In the middle of December I posted one of many appeals about galgos dumped in Jerez perrera for killing – the Spanish hunting season was only half over! An email arrived in my Inbox from a lady in the UK who had her eye on one of the galgas and asking if I could arrange contact with someone nearby Jerez/Cadiz who could rescue her. As I’d already asked for a young one to be rescued for me, wheels were set in motion. The galgas were reserved – 3 and a puppy, and 112carlotagalgos travelled to the perrera to collect the dogs.
One of them, beautiful Risa, came to me for foster and rehoming – she is now with a lovely lady in northern France. Sadly the puppy became very ill and died. Holly, as the cream galga was named, was put into kennels, as was the other galga – who was very timid and lacking in confidence.
As the nervous galga quickly attached herself to Holly, news came through that she would also be adopted by the same family. 112carlotagalgos began the process of preparing their Pet Passports, which meant it would be a further 6 months before they could travel to their forever homes.
The other two galgas were reserved by an experience greyhound-owning family in the UK. They spent their quarantine period with 112carlotagalgos, being prepared for their forever homes.
In the middle of July they travelled to their forever home, flying from Malaga to Gatwick and then a 4 hour road journey to join the canine family of experienced greyhound owners Angela and Peter. The galgas are now known as ‘The Tinies’ as they are much smaller than their English greyhound counterparts.
Here’s what Peter says about them.
It is nearly a week to the hour that they arrived and you would think they have been here for months. These hounds are all so compatible with each other. The courier arrived just as we were putting out supper on a cool wet evening, little did we know that supper would not be eaten for another 3 hours.
When we took the rather frightened girls out of their crates, Angela was to take them to the field on their leads to do the necessary, but slipped on the wet pavings and gashed her head. So I had to quickly take them to the field and let them go, to get back to Angela and tend to her, and then sign them off with the courier who had a 4 1/2 hour journey to get back home.
Angela’s gash on the head was only small but they do bleed and, once that had been stopped, we went back to the field to collect Les Girls. That was a forlorn hope, they were having none of it as they cruised around the field in unison. We called in a friend who does dog training, she could get right up to them but just not near enough to catch just one.
More reinforcements and a roll of garden wind break material and we backed them into a corner. Seeing no escape route they just gave up. In the meantime we had introduced them to each of the other hounds individually so when they came into the house there was not problem of the first encounter in a confined space.
They are the sweetest pair, quite enchanting. They are also smaller than we expected and in fact Holly is really no bigger than a large whippet. That is a blessing in disguise as they curl up in a bed together with one of the others, and we were worried where we were going to put them. It is lovely to watch their progress as they explore their new surroundings and gain confidence each day and get used to our routine. Holly is a bit on the porky side and needs to loose weight and Faith is a very adept sneak thief.
3 weeks later
They are now known as the Tinies and, other than being a pair of monkeys, they are fine. They are just so much smaller than the others and the two of them only take up the space of one of the others, hence the Tinies. They have been here just 3 weeks but it seems much longer as they have settled in so well. Whilst their individual characters are emerging, they are also so much a pair. They sleep snuggled up around each other and spend the night with Uncle Snug in the doggie room and are completely clean, some mornings you have to drag them out to do a pee.
Holly is the bed bug of the two, she comes out but is always more than ready to disappear inside as soon as she has done what she needs to. She is not too responsive to her name or is it that she has made up her mind what she is going to do and plays deaf, a very well known saluki trait.
Faith is much the more adventurous and spends much more time outside. She responds well to being called, or at least she will turn her head. She just loves to run and the garden is ideal for that, full of hidden parts. She is the quickest sneak thief I have ever come across, nothing is safe and we need kitchen worktops at 5’0″ to keep her from pinching anything she can lay her teeth on. When we can save up a few pennies, we will take the have her leg x-rayed just to see what is there, she does go lame ever so slightly when she has been running around.
They are such a delightful pair and we could not have been luckier’.
Well, all I can say is that these are two very lucky galgas too.
112carlotagalgos have podencos and galgos awaiting forever homes, if anyone can help.