The galgo is a Spanish sighthound, a hare-hunting dog, gentle, quiet, built for the sofa as much as for running. Spain is the only European Union country where hunting with sighthounds is still allowed, and that is what makes the galgo a special case.
The central fact fits in one line of law. The Spanish animal welfare law (law 7/2023, in force since September 2023) explicitly excludes hunting dogs from its scope. The same dog is therefore protected if it sleeps in a living room, and stripped of these protections if it belongs to a hunter. Some regions such as Madrid or the Valencian Community have reintegrated them into their local legislation; others have not. The EU legislation on dog and cat welfare, currently under negotiation, has also excluded them through amendments.
On the figures, honesty requires saying they are disputed. Animal protection platforms put forward thousands of hunting dog abandonments each year at season's end; the first official census by the Spanish ministry, published in 2025, counts considerably fewer; associations respond that this census does not capture dogs that were never picked up. No one has an undisputed figure, and this site will not give you a false one. What is documented, on the other hand: every hunting season's end, in February, specialised shelters see the arrival of retired galgos, injured, ageing or deemed inadequate, and the cycle starts again at the reopening in August.
What you can do is concrete. The Spanish galgueras listed below work as a network with foster families and place adoptions across Europe: the galgo travels well and adapts remarkably to family life. Sponsorship supports the dogs that cannot be adopted. And an international petition calls for an end to sighthound hunting in Spain.
A word on adoption, finally, to dispel a common fear: a galgo does not need to run for hours. It is a sprinter that sleeps twenty hours a day, discreet, gentle with children, and that often discovers the sofa as a revelation.