Holidays and Sundays only Aug to Nov) by hunters with dogs, hunting rabbits. It seems now that frequently the dogs chase the rabbits for miles, get lost and the hunters leave them behind.
So one Monday in July 2005, a stray Podenco, turned up on our land. She was in pretty poor shape so we fed and watered her. We didn’t know what the system was so we contacted the local Police. They were very helpful but as the dog wasn’t microchipped they asked us if we wanted to keep her. The alternative was that she went to the dogs home and would be destroyed after 21 days. We were also told that if the owner turned up we could recover our costs. We agreed to keep her.
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Deanimals in Murcia – always fighting for animal welfare
I’ve written in the past about Deanimals of Murcia, the lawyers who take on prosecution cases of animal welfare and run training courses for lawyers, police, judges, veterinarians and anyone else involved with animals, training them to carry on in all corners of Spain the work Deanimals pioneered. Founding lawyer Raquel tells me she now has many lawyers doing similar work around Spain and the Canary Islands.This story is about an aspect of their work…it’s not about podencos or galgos, it’s about circus animals. I have always abhorred the use of animals in circus, especially ‘wild animals’…travelling all over the place, in cramped conditions, being forced to perform unnatural acts.
There was outrage in Paris recently when a rare white tiger from a circus was shot dead after escaping from its prison. my research shows that in October 2015 France had no ban on wild animals in travelling circuses, of which there are many in France. Further research now states there are 65 communes in France which ban wild animals in circuses. Sadly the one in which I live in 79, and surrounding communes, does not.
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Happy New Year to you all
From my canine gang Carmela, Bebe, Polar and Bracken – Wishing all my readers only good things in 2018…and wishing for an end to all animal cruelty…well, one can wish! -
Podenca Bebe – a little dog with a huge character
This is a photo I received 7 years ago, along with an appeal for help for the little podenca, rescued with a hind leg injury from a Seville motorway. There were not the facilities in the shelter to care for her post operation, so I said I would take her. She had been rescued by a young woman called Marisa (same name as my daughter) who had named the little podenca Bebe (my nickname at school, derivitive of Beryl!). So of course she had to come to me!The operation on her hind leg was a success, the vet wasn’t sure if she would use her hind leg properly. No problem…she was fast as grease lightening on 4 legs! She weights 6.5 kilos, is the boss of the galgos, and the first to warn us if there is someone at the door. She’s been on many adventures…it took us a couple of years to make the garden completely escape proof…she could get through very small spaces! And would espy an opportunity if a door was not shut properly!
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Podenca X Lady landed on her feet!
I always love to receive stories about happy homings of podencos… here’s a lovely one I received from Liz.‘I adopted a 2 year old Podenco cross, little girl (although I think she’s more Pod than cross!) 4 months ago from a killing station. I had never heard of the breed, but fell in love with her picture on the rescue site in Spain. Everything the foster home told me seemed too good to be true, good with children, cats & other dogs with a sweet nature!
Well, she is everything & more;she’s a social butterfly & everyone she meets loves her. She’s such a clown with the biggest heart & has made such an amazing difference to my life. I’m disabled & have to ride a mobility scooter when I go out. From the first day my little Lady came into my life, she trotted next to me by my scooter like she’d done it all her life. She is so intelligent, I only have to teach her something once & she’s got it.
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Podenco Pinocho in Caceres – needs an operation to repair his leg
A plea for help to pay for the operation to repair the front leg of this sweet little podenco. Here is the story of Pinocho.Pinocho is a podenquito of two and a half years that was collected by the City of Tietar, a small town in the province of Cáceres, when he wandered through its streets. They put him in a kind of cuatucho where they kept the materials of the works and two volunteer girls were in charge of feeding him. A month later I was going to be sacrificed, so I brought it home.
They say that the podencos have very bad luck and adopt themselves worse than other dogs, and it must be true, because two months later Pinocho is still waiting for his definitive family.
Surely it is a discard of some hunter, because it came with a fracture in his right front leg. We have done two x-rays and it is a poorly welded fracture in which a misalignment has caused an angular deformity. The biomechanical forces are badly distributed and it is forcing the collateral ligaments of the carpus, that’s why it has pain.