dogs, their history of selection as a working sighthound, their light weight, and their anatomy keep them safe from hip dysplasia. Unlike greyhounds, these dogs are not susceptible to corns or other common greyhound ailments. These dogs must run regularly and/or walked long distances to keep in perfect health, combined with their characteristic tendency to sleep the rest of the day. History The Spanish greyhound is thought by some popular writers to have descended from Egyptian dogs brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Phoenicians nearly 3,000 years ago. However the existence of the Celtic vertragus in Roman Iberia 2,000 years ago, as described by Arrian and Martial, suggests that it and its possible descendant the Galgo, may more likely be of Western European type in origin. After it was established in Spain, it is thought to have been cross-bred centuries later with the Sloughi brought from North Africa by the Moors. Some writers suggest that this breed may be ancestral to the English Greyhound. The Galgo name is probably derived from the Latin or 'Dog from Gaul'. The Spanish word for all kinds of Greyhounds — including the Galgo — is , which means 'harrier' or 'dog for chasing hares', since is Spanish for 'hare'. The same derivative is seen in the Italian and the French . The first written references to an ancient Celtic sighthound, the , in the Cynegeticus of Flavius Arrianus (Arrian), Roman proconsul of the Spanish province of Baetica in the second century, may refer to the Galgo's antecedent. Arrian described his personal experience in Spain. His description of hare hunting is very similar to that used with the Galgo nowadays in Spain, adding that it was a general Celtic tradition not related to social class. He indicated that there were not only smooth-haired types of the but also rough-coated ones. There is little evidence for mention of the Galgo or its antecedent in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, but it appeared to have survived and flourished in the second half of the period. In the 9th and 10th centuries, coinciding with the Reconquista, great spaces in Castile were colonized resulting in Christian military repossession of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim control. This open land introduced a new mode of hunting with dogs: while the North of Spain is mountainous, the regions progressively recovered were flat, open areas full of small animals like