The Podengo português

The Podengo Português is from Portugal. It’s believed to have it’s origin from the old Egypt’s Pharaoh dog. This breed is mainly encountered for in the north of Portugal where it is used in hunting rabbits. There are three sizes of the Podengo Português; grande, médio and pequeno. The biggest messures up to 70 cm and the smallest down to 20 cm at withers. They also have two types of coat, wire haired (cerdoso) and short haired (liso). The first Podengo Português pequeno was imported to Sweden in 1997. Today you can find all three sizes of Podengo Português in Sweden.

If you want a small robust dog with lots of energy a Podengo Português pequeno is a good choice. They are very easy to teach and suitable to many activities, for example agility, obedience, dog show and even Lure coursing (a form of artificial rabbit hunt). Naturally the Podengo is also a wonderful pet dog.

The Podengo hunts with it’s sight and keeps a reasonable distance to it’s owner.

The Podengo is a very healthy breed in general. Never the less some cases of the eye disease ”PRA”, ”Luxating Patella”, ”Legg Perthes” and CECS “Canine Epileptoid Cramping Syndrome” have been found. When it comes to PRA we can do DNA tests for two of its variants to prevent at least those two variants to appear in our puppies.