Category: Advice

An in-depth article full of very useful information to consider before first adopting a foreign rescue dog.

This is the text of a presentation I made at the PAES International Conference on Animal Welfare in October 2016.

Let’s look at estimated ANNUAL figures for uncontrolled breeding of galgos and podencos.

GALGOS

Back in the early 1990’s, a friend of mine who was a Daily Mail staff photographer, was visiting the Castile-la Mancha province. His guide walked him into an olive grove where Jim photographed the olive trees, most of which had a dead galgo hanging from them, which made headlines in the paper.

In 2009 SOS Galgos (Barcelona) claimed on their website that 160 galgos were abandoned every day.

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For many years I gave large raw marrow bones to my dogs as being good for their teeth and gums, until one day my Swedish Valhund managed to break off a piece small enough to get stuck in her throat. This necessitated an operation and vet fees.

I always clean up poop from my dogs, every time they go out and do one. Can’t say I’ve ever notice white bits in it, apart from once a foster galga arrived from Spain who supposedly had been wormed…but definitely hadn’t! However, I thought you might be interested to read this article.

Read the full article here.

Interesting article on how to teach your dog to use a crate. Apart from transporting dogs in vehicles/planes or possibly a dog shows, I am not a believer in using crates otherwise…particularly ‘toilet training’ a dog. I have had dogs all of my 70 years and have never had problems toilet training a dog without resorting to a crate. I knew one woman who crated her Weimaraners whenever I visited because she couldn’t control them! In my book, that was because they weren’t trained to behave. On another occasion I was told by a third party that a galgo I had rehomed was being crated and the children allowed to poke fingers at him! He was fine with the children and other dog when I did home tests/checks…to this day I don’t know why she crated him…I didn’t ask because I was so angry! Needless to say, I simply messaged that he was to be brought back to me immediately. Was fine with the grandchildren in his thereafter forever home.

We all have our own opinions on this subject, these are simply mine.

Interesting article on the benefits of pumpkin in your dog’s diet. My dogs love vegetables and whenever I am cutting up pumpkin, they are there waiting to share the small pieces of rind.