Galgos and podencos used in Spanish and Portuguese hunting traditions face severe welfare problems at the end of the hunting season, often being abandoned or killed.
Galgo welfare represents a culturally embedded welfare crisis: dogs used intensively for hunting are considered expendable by some traditional hunters, discarded when their working life ends. The welfare harms — abandonment to starvation, hanging, drowning — represent severe suffering imposed on social, emotionally sensitive animals. International rescue efforts have increased but do not match the scale of abandonment. Legislative reform and cultural change within Spain are the only long-term solutions.