About Project Galgo

Project Galgo is a UK registered charity dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming of Galgos, Podencos, Salukis and other sighthounds in need.

Working alongside trusted rescue organisations in Spain and the Middle East, we help dogs leave behind abandonment, neglect, exploitation and abuse, bringing them into safety and ultimately into loving homes.

But to understand why Project Galgo exists, you first have to understand the reality facing these dogs.

Why Project Galgo exists

For many Galgos and Podencos in Spain, life is determined by their usefulness.

They are bred and kept in large numbers for hunting. Those considered good enough may be kept and bred from. Those who fail to perform, become injured, grow older or are simply no longer needed become disposable.

Some are abandoned on roads or in the countryside. Some are surrendered to already overwhelmed shelters. Others are found starving, injured or terrified.

And thousands are deliberately killed.

Rescuers have found Galgos and Podencos dumped in wells, hanged, beaten, burned, mutilated and left to die. Dogs have been discovered with broken limbs, horrific untreated injuries and bodies so emaciated that survival is a total miracle.

This is not comfortable to read.

It shouldn’t be.

Because behind every description is a dog that actually experienced it.

Not pets. Tools.

Perhaps one of the hardest things to understand is that a person may care deeply for a pet dog while regarding a Galgo or Podenco very differently.

For the hunters/breeders, ‘Galgueros’ these dogs are working tools.

Their worth lies in what they can do.

A Galgo who hunts well has value. A female who produces successful hunting dogs has value. A young dog showing promise has value.

When that usefulness disappears, the dog’s security disappears with it.

Females may be repeatedly bred from for years and years, chained up in squalor. Dogs can spend much of their lives confined in poor conditions, sometimes without adequate food, shelter, veterinary treatment or human companionship.

And when the hunting season ends, rescue organisations once again face the consequences: dogs abandoned, surrendered and discarded.

A life should never become worthless because a dog is no longer useful.

The cruelty is real

Not every Galgo or Podenco suffers extreme abuse, and we will never invent a past for a dog when we don’t know their history.

But neither will we sanitise what happens to many of them.

One of the most notorious methods used to kill Galgos is hanging.

Particularly disturbing accounts describe what has become known as the “piano dance”: a dog is hanged with its back feet only just touching the ground. In its desperate struggle to breathe, the dog repeatedly shifts its feet beneath it — a movement likened, with appalling cruelty, to playing the keys of a piano. Death can be prolonged.

Other dogs have been beaten, thrown into wells, abandoned with serious injuries or left tied where they have little chance of survival.

Then there is the quieter cruelty.

Hunger.

Untreated wounds, gangrenous and necrotic, overrun by maggots.

Parasite infestations.

Years of confinement.

Continual breeding.

Terror.

A life without comfort or affection.

Abandonment at any moment.

Cruelty does not have to be spectacular to cause suffering.

And the law?

Spain introduced major national animal-welfare legislation in 2023.

Hunting dogs were specifically excluded from the scope of that law and are instead governed by other national, regional and European legislation. There is another deeply disturbing gap in protection.

Under changes to Spain’s criminal law, a sexual act involving an animal is specifically punishable where it causes an injury requiring veterinary treatment. This means the law does not simply say that any sexual act with an animal is, in itself, a criminal offence.

In other words, if the required level of physical injury cannot be demonstrated, prosecution under that specific provision becomes far more difficult.

For those fighting to improve the lives of Galgos and Podencos, their exclusion was profoundly significant.

Because these dogs do not need less protection because they work.

They need protection because they are dogs.

The lucky ones reach rescue

Across Spain, extraordinary rescue organisations deal with the reality left behind.

They collect dogs from streets and roadsides. They take them from pounds and shelters. They receive dogs surrendered by hunters.

They rescue the injured, the sick, the frightened, the pregnant, the old and the unwanted.

Then the work of putting lives back together begins.

Veterinary treatment. Food. Warmth. Safety.

And time.

Because not every wound can be seen.

Some dogs arrive carrying the effects of trauma. Fear may have become a survival mechanism: they freeze, shut down, panic, avoid human touch or desperately try to escape when something overwhelms them. For a dog who has learned that the world is unsafe, simply reaching rescue doesn’t make that fear disappear.

We don’t assume every frightened dog has been abused, and we don’t invent histories we cannot know. Trauma can result from many experiences — neglect, abandonment, prolonged confinement, inadequate socialisation, frightening handling or sudden upheaval.

What matters is the dog in front of us.

Some arrive ready to embrace everything their new life offers. Others need weeks, months or sometimes much longer to feel safe.

For them, rescue isn’t the end of the story.

It is the first time they are given the safety and time to begin writing a different one.

What Project Galgo does

Project Galgo works alongside trusted rescue partners to bring suitable dogs to the UK and find them the homes they deserve.

Most spend time with carefully selected foster families before adoption.

Fostering gives us something invaluable:

the opportunity to know the dog.

Not the breed.

Not the rescue story.

The individual.

We learn their personality, confidence, sensitivities, prey drive, behaviour around other dogs and what they need to feel secure and happy.

Some dogs may be adopted directly from one of our partner shelters where appropriate, but our principle remains the same:

We don’t look for just any home. We look for the right one.

Rescue is more than crossing a border

Bringing a dog to the UK is only the beginning.

For a dog who has never lived inside a home, almost everything may be unfamiliar.

Stairs. Television. Traffic. Household appliances. Doors. Windows. The sound of a vacuum cleaner.

Even affection can be unfamiliar.

So we don’t rush them.

We give them time to decompress, observe, learn and begin making choices for themselves.

Sometimes progress is enormous.

Sometimes it is almost imperceptible.

The first relaxed sleep.

The first tail wag.

The first toy.

The first time they approach instead of retreating.

The first time a frightened dog chooses to put their head into your hand.

These moments are why we do what we do.

A promise that lasts beyond adoption

Every dog entrusted to Project Galgo matters to us.

Our adoption process is deliberately thorough because these dogs have already experienced enough uncertainty.

We carefully consider the needs of each dog alongside the circumstances, lifestyle and experience of prospective adopters.

We want homes where our dogs will never again be disposable.

Homes where they will be protected when vulnerable, understood when frightened, given patience when they struggle and celebrated when they flourish.

And our responsibility doesn’t disappear when an adoption contract is signed.

Once a Project Galgo dog, always a Project Galgo dog.

How Project Galgo began

Project Galgo was founded by Helena Jackson in 2020 from a determination to do something tangible for dogs whose suffering is too easily ignored.

In 2022, Project Galgo became a registered charity.

Today we remain a small, volunteer-led organisation with a family spirit, supported by foster carers, adopters, volunteers, supporters and rescue partners who make our work possible.

Behind every transport, veterinary bill, foster placement and adoption is one very simple belief:

Their lives matter.

Our team

Helena Jackson — Founder and Director
Pennie Clayton — Patron and Behaviourist
Camilla Beardsmore — Trustee
Grace Filmer — Secretary
Samantha Walker-Arends — Trustee and Behaviourist
Todd Benton — Treasurer

Our charitable purpose

Our registered charitable purpose is:

“To promote humane behaviour towards animals by providing appropriate care, protection, treatment and security for animals, in particular but not limited to Galgos, Podencos and other Sighthounds, which are in need of care and attention by reason of sickness, maltreatment, poor circumstances or ill usage and to educate the public in matters pertaining to animal welfare in general and the prevention of cruelty and suffering among animals.”

Those words define our legal purpose.

But what they mean to us is much simpler.

To be there when a dog needs someone to say yes.

Yes to rescue.
Yes to veterinary care.
Yes to safety.
Yes to patience.
Yes to another chance.
Yes to a home.

For every dog we help, there are others still waiting.

Others still behind shelter walls.

Others yet to be abandoned.

Others whose suffering nobody has discovered.

We cannot save them all.

But for the ones we can reach, we can change everything.

This project is dedicated to those who have lost their lives, those who survived, and those who are still waiting.

Their past may be part of their story.

It should never have the right to decide their future.

Our Rescue Partners

We are enormously proud to work alongside dedicated rescue organisations whose teams are on the ground saving and caring for Galgos, Podencos and other dogs in need.

Their work makes ours possible.

Together, rescue by rescue, foster by foster and adoption by adoption, we give these dogs what should never have been denied to them:

the chance to be safe, valued, respected and loved.