Back home in France late last night after a 3-day round trip of 1800 kms to Madrid, which included delivering a car full of bedding, dog food, medicines, dog coats, which were very gratefully received by the small refuge, and returning with a car full of 6 galgos and a little podenca! And that was just my car! The other two vehicles were also full of galgos, and we brought back 16 in all.
They included the amazing Paca, very badly injured after being dragged behind a car. With the love and care she has received in her foster home, her injuries are healing well, although her foreleg is still giving cause for concern and will probably need an operation when she is stronger.
Whilst the rest of the team set off earlier in the week, to visit a couple of gypsy encampments for filming - that's an other story! - and also a compound holding the 130 galgos rescued by the Guardia Civile in Cordoba last November - my co-driver Cerys and I drove down to just north of Madrid for a meet on Wednesday evening.
Thursday morning saw us up at the crack of dawn for a disgusting Spanish breakfast(?) of toasted baguette (left over from dinner the previous night), some butter and a small pack of peach confiture. Well, it said 'peach' on the label, but...
Then we were in our cars and heading off for the first port of call, a residencia (kennels) on the outskirts of Madrid. As these places always are, it was buried in the hillside up a badly-potholed track.
I was impressed with the enclosures in which the dogs were kept, but I wouldn't like to say how many dogs were actually there - all shapes and breeds, possibly 100. We collected our first half dozen galgos here, which included one poor chap from the 130 Cordoba rescue who was skeletal, dried dirt on his coat, and the tale was that he had been injured after being kicked by a horse when a puppy.
Suffice to say he is going to the home of the association president to receive the care necessary to bring him up to excellent health.
Back in our vehicles, we headed off at speed northwards to the next refuge, a small one again hidden in the mountain side, up an even more rutted track.
Here we unloaded my car of all the donations I had taken with me from France - the ladies at the shelter was gratefully speechless that so much had been sent for them. Coats were especially needed, as winter temperatures had been down below -12 degrees, and the shelter is within sight of mountains still thick with snow.
Here we collected 7 more galgos and 2 podencas,two very sweet little females. After paperwork and discussion about the dogs, it was back in the car and off northwards to head out of Spain into France and back to the overnight stop at my home.
Our final stop was at Irun, to collect Paca, and I was delighted to see what a recovery she is making after her terrible injuries. She is understandably still a very nervous dog, but the wounds on her body are healing, and it is just the injury to her off foreleg which still gives cause for concern.
After filling our cars up with petrol at the border - Spanish fuel is much lower in price than in France! - we drove straight through the border control and up the motorway, direction Bordeaux.
We stopped for a further couple of hours at the home of another volunteer who has a particularly dog-friendly cat, so those galgos whose attitude to cats was unknown were put through their paces.
Most passed with flying colours, only one or two thought it might be a good idea to see what Puss tasted like - not given the chance, of course, they were on the end of a lead! Then it was into our cars and off again, heading for my home.
Finally landing late evening, the dogs were glad to stretch their legs in the overnight compound at my home, fed and watered and settled for the night. They had all travelled very well.
Friday morning broke to French sunshine and I set off with the team to Poitiers, where a couple of the dogs were leaving the group where their adoptants were eagerly awaiting their arrival. I said farewell to my companions and the rest of the galgos and 2 podencas, heading for Paris and their final forever home destinations.
There is no other breed of dog (I include all greyhound/galgos) which has the temperament to cope with the journey undertaken by galgos when they are rehomed outside Spain. In our case, the dogs start their lives in the hands of galguerros (hunters), most living in appalling conditions. If they are lucky, they are rescued by volunteers and taken to a refuge where they live with dozens of other dogs - all strangers.
The lucky ones who are offered homes abroad are then microchipped, vaccinated, blood-tested and castrated and find themselves taken by strangers yet again, probably speaking a different language from Spanish, and put either into crates and flown abroad, or into crates to be sent to another part of Spain where they are collected by yet more strangers
Into a strange car or van, they are then transported across borders into another country, with yet more galgos they haven't met before, to arrive at rehoming centres, usually private homes, before they finally go to their forever homes.
They take it all in their stride, usually spending the travelling time sleeping. There is no squabbling, fighting, just a calm acceptance of setting off on an adventure, like an expectant child.
Of course, there are the few who are frightened and nervous, those who have been on the receiving end of maltreatment from the galguerros or gypsies but, mostly, they 'just get on with it'.
Included in this trip was my new galga, Sahara,and I will introduce you to her in another story.
In the meantime, for those of you who have never experienced the wonder of owning and living with a galgo or greyhound - all I can do is say that their companionship and love is very special, and there are thousands looking for their forever home. You will find some of the associations offering such a dog for adoption on my home page.
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