The year 2001 has begun with flying colors for the association Greyhound In Need. After a highly commending article in a widely known French animal magazine in January, work on saving the martyr greyhounds of Spain has lifted off with a new boost of energy and conviction.
Indeed, on the other side of the Pyrenees, greyhounds of all types, called “Galgos”, have the unfortunate privilege of being among the worst-treated animals in the country. Spain is known for its bullfights, but it also greyhounds too are the victims of barbaric treatment: they are exploited by the local betting industry in revolting conditions, and injured, sick, or even drugged animals are forced to race. Should they falter, they are massacred, hung, burnt alive or given to starving pit-bulls. Some Spanish forests are famous for their trees scattered with dead dogs. The Galgos, which are hunting greyhounds (in France, hunting with greyhounds was banned in the 19th Century), are generally treated just as bad. When they get old or aren’t quite as lively enough for their macho owners, they get savagely beaten or mistreated, and often hung.
Almost no facilities exist for these that become “useless” by the age of 3 or 4 (sometimes even 2, for the Galgos), and it is thanks to northern European associations that some of them have been offered a second life in a new family. “Levriers en Detresse” is the French branch of the English association Greyhounds In Need. It was created in June 2000 by Catherine Madry-Wojciechowski, in Tarascon, where was living at the time.
The aim of the association is to give these dogs a new family, where they can discover a new side of human nature. To achieve this, the association has teamed up with a shelter in Alicante, in the south of Spain, and organizes trans-border adoptions and becomes home to dogs that have been “re-socialized” and physically “renovated”. The dogs receive medical attention and are neutered before being transported by the voluntaries. Their long journey in the van will take them from the southernmost tip of the Iberian peninsula to Germany, Belgium or Great-Britain.The host-families are recruited in the whole of France: they are either greyhound fans or, quite simply, animal-lovers that are horrified at the terrible treatment inflicted on these beautiful creatures.The dogs are taken in custody by the regional delegate of Levriers en Detresse, with the kind help of the refuges and shelters that temporarily let them use their facilities.
So, one January night, Catherine Madry-Wojciechowski, president of the French correspondent of Greyhounds In Need, and Beatrice Parnot, general secretary, went to meet a lorry arriving from various parts of the country and going to Strasbourg and Germany. Four dogs were rapidly transferred from the lorry into the car. This, in itself, wasn’t too difficult, except for one dog, Louis, a very nice pearl-gray Galgo, which still bore the traces of its hanging on its neck. He can’t stand being touched near the neck, and took to a fright when his collar got caught on one of the cages. He soon calmed down, though, and got into the car, which took him to Paris, along with Ivy, Lola and Sadie (3 female Galgos). After a sandwich and a cup of coffee, the British voluntaries were back on the road. The time was 3 o’clock in the morning.By sunrise, the dogs were arriving in Paris. After 700 kilometers of traveling by night, the job was not yet complete. In the afternoon, the host families came to a partner shelter, and left delighted with the beauty and tenderness of their new friends.
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