PODENGO THE
W hile you may be familiar with the Portuguese Podengo Pequeno, you may be less familiar with the Medio & Grande size, called simply, PODENGO. A primitive type dog, its probable origin lies in the ancient prick-eared dogs brought by the Phoenicians and Romans to the Iberian Peninsula in Classic Antiquity. This rustic breed adapted itself to the Portuguese geography and climate, resulting in what is nowadays the Portuguese “warren hound.” The GRANDE, the largest of the Podengos, was developed for deer and wild boar hunting. It will exhaust and hold down the prey and await the hunter’s gun. The Grande is now very rare in its home country. The MEDIO, or middle size, was developed for rabbit chasing, flushing, hunting, and retrieval. Its hunting style includes catlike stalking and, similar to the Ibizan Hound, it often jumps above the prey before landing on or near it to flush it out of dense brush, rock crevices or burrows. It will dig, if necessary, to flush prey. It is important to remember that the Pequeno you may know is not bred- down from bigger sizes, and the Medio & Grande are not bred-up Pequenos. You can, however, get Medios & Grandes in the same litter, and to expand the gene pool, they have been bred together… though never to a Pequeno. (Breeding a more square, long-legged sighthound/open field runner to a rect- angular, low-to-the-ground dog that must be able to push through brush— needing a lower center of gravity—would produce animals that could fulfill neither purpose.) The photo above provides a general size difference. The Podengo is a hunter, however, and those of us who have slipped a dog typically have our hearts in our throats worrying that a rabbit, fox or deer might make an appearance and provide far more interesting chase than a plastic bag. We are always looking for hound homes so that we can preserve the breed. For more information, you can visit: www.podengo-mediogrande.com.
Powered by FlippingBook