25/04/2026
A skeleton is walking slowly with its head down, legs trembling and a skinny tail between them. It’s trying to leave the pine forest in the mountains and find a roadside in a hope that someone will spot it and give it a drop of water to drink…
The dog used to be a pointer but now…it’s hard to tell.
This is a common sight at the end of the hunting season in Cyprus, Greece and other Mediterranean countries. Dogs sick, mainly with leishmaniasis (parasite disease attacking organs one by one) or starving after being abandoned by their hunter owners.
No, not abandoned. Discarded, just like trash.
They are not useful anymore. They got sick, they “didn’t take to the gun” or they were simply too old.
That’s reality and it is tolerated both by the government and the people. They call it “tradition “.
The situation is very similar in Spain.
Somehow, despite many voices criticising these practices, they still continue. And they continue with the next generation.
The men bring their young sons to hunt with them on the weekend and when they finish, they lock the dogs back in a tiny kennel ina middle of some dry field, exposed to the scorching heat, without walks or anything to do for the next week. Sometimes even without the food to make the dogs hunt better…
While we worry if our dogs got enough sniffing mat action, those men leave their companions for days on end without giving them a single thought.
We should be aware that these things are still happening in 2026. Your adoptions matter, they really save lives of the dogs that suffered more than we can even imagine. This is also why I’m firmly against breeding more dogs.
