When the Moors arrived in Europe, 99 percent of the population was illiterate (even kings couldn’t read or write).  At a time Europe had two institutions of higher learning, the Moors had seventeen. In addition to bringing universal education to Spain, it was a Moor who introduced deodorant, shaving, and changing clothes according to the season.  Moors introduced to Spain asparagus, any number of fruits, advances in agriculture and hydraulic engineering, and paper making. More to our interest, when the Moors reached Portugal in the early eight century, they arrived with primitive dogs that hugely influenced Iberian breeds such as the Galgo Espanol, Ibizan Hound, and the Portuguese Podengo. By the 12th century, dogs resembling the Pogendo appeared in art and architecture, and by the early 20th century, suggestions that the Podengo was “mixed with the survival of its people’ appeared in written works.

A Perdigueiro with a Podengo (with a rabbit) seen in the Tomar Church (X Cent.)