Meet the CJS Team's Pod
Today is International Dog Day which was created in 2004 to throw a spotlight onto dog welfare and especially rescue operations and adoptions.
Dogs play an important role here at CJS, informally known as our "canine Welfare Officers", we think every office should have one or three on the team.
Today, for International Dog Day, we're introducing you to some very special rescued dogs - Sub-Editor Tracey's Spanish Podencos. In our latest Meet the Team article Tracey writes:
I’ve always been a lurcher and greyhound girl, but when my last lurcher, Lad, died, I knew it was time for a change. He was such a special dog that just getting another lurcher would be unfair on the new dog. It would never be Lad. Time for a change and something (almost) completely different, a podenco!
They are Spanish hunting hounds and often have a bad time, being dumped after the hunting season, frequently as young as just 2 years old. The dog pounds in Spain (known as the ‘killing stations’) are full of podencos. The Spanish think of them as purely working dogs and not as pets. They’re remarkably beautiful and elegant creatures with pale amber eyes and very large erect ears. The most famous type is the Ibizan hound, but they come in varied shapes and sizes to suit different prey and terrain.
But where was I going to find a podenco to adopt? This was in 2015. I found a rescue in the UK that had a sister organisation in Spain and would organize the transport to the UK and all necessary vet checks and passport. The UK rescue people were really helpful trying to find the right dog for me. I settled on an 8-year-old bitch called Limonie. She had been dumped as a puppy, being thrown over the high wall of a garden belonging to an English couple who were known for taking in strays. They’d retired to Spain to breed dogs. When they discovered the huge welfare problem there, they abandoned that plan and instead, took in needy dogs of all kinds, and sought homes for them. At the time of Limonie’s appearance they had 60 dogs living with them! Limonie had been waiting for a home for those 8 years. I went out to Spain for a holiday and to meet her. She gazed straight into my eyes with a look that said ‘Let me be your doggy’. A month later, there she was in Lad’s bed in our living room. I had her for just four happy years before I lost her to cancer.
I knew it wasn’t the end of my podenco journey. By this time, 2019, there was a podenco rescue in the UK and there I found Rosita, Rosie for short. Unlike Limonie, she’d been a hunter. She’d been found collapsed, unconscious on a petrol station forecourt. Concerned people took her to the vets and there she was treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration and they managed to save her life. And so, she found her way to the bed in the living room.
Both the rescues who helped me find a podenco are now closed, but it’s much easier to find a podenco in the UK now. An internet search brings up many options. They are also getting more well known. Sometimes I meet someone who actually recognises the breed. Instead of the usual ‘what a beautiful dog, what is she?’ They say ‘Ah, a podenco!’
If you'd like to celebrate International Dog Day with your canines, Dogs Trust have some lovely suggestions.