This beautiful boy is in the area of a gas station in El Fantasma, next to the toll of the Cabezas de San Juan and de Lebrija on the motorway Seville-Cadiz. The petrol station people say he’s been there about a month but he’s really nervous, won’t let anyone near him. Time is running out because he is going to get injured. Is there anyone in the area who could go and feed him each day, gain his trust to be able to catch him?
Contact urgently paulolamedina@gmail.com or
The temperatures in Scandinavia, especially Finland, are very different from Spain, especially for the thin-coated galgos. Here’s a story about the Finnish association which rehomes galgos, Kodittomat Espanjan Koirat ry. Kati explains.
Kodittomat Espanjan Koirat ry – The Homeless Dogs of Spain association in English – was established in 2006 by Miia Marjamäki, the president of association. Within the past 6 years the association has found new homes from Finland for over 2000 dogs.
Here’s a story of a galga and puppies in Portugal. Whilst there are not so many galgos there, these hounds often suffer. Matt Lightfoot tells the tale.
‘Mum in the pictures belongs to an alcoholic (the man that killed the other pups). One of the female pups will replace the mum as breeding stock, and this lovely lady will be handed over to Teresa (volunteer rescuer) once the pups are weaned. She is extremely emaciated and Teresa has already left him a 10Kg bag of dog food, but the galga needs special nursing, high energy feed (like Royal Canin starter) or she won’t survive feeding these puppies.
A long time ago, back in the 1960/70s, way before Spain went mad building huge concrete monstrosities alongside the beach road to places like Benalmadena, Torremolinos, Tossa del Mar, Estepona, my mother used to winter there rather than survive in the damp atmostphere of Northwest England. I always imagined these places as separate holiday towns along the Spanish coast.
I was staggered to find that now they are all part of Malaga – province of Malaga to be exact.
Vivienne Wharton works hard with the dog rescue associations in Murcia, to try and improve the situation for abandoned and maltreated animals there. This is her website, just launched. Please join the group and support her in her efforts. Here’s a link to her previous article.
Earlier in the year I was contact by a someone who had made contact with the League Against Cruel Sports in the UK, to ask if I could write to them about the plight of the galgos. As you will all know, it has been a terrible year for the Spanish hunting dogs, worse than ever, so time has been very short for me.
Natalie Osborne very kindly offered to compose a letter to send, and so I am asking you all to please print off the letter below – copy and paste it into a Word document, and then print and post – to see if the League will help to try and make a change for the galgos.
Some galgos are lucky enough – if you can call it lucky to survive several years at the hands of a galguero – to reach 7 or even 10 years of age. They desperately need to live out the rest of their lives in the comfort of a loving home, and here are three.
Elsa and Maika are particularly sad stories and an example of the hypocrisy of the Spanish authorities. Siblings, rescued at 3 yrs by a lady and taken into her home, 7 years later they find themselves in a shelter. With so many abandoned dogs living on the streets of Spain, it’s hard not to want to help them, and this is the situation in which Elsa and Maika’s Mom found herself.
Those of you who have read my book will know that I mention how difficult it can be for animal rescue volunteers to work – when local people against them and their work – and especially if they make conplaints against acts of animal cruelty – take retaliatory action against, the volunteers, their families, their homes, cars…and in this case their dogs.
Pepis Refuge, near Seville, has become the latest victim of just such an horrendous and sickening act. Read about it here.
The drive down to Seville from Valladolid was expected to take about 6 hours or so, so I’d bought a box of Lee Child audio tapes to help pass the time during the long drive. Much of the countryside through which the motorways pass is flat and barren – the land burnt brown by the scorching heat of the sun – broken up spasmodically by a narrow range of mountains topped with wind turbines, or massive solar panel farms on the plains – Spain is certainly ahead of France (where I live) in alternative power sources. The UK can’t compete as they simply haven’t the land mass.
One very noticeable difference from my previous visits to Spain was the lack of movement on building work – new roads part completed – now void of cranes, earth movers, building materials, silent and static – huge apartment blocks simply left as empty concrete shells, ‘se vende’ or ‘se alquila’ signs everywhere. (for sale and to rent). Clear evidence of the recession.
