Before galgos and podencos leave Spain for fostering and adoption abroad, they are blood tested for three diseases, Leishmaniosis, Ehrlichia and Filaria.
For full information about Leishmaniosis, www.leishmaniasis.info which is the canine leishmaniosis website. This website also gives details of the medicinal products needed to treat the disease.
I have asked someone who adopted a galgo with leishmaniosis to write about their experience with it.
Before galgos and podencos leave Spain for fostering and adoption, they have a blood test for three diseases, Leishmaniosis, Ehrlichiosis and Filaria.
Ehrlichiosis is a tick-borne rickettsial infectious blood disease. The organism is called Ehrlichia, the disease is called Ehrlichiosis.
Brown Dog Tick (must feed a minimum of 2 -3 days to transmit). The tick can come from horse manure and other unknown sources.
Also transmitted from the deer tick, blood transfusion, contaminated needles/instruments, transplacental.
Visit www.workingdog.com/doc0045.htm to learn more.
We all try and do our bit to help the plight of the galgos and podencos in Spain. What I’d like to do now is have a MASS letter-writing campaign to the Spanish Prime Minister. Together with Charl, we’ve put together the following letter.
Please print off a copy of the letter and send it to the Spanish Prime Minister.
Please tell all your friends to do the same, and ask other animal rescue/welfare associations to run this appeal on their websites.
I’m getting a copy of it translated into Spanish too, and I’m checking, as I think there are elections due to be held in Spain on 9th March and it may be that Senor Zapatero is not re-elected.
Also an email address, although I think letters through the post will have more chance of arriving on someone’s desk! gabinete@presidencia.gob.es
This is the amount of the vet bill now owed by the Pedro Munoz refuge, in Castilla La Mancha, the heart of the galgo hunting area.
With 3 – 4 galgos on average arriving every day at the doors of the refuge, there is pneumonia to treat, broken feet or legs, bad wounds, some dogs needing hospitalisation. Some of the puppies are in such a bad way when they arrive that they can’t be saved.
Through helping with galgo rescue, I’ve been introduced to podencos, or Ibizan Hounds. We’ve fostered one, Jazmin, an absolutely delightful character.
Some of the podencos have had their beautiful pink noses mutilated to make them look like a pig, as with Joy, which apparently is supposed to improve their ‘ratting’ capabilities!
These dogs also suffer the same degree of indescribable cruelty as the galgos.
You can read about the breed on www.ibizanhoundrescue.com.
In the meantime, meet Violetta, a little character looking for her forever family.
You may remember little Noa, a black galga puppy who was knocked down on the road and both front legs were broken.
Luckily she was found and received excellent veterinary treatment, and has now found a forever home in America.
You can read Noa’s full story on Baas Galgo.
Sandra Baas, of Baas Galgo, recently interviewed Cristina Garcia Moreno, President of Galgos Sin Fronteras, who has been involved in helping the galgos of Spain for more than 10 years.
This is her story.
My name is Cristina García Moreno. I am president of the association Galgos Sin Fronteras. For more than 10 years I have noticed the hell in which galgos live who were so unlucky to be born in Spain. I have seen the most terrible and unjust situations that one can imagine, against one of the most wonderful races, the galgo.
This galgo was found the other day loose on a motorway, luckily before he was injured or killed.
The refuges are already full to bursting, his rescuer cannot keep him in her apartment as she already has 16 cats and 2 galgos there, so he is living in her car.
If anyone can help please please contact the refuge through the website below.
http://www.veuanimal.org
veuanimal…tel 607 94 21 27
Recently my little Valhund escaped from our courtyard and turned up by a neighbours lake, with her paw in one of the vile steel traps, which had been set to catch a fox.
Luckily for Pepsi, it was only her toes which were caught, and no bones were broken.
This little podenco was not so lucky. Caught in a trap, left for five days before help arrived. Now urgently looking for a foster and forever home.
She is extremely thin, and sadly her leg could not be saved, so she has an amputation at the shoulder front leg, due to the wound being severely infected because it was left open so long.
