Galgos, galgos, everywhere – the pressure on the refuges is relentless

Every day I receive emails from Spain, galgos and podencos dumped, abandoned, injured, or hunters taking them to the perreras to be killed or to the shelters and threatening to kill the dogs if the volunteers don’t take them. Day in and day out, the pressure is never ending. I have lost count of how many dogs I have been told about in Jerez, Gesser, Mairena, Cordoba, Seville, Malaga perreras. Last weekend I drove down to the Spanish border and, along with a couple of other cars, brought back 20 galgos and a couple of podencos…many of them are now in foster and awaiting forever homes.

Here are a couple of the latest appeals

In Madrid, on Sunday late in the afternoon we received a call from a hunter. The bastard, he can not be called otherwise, told us he would shoot his five greyhounds, which he no longer needed, if we did not take them there and then. We told him we had not at this time room but if he gave us a few days, we would try and find somewhere for them. Please, has anyone room? Contacto: martacalero08@gmail.com

This is Vide, who was picked up by a volunteer who was visiting Valencia. There on the highway was this poor dog in the conditions under which you see in the pictures, so thin, so emaciated, he could hardly stand, so weak and near to death.

He is young, not yet two years old, very handsome … in the two days he has been with us, he has recovered a little, eating and drinking normally, but still has a long way to go be fully recovered. We need a foster home for him, to prepare for adoption. Please contact morala17@gmail.com

Added to these 6 galgos, there are 16 more on death row in the perrera in Seville, 5 have been rescued from the perrera in Malaga, and there are at least another half dozen in emails still in my inbox! Then there were the 130 galgos which Scooby Medina took at the beginning of the year, plus all the other sick and injured ones I have featured recently…..and that is just the very tip of the iceberg.

Unfortunately at the weekend I did not have much chance to chat to Cristina (vice president of L’Europe des Levriers) from Madrid, as we were so busy sorting out which dogs were going where, but she said the problem this year is worse than ever……………

Let us pray that the manifestation taking place throughout cities in Spain on the 25th March will make someone in the government take notice and accept that the mass abandonment of animals and cruelty cannot continue.