Phoenix Association

NEWS & EVENTS

Advance notice!

Its just over three months to go for the next Phoenix Book Sale!
This thirteenth Phoenix Book Sale will be held on Saturday, 7th May 2011 at Campsegret. The doors of the Salle de Commune will open again at 10.00 and close around 15.00 hrs. As usual all books, Dvd`s, Cd`s and all the cakes and pies you can eat, will be exactly one euro!
So book it in your diary and come and stock up on your summer reading and listening! Campsegret is on the RN21 between Bergerac and Perigueux.
Should you have any books, dvd`s or cd`s to contribute, please take them along on the day!

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LANZAROTE PODENCOS

A week’s holiday on Lanzarote this September turned into the usual ‘busman’s holiday’ as we became aware of the large number of stray, starving and mistreated ‘podenco’ dogs on the island.
The staff running SARA, the island’s welfare organisation, explained that the large number of unwanted podencos was extremely problematic.
Used for hunting, these dogs were often abused and kept in appalling conditions. Many were abandoned if they proved to be poor hunters and there was a veritable glut of dumped dogs at the end of the hunting season.
SARA manages to rehome small, family dogs, but finds it very difficult to find homes for podencos. Branded as hunting dogs rather that companion animals, they suffer from the same stigma as the hunting breeds do here in France.

The Canary podenco is a ‘gaze hound’, which means it hunts by sight, rather than scent, and is part of the same breed-family as the well-known and much-loved greyhound, whippet and lurcher.
Also related are the Ibizan hound, the Spanish podenco, the galgo and other lesser-known breeds.
On Lanzarote, podencos are chiefly used to hunt rabbits. Their job is usually to chase the rabbit to its burrow, not to kill it. Ferrets are then used to winkle the rabbit out.
This is good news, as it means that these fun-loving dogs don’t generally have a well-developed killing instinct.

Phoenix is often asked for greyhound, lurcher and whippet-type dogs, which are so plentiful in UK adoption centres, but rarely seen in France.
With this in mind, and to SARA’s great delight, we arranged to fly two of their homeless young podenco girls, Roda and Arminda, from Lanzarote to Barcelona – an enterprise new to both SARA and ourselves, and not without hitch!
Still, all the stops were pulled and the two pods arrived at Barcelona airport at 7.30pm on a wet and windy Ocober 16th.

Here they are, newly-arrived, at a service station hand-over!

Now Barcelona is not on the doorstep!! – over 1,000k from the girls’ final foster destination – but it is unfortunately the nearest direct dog-transporting flight from Lanzarote.
Still, where there’s a will there’s a way, and thanks to several intrepid volunteers, the dogs were collected at the airport and safely relayed to their waiting foster-parents in N. Dordogne, where they are currently revelling in freedom and the good-life.
Possibly for the first time in their young lives they can let-off steam and RUN!!

Roda and Arminda are featured on our Adoption Page, so please take a look…..and if you are a fan of these graceful, gentle and loyal breeds of dog, then foster-carer, Sharon, is waiting to hear from you.
You can contact her on 05 53 60 73 11 sharonleechappell@hotmail.co.uk

Chipped, fully-vaccinated with rabies, European passport and sterilised, they had been in Sara’s kennels since they were pups and have never hunted.

Association Loi 1901
Siège Social: Les Jabauds, 24380 Vergt