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Here’s what to do.

A Dog’s Last Will and Testament.

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In 2007  I joined a French galgo and podenco rescue association, L’Europe des Levriers and travelled with them over several years on rescues into Spain to bring  hounds back to France for rehoming.  from about 2010 some members of the team broke away and formed their own rescue associations in other parts of France.  And this has continued, so many rescue associations bringing galgos and podencos into France that it is becoming more and more difficult to home them.

Here Odile Brochet, President of Levriers sans Frontieres, expresses her opinion.  This is an English translation, kindly supplied from Danielle Hart, who bravely translated my galgo and podenco books into French.

Basically, she’s saying that she’s tired of all the people screaming that they should save a galgo whenever she has a sad story about one, especially a traumatized one. That people say LSF HAS to get them out of there, but once they’re in France in a foster family, everybody forgets about them. People only seem to want beautiful galgos who don’t have problems, but they expect LSF do get the traumatized ones out of the Spanish shelters though. She says that the broken ones, the ones who have been in shelters for months if not years surely deserve to be saved the most, but at the rate it’s going if people don’t adopt them, LSF will have to leave them in the shelters.

Have a giggle at this galga trying to get a cardboard box into a crate!

This is a google translation of a piece on facebook.  I haven’t published a link to the video…it is simply tooooooo distressing.  The cruelty of the Spanish hunters continues to be unbelievable!  Whoever did this to the galga is totally inhuman!  

February 9, 2015

The video is of yesterday, Sunday at 19:30 PM. We went to rescue that galguita, of a publication made on Channel 9. Arrived at the place we find ourselves with a table that left us paralyzed, the animal was tied up, no water, no food, famished, full of flies, larvae in her ears, tick-infested.  That person did to let her die without a doubt, it was a very particular corner because if this had not been published, nobody was going to find her in any way. Not even this coward helped her die faster than that of a more dignified way. We cut that leash and immediately took her to the vet but it was too late. The Vets nothing they could do to that table so ominous to that led to that animal.

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On Wednesday 10/2/2016 Galgos del Sol and Tina Solera rescued several galgos and pregnant podencas.  Here is the video

‘Yesterday we got a call to say that a galguero locally (Murcia) had been closed down and fined by Seprona and could we help take the dogs. This was an emotional case for us because it’s on our doorstep and we had been waiting for some time for this news. We had approached before to help to no avail and we had reached out to the authorities but nothing happened. There are a lot of ghosts around this place.  I don’t want to write about them but I’ve seen them and I’ve cried and I’ve waited this moment.

It’s not over yet tho, with one galgo very ill, the stress of the move threw him into extreme panic… Usually I stay calm but emotions & memories from the past here just took over and now I’m utterly drained instead of happy, the pressure got too much as the collapse of one of the galgos.’

Update – the galgo was kept at the vet clinic and is now slowly recovering.

I often get asked for animal rescue associations in Spain so here’s a link to a directory of them.The list is not complete, some associations now no longer exist whilst there are other new ones. Most of them are full with dozens of galgos and podencos.

Herewith pix of the speakers at the conference, not in any order.

Amalia from the Murcia Veterinary College tells the audience how important it is to get vet reports right for denuncias and for obtaining nucleo zoologico licences.

Pedro José Moratalla Moratalla spoke about UPROMA, the first police unit to be set up specifically to deal with animal welfare.

Núria Querol Viñas told us how there is nearly always a link between violence/mistreatment against humans and against animals.

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