This is a forum for Podengos - mostly medios and pequenos. Bianca is not a Podengo, but there is no forum for Labradengos so I crave the indulgence of the editor and hope for the interest of readers in what is an unclassified cross-breed. She is now about a year old and living on the Cape Verde island of Sal. This word in Portuguese means salt. There are still saltpans in the extinct volcano where one can float high in the water as in the Dead Sea. Before refrigeration, Portuguese fishing boats used to come here to collect salt. They fished the Grand Banks for cod and put in to St John`s in the then British colony of Newfoundland. Here they collected St Johns water dogs as the Newfies called them, to help with their fishing nets. They called them Labradors, which is Portuguese for seed sower.
The dogs came to Sal from 1905 onwards, as the fishing boats collected salt to make Bacalhau, the Portuguese national dish. Boats also carried Podengos, seemingly both Pequenos and Medios, to control rats. For decades these were the only species on the island and they interbred, furiously. Bianca has just had a litter of nine, of which one died. They are variously white,like her, black like their father Sooty, who looks like Jet in the avatar, or black and brown like their single grandfather. Interbreeding is rife in an island community where dogs, even those with owners, live out in the open.
Bianca is 25 pounds or 12 kilos and looks like a Labrador puppy, She must be about a year old. But she runs, jumps weaves and skips like a Podengo Medio. When we first met her in April she had a string, tight around her neck. She had bitten through it but would let nobody touch it. Many people tried. We could feed her by hand, but as soon as the other hand moved, she dodged as only a Podengo can.
Eventually she was caught in a net and had the operation and the rabies treatment. She scored ten times the required level of antibodies : remarkable as there has never been rabies in the islands. She is a bundle of joy and fun and plays all the time with Brando, another Labradengo and probably her brother. Meanwhile Maria a pure Podengo Medio who regards Brando as her husband sits and watches on the sofa, her eyes filling with tears.
The dogs came to Sal from 1905 onwards, as the fishing boats collected salt to make Bacalhau, the Portuguese national dish. Boats also carried Podengos, seemingly both Pequenos and Medios, to control rats. For decades these were the only species on the island and they interbred, furiously. Bianca has just had a litter of nine, of which one died. They are variously white,like her, black like their father Sooty, who looks like Jet in the avatar, or black and brown like their single grandfather. Interbreeding is rife in an island community where dogs, even those with owners, live out in the open.
Bianca is 25 pounds or 12 kilos and looks like a Labrador puppy, She must be about a year old. But she runs, jumps weaves and skips like a Podengo Medio. When we first met her in April she had a string, tight around her neck. She had bitten through it but would let nobody touch it. Many people tried. We could feed her by hand, but as soon as the other hand moved, she dodged as only a Podengo can.
Eventually she was caught in a net and had the operation and the rabies treatment. She scored ten times the required level of antibodies : remarkable as there has never been rabies in the islands. She is a bundle of joy and fun and plays all the time with Brando, another Labradengo and probably her brother. Meanwhile Maria a pure Podengo Medio who regards Brando as her husband sits and watches on the sofa, her eyes filling with tears.
Last edited by james ensor on Tue Jul 04, 2017 2:32 pm; edited 1 time in total