Fabienne Tremble of Passion Levriers recently visited the Canary Islands. Life for the podencos – Ibizan Hound – is not a happy one.
‘The Islands “Afortunadas”, as one calls them in Spain, means the blessed islands. Indeed they are, with their beauty, their climate, the luxuriant flora where the hibiscus is a shrub larger than the pink bay-trees of my garden and for the love of life of its inhabitants.
On the other hand for fauna it is a different matter. The marvellous podenco Canario, originating in these islands, always lives like the slave of man.
Hardly had I gotten out of the plane, the first thing that I saw while we awaited the rented car, was a light van parked in full sun with a pack of podencos who awaited their master patiently.
Dirty, legs full of dried mud, sad eyes, covered in ticks, they were suffocating in the heat 35ºC.
Once on the road, I regarded the landscape. Then we were overtaken by another light van, so filled with podencos, driven by two hunters.
One of the podencos wore a muzzle. Its afflicted and resigned air continues to haunt me still today. It looked straight ahead, wisely, its beautiful nose tightened in a dreadful black muzzle, and its large clearly filled up eyes full of sadness and pain.
Around him, seven or eight podencos, without muzzles but with the same sad and subjected air.
The Canaries are not islands blessed for the podencos. They live the same suffering and the same martyr as their cousins on the mainland.
Exploited in excess for hunting and reproduction, they undergo the same sad fate that we have fought to stop for so a long time: abandonment, torture, famine, etc.
We must mobilize for them also, we cannot leave them in their hell! Let us work so that the blessing of their islands also falls on them.
Fabienne Tremble
http://www.passionlevriers.com
Comments
4 responses to “Canary Islands – hell for the podencos”
Just come back from 10 days on Tenrife. Just by the Tiede visitor centre 5km from the cable car, found a very malnourished Podenco Canario bitch. Very very pitiful. I was shocked by her poor condition, so we purchased sandwiches and biscuits and water from a nearby restaurant to give to this poor animal. If I could I would have taken her back to the UK
If any body is interested I will send a picture if you contact me on bryanpowell333@ntlworld.com
Hi Bryan
It’s very hard to leave these animals, isn’t it. The best thing you can do for the moment is to raise as much publicity as possible about the plight of these dogs through your family, friends, local media, fundraising for the Ibizhan Hound and Podenco Association – you’ll find a link to their website on Galgo News Home Page.
It would be so helpful if you could do this. These poor Island dogs desperately need voices to speak up for them.
Keep reading GN.
B
Hi again Bryan
I’ve now found an animal shelter on Lanzarote, http://www.saralanzarote.com/index.htm
and they do all they can to help the podencos and all other abandoned animals on the island. I’ve posted a piece about the shelter on the main Galgo News homepage.
Any publicity you can give the shelter will be gratefully received.
B