Podenco

[Tyla 3,179]

8 hours ago, Rakete said:

They are fun.

If one has the nerves for fun.

Mine did 50inch jumps like a rubber ball, up and down in one spot, tried to jump off bridges to get that damn motor boat, if you lost him, you found him stuck in a mouse hole or trotting through water like a stork, jumping onto frogs, he spend his walks inspecting bushes from the inside and remembered the smell of pizza on the street for 20min and ran back. 

There was no mean fibre in this dog. He was really great with people. A little clingy.  Manipulative and a world class thieve, that stole candy out of elderly ladies handbags. Took him to the nursing home, without any schooling as it was not needed. No, not because of the stealing part. The being a nice guy part. Wheelchair leashwalking and climbing into beds and enduring being patted on the head for like half an hour.

But he was an idiot - if judged by obedience class standards. We called him Rantanplan.

I really miss this guy. Not so much the fort knox trash bin, the kitchen raids, jumping from trunk to windshield in one quick move, but all of the rest.

Most pure Podenco Andaluz or Canario I know, if not fearful because of bad excperiences with humans or a complete lack of excperience with the outside world beside hunting in a pack, do have at least a glimpse of this clownish, open nature mine had. I do believe that Tigger, Winnie the Poos friend might be a podenco cross.

I lack experience working them, but I never saw "the look" in mine, this moment the eyes change and they are all muscle and adrenalin und ready to take off, like in my galgos, neither did they ever change into the "No bullshit. This is serious until it is over" mode of my amstaff cross.

In mechanical lure coursing I find them more salukiish. "Oh, great day, nice to do a little jog. Maybe later on there will be some real work to do" (Saluki doing a warm up,  podenco dreaming of jumping into the next bush, doing the pogo stick style thing.) Nowhere near the absolute eagerness to run and get this damn lure, as it means a world to my racebred whippet. Never had to be explained, how this works. It is written into her system. 

The podencos, at least the retired from working I saw, their system does not work like this. They seem softer in this respect. Their super power is not 10seconds till kill. They will try to run down, if needed, but it is more the search for it. And not to forget: jump onto it. Or try to dig it out like a long legged dachshund - but one that does not mess up to much with the badger.

I love their toes. Many of the working podencos seem to have splayed toes, seen more easty westy or flat feet than in other sighthound(like) dogs that came directly from spain, but these toes seem to be made to climb, to jump and run on rough ground. Where my galgos brought back broken toes, injured stopper pads, split webs, damaged nails, the podenco cross came back with a frog. Or a mouse. Not one injury in 11 years (without real hunting but lots of hard running on different ground) allthough he was so down in the pasterns that the vet was sure this dog would not make it without severe arthritis starting at young age or breaking down. Still I think weak pasterns are a fault also in this breed, but in mine it did not do damage. Maybe with harder work things would have been different. And maybe his lack of real speed did him good. He was fast. He could keep up with the pure galgos. Till they moved on to double suspension. On the other hand, his stamina was better. Took him with me for half marathon training. 10, 15k road work on the bike where no problem. My galgos would not like me for that. They could do it, somehow, but like...uhm no not so much.

In spain there are many regional types or podenco breeds, allthough I would not consider the smaller ones  to really be sighthoundlike, as they are classified by FCI or international sighthound breeding clubs, but all are rabbit hunters. Galgo is hare, podenco is rabbit - but often used together with other dogs like the andaluz terrier.

There do exist more catchdog like hybrids. I think wire haired podenco x dogo argentino is very common. Always forget how this type is called, it barely apears in rescues. "Perro de rehala" or "Rehala" can be looked up to find a little more about them or how they are used.

 

 

Thanks for the reply. Nicely written and made me smile. Sounds like they would make an interesting addition to a bushing pack. Whether they'd be as good as a traditional bushing spaniel or terrier I have no idea but they sound like like they would surely make it interesting 

[tatsblisters 7,957]

They seem an hardy type of dog seen a few similar in Cape Verde a few years back and similar looking dogs appear on documentaries about the tribes in Amazon rain forest's. The dog that was rescued on a desert island by that Irish fellow that was all over social media recently looked like one of these podenco crosses.

[Tyla 3,179]

1 minute ago, tatsblisters said:

They seem an hardy type of dog seen a few similar in Cape Verde a few years back and similar looking dogs appear on documentaries about the tribes in Amazon rain forest's. The dog that was rescued on a desert island by that Irish fellow that was all over social media recently looked like one of these podenco crosses.

I think they are quite close in appearance to the archetypal pariah dog you see all over the 3rd world. I can never decide if they are the original native dogs or descendants of introduced dogs or a mixture. They all seem to end up looking very similar anyway, dingo ish, yellow, prick ears. 

[low plains drifter 9,467]

On 25/09/2021 at 22:33, sandymere said:

 

 

Aye, it's a bugger the owd Hampshire flint

[forest of dean redneck 11,191]

On 30/09/2021 at 09:44, tatsblisters said:

They seem an hardy type of dog seen a few similar in Cape Verde a few years back and similar looking dogs appear on documentaries about the tribes in Amazon rain forest's. The dog that was rescued on a desert island by that Irish fellow that was all over social media recently looked like one of these podenco crosses.

I seen that on a program other day the boat captain  tried dumping it on another island , bet he greased his palm a lot  to go get it back .

[TelephonePete 111]

I have only seen them in Spain They are a much loved and abused breed there. I believe there are 3 types of Podenco I have seen 2. The one I am most familiar with I saw inland from the Costa blanca where we had a house. They seem great dogs. The one I was familiar was similar to the Ibethan Hound I was always intrigued with the way that they used to stand still on their hind legs peering over the top of the scrub. I once saw A dog that i believe may have been one of the others breeds working scrub frantically with a bell atached to it so the owner could keep track of it. There is a family near me that has 2 dark red podencos that they rescued from spain. These 2 are much smaller and not very attractive compared to the much bigger dogs that i am aquainted with. They told me that there were 3 types of Podenco. I suppose its like our Greyhound if they cant do the job its down the road. And that could mean anything in Spain. If I lived in Spain I would happily rescue a Podenco. They seem cracking dogs and I am a bit surprised that nobody works them over here.