Moss – galgo x podenco – needs a forever home – are you his angel?

This is the story of a lurcher, (who looks very like a podenco) who is desperately looking for an understanding forever home.

Catherine tells his tale.

As a 4 month old pup Moss came to my village to live with B who had rescued him from Spain. He was one of a large litter whose mother a Galga, had given birth on the street. She didn’t survive. Moss is clearly crossed with the Spanish hunting Podenco, originally of Egypt. His enormous ears and the curious way he leap-frogs when he hunts gives him away as do many of the personality traits of this beautiful breed.

Moss was an undernourished pup, anxious about being away from his pack and as a consequence, barked and cried when left alone. B made several mistakes in the beginning: he never dealt with Moss’s separation anxiety instead he slept with him and took him everywhere. When, after a couple of weeks B returned to work, Moss had never been left alone. Then suddenly, he was left, shut in an apartment all day from 8 a.m. with B popping by to feed him at lunch time. He wasn’t walked in the mornings before B left work, or at lunch time or even in the evening. In fact he wasn’t walked at all and he started to lose weight, got fleas, skin and digestive problems and generally deteriorated in all aspects of his behaviour: barking, chewing, soiling and escaping whenever the door to the apartment was opened.

I offered to let Moss come to my house for part of the day as I have 2 Lurchers and I would walk the 3 of them together. The deal was that B would walk Moss in the morning to burn off a bit of his energy, then drop him off with me. I would keep him for a couple of hours, give him a walk so he could relieve himself and burn off a bit more energy then take him back to the apartment for B to feed at lunch time. Then a similar routine in the afternoon except that B would leave Moss and go back to work and I would pick him up later and walk him, then drop him off back in the apartment.

In the beginning I arranged it so that Moss was never alone for more than a half hour to an hour, then I gradually increased the time he was left. It was working well except that B never walked Moss in the mornings before dropping him off with me and as a consequence I had a tornado arrive in my hallway at 7.50 a.m. every weekday. This brought its own problems because my 2 lurchers would respond and me and my 4 cats would be climbing the walls until I could get the dogs out of the house and in the fields for a run.

But this worked well, at least for B and for Moss. I was having a lot of success training Moss, when he was with me his behaviour was improving – i.e. in the car, on the lead and basic manners but after a weeknd with B he would return along with all his bad habits (stealing, soiling, barking, pulling). I would de-flea him and he’d come back with fleas…B’s idea was that as Moss got older he would accompany him to work as B works in the outdoors, this would have been perfect. But B never taught Moss the basics in good manners, he never taught him how to sit and stay, or to remain in the car without barking or chewing…so the likelihood of Moss being able to sit quietly alongside while B worked was looking slim.

Then disaster struck. B at this time was living alone. I discovered that he had taken Moss on in the first place in the hopes of winning over a particular lurcher-loving female friend of mine. When this plan failed, B took up with someone in the next village who wasn’t at all dog-friendly and he began to leave Moss overnight and all weekend. He was leaving food and water down and leaving Moss for hours and hours on end. By the time Moss came to me on Monday morning he was frantic and uncontrollable. I wasn’t aware of what was happening in the evenings and over the weekends, only that Moss was regressing.

I found out when I decided not to take Moss back to the apartment one Friday afternoon but instead waited for B to collect him so that we could discuss Moss’s deterioration. B didn’t come for Moss and clearly didn’t know that I hadn’t dropped him off in the apartment some time in the afternoon. I finally rang B on his mobile at 9 p.m. He had had not been home and had no intention of going home until the next morning. I was to discover that this was a very regular occurance. All my attempts to change B’s behaviour failed. He just didn’t accept that the dog was suffering by being left. He couldn’t accept that Moss needed human company and instead got a ferret, hampsters and a cat to keep him company!

It became impossible to have Moss in my house because he didn’t know better than to soil indoors and as he grew it became intollerable as did his flea problem, which I had tried without success to address because the apartment where he spent much of his time was infested. I continued to walk Moss, but I would pick him up from the apartment and have to hold my nose at the stench. The evidence that B was simply using the place as a kennel and a place to store his clothes was clear – chaos: chewed furnishings, upturned bins, dog mess – horrendous.

Meanwhile B’s neighbours were complaining about the noise and the smell from the apartment: Moss barked continuously when alone and shredded everything in site. At every given opportunity Moss would escape and make his way to my house. If I wasn’t in he would sit and howl at my door. If I had been at a neighbours house he would follow my scent, hurl himself at the neighbours door until they opened the door then he’d barge in, sniff around for me, find I was no longer there and leave to continue his search. It was heartbreaking. Everyone in the village came to know Moss’s plight.

Soon B was given an ultimatum by his employers who were also his landlords to get rid of the dog or lose his job and home. One Saturday morning he rang and said simply that he couldn’t keep Moss another minute. He blamed the dog for being ‘mad’ of course, said there was nothing to be done with him. He wasn’t prepared to try again, it was either me or the SPA. I couldn’t bare to see Moss back in kennels, so he came to me. It could only be a temporary arrangement (as I have health issues and sometimes need to rely on friends to walk my own two dogs) but I couldn’t rehome Moss in the state he was; so began his new regime in my foster care.

6 months later Moss is now almost 18 months old and a different dog. His coat gleams and his eyes sparkle. He is sociable, well behaved, house trained (asks to go out and is 100% trustworthy), responsive – sits, stays, comes to the recall and/or whistle, will be left several hours without barking or being destructive. He is very beautiful, intelligent, gentle, affectionate, playful and loyal. He is now ready for a loving forever home.

Ideally, he would be with at least one other lurcher or fast dog because he loves to play tag and chase. He is big, boistrous and fast so might not be suitable around tots or fragile dogs but he is not aggressive and has been ‘tested on children from 3 upwards’. He may bark at them if they run and play but because he wants to join in rather than because he wants to discipline them. He is fine with cats he lives with; he has been amongst chickens, he is walked near sheep, cattle and horses. He is often walked by friends of mine and is consistent in his good behaviour.

Recently I had to go back to the UK and left him with one of his walkers for 10 days, separate from my 2 lurchers. This being the first time since he came to live with me that I have been away from him overnight or that he has not slept with my 2 dogs. I was particularly anxious for him given his history. But he was impeccably behaved and he was left by his walker, alone in a small house from time to time without any barking, soiling and/or chewing. He had of course, been well exercised beforehand and was well nourished and loved. This has convinced me that Moss is now ready to be rehomed and that he would adapt to a suitable new situation and appropriate owners with little difficulty.

Moss can easily get over excited so needs a fun but firm handler, perhaps someone who knows lurchers. He needs to run a couple of times a day for an hour and then he will simply collapse on a comfy sofa for the day. He is on a raw food (raw meaty bone diet), is fed once daily and is in great shape with no obvious health problems. He has a very slight twist in his back leg (barely possibly to see but his slightly odd gait gives it away) which results in his walking slightly to the edge of his pad and rubbing the paw. Sometimes the paw gets inflamed but most of the time it doesn’t bother him.

I am happy for anyone seriously interested in rehoming Moss, to visit with their dog and/or children. Its important that Moss’s next home is a forever home as he has been through a great deal of misery and deserves a break. It would be unthinkable to uproot him for anything but a permenant, loving home. He is young and adaptable and in the right hands will make an exceptional companion. He is castrated, vaccinated and microchipped. He has a european passport but this doesn’t entitle him to travel to the UK.

I’ll happily answer any questions about him with complete honesty so if please email me in the first instance on cathycaferives@orange.fr