PORTUGUESE PODENGOS

This is a dog breed that comes from Portugal, as you can probably guess from the name.  And these dogs are very, very cute, mainly because the short-haired ones look a lot like basenjis, except with shorter legs and straighter tails.  There are also wire-haired podengos, also very cute, but they do not look nearly so much like basenjis.

Portuguese podengos come in three different sizes:  pequeno (small), medio (medium), and grande (large).  Then in each size group, you can have either smooth or wire coats.  Colors can include yellow, fawn, red, or black with white markings.  So if you want a podengo, you have lots of choices you need to make.

In Portugal, this breed is very popular, and it has been around for a long, long time.  Podengos first got to the Iberian Peninsula about 2,000 years ago.  They came with the Phoenicians from Asia Minor.  You can see carvings of podengos on 11th century Portuguese churches, and they first show up in literature in the 14th century.  Portuguese sailors used to take podengos with them to keep mice and rats from eating the food stored on their ships.

Podengo Grande

Podengos are very good hunting dogs.  They use both scent and sight to hunt, just like basenjis do.  Usually the dogs go out ahead of the human hunters, and when they find game, they either kill it and bring it back to the humans, or else they wait for the hunters to catch up and shoot the game.  The pequeno podengos are used to hunt rabbits, the medios for rabbits and wild boar, and the grandes for wild boar and deer.

Podengo Medio

The podengo pequeno is about 8" to 12" tall and weighs 9-13 pounds.  The medio is 16" to 22" tall and weighs 35 to 44 pounds.  The grande is 22" to 28" tall and weighs between 44 and 66 pounds.  In the U.S., 75% of the purebred podengos are the pequeno size, and 85% of these have wire coats.  The breed has very few inherited health problems because people haven't messed with the podengo's breeding as much as they have with some other breeds.

In general, the podengo is an intelligent, brave, and affectionate dog.  It is a good watchdog and a good companion.  Podengos can compete in lure coursing, flyball, agilty, tracking, rally, and obedience.  In Europe, the breed has been recognized for registration by several groups.  In the U.S., the AKC made the Portuguese Podengo Pequeno eligible to compete in the Miscellaneous class starting January 1, 2011.  Dogs' wins can be recorded, but registration is not open yet for the breed.

Organizations that recognize all sizes of the podengo in the U.S. are the United Kennel Club, American Rare Breed Association, the North American Kennel Club, and the American Sighthound Field Association.

One of Mom's friends, my Aunt Erica, who lives in Oregon, adopted a dog named Spencer from a shelter a few weeks ago.  She thought she was adopting a basenji mix, because Spencer was smaller than a basenji and had a straight tail kind of like a fox tail.  But then somebody told Aunt Erica that maybe Spencer was a Portuguese podengo, and now we all pretty much think that is what he is.  Anyway, I would like to thank Spencer for giving me the idea for this blog entry, because I'm not sure if I had ever even heard of Portuguese podengos before he came along!