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Last update on 28.04.2004
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| The Podenco, a sensitive hunter |
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- It’s like a wind’s ride,
- Playful like a child,
- With never ending affection,
- Wild, elegant and agile.
- A Podenco in your life therefore,
- Is so much like sun and temblor
- You’re emotional and fascinated watching it race,
- With so much elegance and wonderful grace.
- Before deciding on taking a Podenco as one’s new comrad into his home, one should forget everything we thought we would know about dogs and their education. The Podenco is different – a wild forbear dog with an agel’s mind.
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- The ancestry of those airy, extremely sensitive and agile dogs is to be found in Egypt. The Pharao’s dog, called the Tesem, is regarded as its forefather and might have been taken from Egypt to the countries around the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. Anubis, the prominent wake of the graveyards of the ancient Egypt is said to be a Pharao’s dog rather then a jackal. The airy, long stretched greyhound corpus with the long snout would acknowledge this.
- Dogs of this ancient Pharao’s dog type all characterise by their enormous resemblance such as big bat-like ears, high legs, broad chest, a long erect tail, the head with a long snout and turquois to amber bright shining eyes. Their build is that of the slender greyhounds. They hunt “on sight”, rarely bark and keep at arm’s length with strangers whereas with their humans they are very closely connected, caring and extraordinarily affectionate.
- Acknowledges races these days are:
- Podenco Ibicenco of the Baleares
- Podenco Canario of the Canary Islands
- Podenco Portugues from Portugal
- Kelb tal Fenek or Pharao’s dog of Malta
- Cirneco dell' Etna of Sicily
- The Basenji of South Africa also emanates from this family tree.
- Podencos Ibicenco came to the Canary Islands from the Balearic Islands are bred as rabbit hunters and are also used for shady and torturing greyhound races, similar to those in Ireland. The "Perro Galgo", a greyhound originally coming from Algeria, shared a similar fate. It is now named Galgo Espanol.
- Podencos are beautiful and very classy dogs, which require a lot of patience from their humans. The fur can be even or ruffled, the most common colour is a warmish red with or without white spots. Their fur can also sometimes be pure white and very rarely brown. One can also find red-grey coloured as well as black and white coloured dogs. Tricolours are very rare but the variety of fur colours has no end.
- Podencos are fast and persistent runners with a big need for it; one would call them the “Arab Horse” of the dogs. This, of course, also goes for other greyhound races
- Podencos love to play. They love devoted cuddles as well as lying on the sofa or in bed and enjoy a copious cleaning.
- Podencos are extremely intelligent and adaptive. They do NOT want to be supervised all the time, not be talked to in a harsh and loud voice and they should not be walked on a short lead.
- You could make them cooperative comrades by way of never ending patience and without screaming and shouting, such as often practised at various dog schools, as long as no attractive rabbit scent comes across their noses. Agility would be fun for them, particularly if 3 of its favourite lessons are done and one starts following a prey’s scent at the training area, which will be much to the delight of the participants. By the way, Podencos love to play tag!
- Once the baiting is propelled, the dog becomes unimpressed by its human’s attempt to call it back. Therefore it takes a lot of understanding for the dogs natural habit for hunting, its longing for freedom and independence.
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- For those who don’t mind waiting for their dogs for quite some time in the middle of no where,
- For those being proud of their Podencos strive for independence, proving by still not appearing after calling for the dog for the tenth time, because it has got to finish off its duty on hunting down rabbits and mice first,
- For those who love to stroll along with their Podencos of the tracks through hail, rain, storm and sunshine,
- For those who like to pay veterinarian bills because of their sweethearts getting cuts and bruises by diving deeply into the bramble hedges
- For those who don’t fear to face hunters, foresters, drivers and other envious people orally as well as on bureaucracy terms
- the Podenco would definitely be the best partner. All the others should rather turn to a dog that does not fit the aforesaid criteria, because frustration on both sides will be inevitable
- Whoever tries to train a Podenco by using force, beating and rigour or tries to force the dogs violently to give up on its hunting habits will kill the dog’s soul. Those people are mistreating this special race and should be detested. Podencos enduring such a fate, capitulate, fall ill and suffer awfully.
- Suggestions to walk those dogs with their spacious moves and their urge to run on a leash only are to be ignored, as they do not meet the requirement of those dog’s need for exercising and should simply be regarded as cruelty. Alternatively, one can use so-called hunter’s leashes with a length of some 20-40 meters. These leave dogs some freedom for exercising without compromising its safety. There is another habit of exercising those dogs that needs some thorough inspection: the “just for fun” hare hunting on turfs where dogs chase fake rabbits. Also the suggestion of an old German forester should be subject to some thorough enquiry: the first way to hunt is the digging. Forbid the digging, keep the dog at the leash with your vocal commands and the hunting to the end in itself will become less and less!
- Thanks to ANIMA Madeira many Podencos have found a new home in Germany. To help many more of them, the publication of this race and its specific peculiarity is very important. Only those who look into the mentality of those dogs gets the chance for a long-term shared life in respect and appreciation.
- The Podenco is godsend.
- (Words - in extracts - by von Gudrun Zimmermann)
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