The Galgos

Every story of horrible treatment to an animal is always alarming & disturbing to me. After hearing about the GALGOS and seeing some of the horrible treatment documented on the internet, I had to draw your attention to this situation. And although there are stories of dogs being mistreated all over the world, I mentally can only handle helping one group at a time. I hope this posting will help one person make a difference in a glagos life.
Adoptions are available to us in North America and you can also help volunteer at a shelter in Spain. The body of text below was taken from a community forum for the organization www.galgorescue.org Galgo Rescue Interntaional Network (GRIN)

Without a massive international onslaught, the Spanish Greyhounds (known as "Galgos") are condemned. Condemned to suffer and to die in a deafening media silence.

For just 2, maybe 3 years of their short lives those gentle Greyhounds from across the ocean only know a miserable life, with no advantages, before experiencing the most violent and unimaginable death.


In Spain, Galgueros (hunter with Galgos) do not use guns, they use their Hounds. But those hunters show no mercy to their faithful companions. The Galgos are treated as hunting tools, shut in a shed most of the time, ignored except for the hunt.

Already used to maltreatment by the age of 12 months, deprived of food and care, their owners do not hesitate to always inflict more atrocious suffering. In spring hunting season ends. The massacre and abandonment of Galgos reaches its height when the galguero, devoid of all feeling, carries out the final atrocity. The most traditional method remains, to this day, hanging by a method known as œthe pianist. The Galgo hangs, its feet just touching the ground, causing it extreme agony for several days. Then, exhausted and suffocated, it collapses, “hanging himself freeing the Galgueros of any kind of guilt. Whilst out for a walk in the forests of Spain, it is not unusual to make the macabre discovery of one of these unwanted Galgo hanging from a tree.

Around 10,000 Galgos are thus sacrificed each year, out of a total of 500,000 continually renewed by the galgueros. Hopefully there are rescue teams battling without let-up against these rituals of a by-gone age; rituals which involve abandonment, training to run fast behind a moving vehicle, starvation because they are then supposed to run faster to catch the hares, limbs amputated by unimaginable cruelty and pain. In some regions of Spain, especially in the South, the slow agony of the Galgos guards the tradition of this taste of men playing with death and, unhappily, it is difficult to eradicate some of these rituals, even the most unbelievably cruel.

Galgos are also very often stolen in the shelters by the Gypsies, they usually use them as bait in dogs fight, the are also using them for their hunting needs, they are very cruel and heartless...

After 5 years of non-stop battle, and influenced by different Greyhound and Galgos rescue organisations, Barbara Lefranc joined the Scooby-Belgium team ( www.scooby-belgium.be ) in June 2007, their priority being to mobilise public knowledge and opinion and to get Spanish petition signed-up in order to obtain a law to forbid hunting with Galgos in Spain. Helped and assisted by a team of volunteers, Scooby-Belgium steps in, notably in welcoming the Galgos into their associated refuges in Spain, and then finding caring homes in Belgium and France.

The mission of the association.

1. To remove these gentle defenceless animals from immediate danger.
2. To welcome them into the refuges and rehabilitate them both mentally and physically.
3. To find them homes with families who will give them the love they deserve.