Adopting a galgo - Part IV - questionnaires and visits

You will almost certainly be asked to complete questionnaires about your home circumstances, you life style, your other animals, your family etc.

Please don't consider this intrusive...the organisations who ask for this are just doing their job to ensure that the rescued galgo is not being taken from the frying pan and thrown into the fire.

Equally, if someone comes to visit you, please don't feel insulted. It is standard practice.

Joanna Simm explains why.

They want to be sure that you know what you are taking on, that you have a securely fenced garden (galgos do like to run, and are not the sort of dogs you can let out onto an unguarded doorstep each morning !)

Remember too that the person who visits you, or who asks the questions, has a common cause. Namely the well-being of this beautiful breed of dog we know as a galgo.

Is adoption still for you?

I do hope so. There are so many of these beautiful, gentle and loving dogs being terrorised and killed in Spain, they need all the love they can get. They give it back, in spades. I promise.

A bientot, Joanna.

I'll second that. To even try to understand the hell the galgos and podencos go through in Spain is something we cannot begin to imagine, and yet these calm, affectionate, non-barking dogs have still so much love and trust to give to someone who gives them a gentle caress, feeds them regularly, does not abuse them -

There is NO love like a dog's love, especially from those dogs which have been abused, and the galgos and podencos are, I believe, the most abused dogs in the world.

Beryl

Related articles:
Questions to ask yourself
Importance of neutering
Fees paid to associations
Questionnaires and visits

Comments

[June Searchfield]

As an adoptant and fosterer I totally agree with all the comments written about the procedure. What I would like to add is the following...it would be a great help if we could have a bit more history about the dogs coming through...having had a sad experience lately with a galga being placed in the wrong environment...ie.the galga was put into a home with no other animals when she had come from a foster home of four or five dogs and cats. As a result she was totally unsettled, lonely and was rehomed again within a week...not a situation which I want to see repeated. The rewards from fostering and adopting these beautiful dogs are fantastic and to see a rehabilitated galgo go to his or her new forever home, happy,confident and healthy makes the hard work worthwhile.

[Mediabee]

Hi June

Thanks for your comments. Totally agree with what you say, but sometimes the refuges don't know an awful lot about the dogs they get. But it is true that the galgos and podencos usually have been kept with others of the same type, and have not been kept as solitary dogs, and so, when they go to adoptants, they really need to go to homes where there is another dog.

And if people do adopt one of these dogs, they should really seriously ask the question 'does the dog live with cats', which some of the refuges can test within restricted situations - as I have a foster dog who now way could live with cats - he has obviously hunted in a previous life - probably starved to make him hunt - and really wants to get at my pet cat!

On the other hand, there are lots of galgos who come out of Spain and live happily straight away with cats, I know of at least 2 just in my small commune.

B

[maviyan]

Fine information. Thanks so much, have a good day!
http://www.surveytool.com/create-online-questionnaire/