2012 GRIN FALL RESCUE TRIP
PART TWO
MURCIA SPAIN
GRIN Board Members Telma Shaw and Marylou Hecht continued on the second half of their rescue trip to Spain.
Sept 2012. Leaving Malaga behind our friend Dioni del Rio of 112carlotagalgos drove us north towards Granada half way to Puerto Lumbreras. We took advantage of our trip to transport a young 6 month old Mastin pup who Char del Rio had rescued from the kill station and had found a home for her close to where we were headed. Tigger rode with us that day on her way to her forever home! A great way to start week two!
Once we reached Puerto Lumbreras, we met up with Tigger’s mom and did the happy exchange and visited with Diane and Brian Hughes of Ibizan Hound Rescue over a cup of coffee at the local hotel. Marylou and I then drove to Murcia to meet up with our friend Tina Solera of Galgos del Sol. We stayed at the 525 Hotel in Murcia which is a nice hotel and very convenient within walking distance to the beach with a promenade next to the hotel with lots of restaurants, banks, and coffee shops all the necessary conveniences! Murcia is an English expat haven and I was surprised by all the English pubs, fish and chips shops and Indian restaurants in Spain!
Tina met up with us at the hotel, and it was nonstop from there.. visiting at her new finca (small ranch) with all her dogs, meeting her friend Zoe at her vets who rescued a galga the night before, trying to catch abandoned galgos in fields and industrial areas, sharing lunch with her friends, meeting a galguero who was handing over a little girl to us that Tina named Marylou, meeting Andrea of Andreas Animal Rescue and Barbara Galloway, at her home. We also met another stray galga that Tina picked up on her way to meet us at the hotel. She happened to be the easiest rescue she had encountered. Little Telma walked up to her and got in the car! We were so happy to see Tina beaming when she met us at the hotel entrance with Telma in the car! Another “normal” day of rescue with Tina!
As fate would have it, the day after we reached Murcia, on a Friday, we experienced the worst storm of the year. The day before we had driven on the road from Puerto Lumbreras, across a bridge on our way to Murcia. The rain didn’t stop for 24 hours and the conditions deteriorated rapidly and it became the storm of the season, with flooding and loss of 10 lives and hundreds of animals. The bridge we had crossed the day before had collapsed and the roads were in ruins. Little did we know that one of the podencos, Chico, we were bringing back a few days later would be stranded at his foster home. We were so sad that he would have to be left behind, but with some quick work on Tina’s side with one of our GRIN adopters in the states, we were able to give another podenca a chance at her new life. I would then be bringing little Janet the podenca to California instead. Side note, we did bring Chico the podenco to the U.S. a few weeks later.
On Sunday, the day before we left Murcia, we enjoyed a final sunny day on the beach with some of our GRIN dogs who would be traveling in the coming weeks. Izzy, Henry and Janet enjoyed their “holiday” at the beach and their photo shoot for our GRIN 2013 calendar. A great day was spent with Tina and her family as well. We enjoyed a delicious paella at the beach that day with the doggies sitting under our table!
The night of departure arrived and we geared up for our midnight goodbyes with Tina and we left from Murcia with podenca Janet and with our friends from Ibizan Hound Rescue, who took us on the five hour trip to the Madrid airport. Everything went smoothly thanks to Diane and Brian who calmly helped us at the airport with everything, putting crates together, adding the buckets, holding the dogs and even taking care of some doggie mishaps right in the middle of all the bustling travelers!
We also met up with dear friend Silvia Bordetas Gil of Galgo Connection Spain with her three dogs, Dartacan, Electra and Copo (now Amigo) and as usual it was a hectic and exciting to meet our GRIN dogs at the airport and we quickly got everything in order and Marylou left for her flight to NY with two dogs and I left for my flight to Los Angeles with the other two. Happy to say we both arrived at our destinations safely but probably more tired and worn out than the dogs!! It is amazing how well they do on the flights..they walk out of their crates pretty unscathed and wagging tails!
The level of commitment by our friends in Spain is what this whole story is about. These ladies, all of them mentioned in these two accounts, from Vera and her volunteers of Galgos en Familia in Malaga, Char del Rio and her family of 112Carlotagalos also in Malaga, Silvia of Galgo Connection Spain Valencia, Diane and Brian Ibizan Hound Rescue in Puerto Lumbreras and of course Miss Tina of Galgos del Sol in Murcia, are the heart of the rescues GRIN is able to help. We thank them for their tireless work, their commitment, their enthusiasm, their tenacity their tears and their triumphs to keep on when it is so hard. Nothing is easy about what they do, nothing. They deserve our respect and our help. We are humbled by how hard they work, and are so grateful that we have supporters that help us help them .
Thank you everyone who is a part of this story, whether I named you or not, every person who has helped GRIN, who has donated in any way with your time, talents, your financial help, or by adopting a needy dog, all of you have helped these great friends to continue doing what they are passionate about, saving the dogs.
Yes, it is all about the dogs, always has been always will be…
Telma Shaw