Traditional Hunting Dogs Are Left to Die En Masse in Spain
Animal welfare groups are working to reduce horrific treatment of galgos, an ancient Spanish breed.
Luke and Sirius, two Spanish greyhounds, or galgos, are frolicking in their Alexandria, Virginia, backyard on a foggy October morning. Getting the playful dogs to stay still for a National Geographic photographer is hard enough, but when a squirrel scampers up a tree—impossible. Luke’s ears perk up, and he’s off.
The dogs have come a long way from Murcia, Spain, where they’d been abandoned. Good Samaritans found Luke and 10 other newborn puppies on the street with their mother in July 2013. Two months later Sirius was found on a road outside Murcia lying beside the corpse of another galgo, who had been shot. Sirius, perhaps a year and a half old, had stayed faithfully with his dead companion.
Galgos are an
