A friend of mine has just rescued a podenco in terrible condition…two boys helped her catch him. She is in an area with a lot of hunters and gitanos. She suffers from ill health and has not the means to pay for the vet treatment he needs. So we desperately need an association to take him on. She is in southern Spain. Here’s what she says about him.

1/12/2014 – ‘Walking through the square I saw a very, very thin podenco with one front leg held up and dangling, searching under and around the bins. I asked two little boys to watch him, rushed into the shop which luckily is on the square, grabbed a packet of frankfurters for 2€ and rushed out again. After he’d eaten several, he hopped off, but we followed him and one of the little boys (Gitanos – lots here and not crueller to animals than anyone else) managed to go up to him and gently stroke his head and hold him, while I tied my scarf round his neck.

I fed him more frankfurters and then led him slowly back to the house, hippity-hop. He’s asleep in a pile of my dirty clothes on the patio and tomorrow I’ll try to get him to a vet (difficult, as no car, no bus and no vet in this small town) but anyway, he’s safe for the moment.

He’s loevly, dreadfully thin, just skin and bone, but lovely and he snuggled against my leg and closed his eyes as I stroked him. So far, he hasn’t reacted to the sight of the cat, but that may be because he’s too weak and tired.

The trouble is, it’s going to cost a lot of money as well as effort and attention, as he’ll need an operation to set his broken leg and he’ll need medicines, as well as the usual tests, sterilisation, etc. I simply don’t have the money nor income to pay for all that he needs, so I can’t pay the vet, but I decided to go ahead anyway and trust that something would happen to help.

3/11/2014 – Vet visit. His leg is broken about four centimetres above the fetlock (?) – presumably both tibia and fibula – but it appears to be a clean break as far as she could tell without an x-ray, so she straightened it. Then I held his shoulder and pulled gently at his paw to keep it stretched out and the bones aligned and she bandaged it with padded stuff, two layers, then lots of cohesive bandage. Then we made a splint from a bit of fruit crate and taped that on with many layers of masking tape as she was out of Sparadrap and I couldn’t find the insulating tape. He looks great with his stiff, bandaged leg and is obviously in far less pain, just from having it immobilised and aligned – he was already happier and had rolled over to have his tummy rubbed.

She says he’s about two years old. He almost certainly was abandoned because he’d broken his leg, so he couldn’t hunt any more and the vet costs a lot – the person didn’t want to kill him, so abandoned him hoping that someone would rescue him. Or he might have run off on his own, broken his leg and limped into the village centre on his own, but I should think he was abandoned on purpose because of his leg.

She says that his little sores are nothing to bother about and that he seems healthy, apart from the slight conjunctivitis that I can treat using salt water and then euphrasia (eyebright) tincture. She would have prescribed Calbuprofeno (iboprofen for dogs) and bonemeal, but she knows I use homeopathy and natural remedies and trusts me to get them right and I already have them.

She says that there are two possibilities for the leg:

He can stay bandaged and splinted and the bones will knit, but they may not knit straight and in place. He’d be able to live happily, though he might have a limp or a crooked leg or get arthritis later or something.

He can have an x-ray and an operation. The operation itself would cost at least €700, the x-ray I don’t know, but the transport to get him x-rayed, to take him to a clinic then collect him would be another €120 or even more (I have no car and no licence, as can’t drive now with my illness) plus any meds if necessary – could be €1,000!

The vet suggested trying to get a protectora to take him and do the operation as they have the facilities and they have their associate vets and clinics, so are used to doing it all and get lower prices.

So far, he’s cost me 17€ to the vet, 6€ for extra bandages and a 2€ packet of frankfurters! Also some food, but that’s O.K. Oh, and he needs worming, vaccinating, passporting and sterilisation. Crikey!’

As you can see from the state of this poor boy, it is lucky my friend took him in or he would surely have died soon. She is a very private person, so please contact me in the first instance if you can take this deserving young podenco to pay for his treatment and eventually find him a forever home. If you can help towards the current cost of vet fees, paypal me at band@bbrennan.eu and I will pass the money on. Please mark it ‘donation for vet fees’.

(These pix are from 1/12, am waiting for some more recent ones)