Smile, you're in Spain

Smile you're in Spain

by Joanna W Simm

Some months ago there was a widely broadcast campaign to encourage people to take holidays in Spain. The campaign slogan ran; 'Smile, you're in Spain', and showed pictures of happy couples on the golden beaches, splashing in the sea, drinking sangria under a canopy of stars. Paradise on earth.

Now consider another Spain, a Spain epitomised not by a smile, but by a grimace of purest agony on the face of an innocent galga, a female Spanish greyhound in Albacete.

Look at the pictures, if you can bear to do so. They dropped into my inbox this morning, as these things are wont to do. They're out there on the internet, along with hundreds of other disturbing images of the extreme cruelty that is inflicted on the galgos of Spain. Someone poured petrol over this galga and set her alight. Why? Who knows. If you are a Spanish hunter, you may choose to do this to the dog of a rival hunter, if it happens to be faster or better than yours. Or perhaps she is your dog, and has not hunted well today...possibly because you have failed to feed her for days to make her hungrier for the chase...or because she has been kept in such cramped, cold and dark conditions that she is almost incapable of movement. Of course, if you don't decide to burn her there are a million other inventive ways you can decide to get rid of her, or to teach her a lesson. You might punish a lack of speed by dragging her to her death behind a motor vehicle, break her legs so she cannot move then throw her into the road, or down a well...or take the time honoured way of disposing of a galgo and hang her from a tree. Don't forget to leave her back feet touching the ground, so she dies slowly. You call this 'playing the piano',after the frantic movements of the dog's hind legs as it battles to save itself. Smile, you're in Spain.

Thousands of galgos suffer and die like this every year in Spain. Although the Spanish cities and coastal resorts appear sophisticated and carefree, there is a dark underbelly to Spain that the tourist authorities would not have you see. You may have heard the stories of donkeys thrown from cliff tops, and no doubt you have heard of the favourite Spanish sport of bullfighting. You may not have heard of the treatment of the galgos, and it is understandable if you do not want to allow these terrible images into your consciousness, but if no one speaks out, if no one uncovers this arcane, inhumane world of suffering that the Spanish continue to impose on their animals, it will continue unabated.

The galgo, of all animals, seems to suffer the most. Very similar to an English greyhound, it is chosen by the hunters for its speed, and its quiet nature. It is this very gentleness that leads it to be subjected to this most awful abuse, as these poor creatures do not 'fight back' or 'defend'...they just accept. They are bred in massive numbers in Spain, with some galguerros (hunters) and gipsy encampments having hundreds of them, mainly fending for themselves, sometimes driven to killing and eating each other through starvation. The problem seems to be self perpetuating too, with the children, Spain's next generation, learning from their elders that the galgos are disposable tools, and not considered domestic animals. Just the other week there was a case where a passer by saw a group of children tormenting a galga. Forced to give birth to her puppies on the streets, as many are, this poor galga had to watch, helpless, as these children, some as young as 5 or 6, took her babies and put them in a box up a tree, out of her reach. She could hear their cries, though, and she became ever more frantic as she tried to climb the tree to reach them while the children laughed.

Smile, you're in Spain.

What can you do? Write to your Euro MP, put pressure on political figures to tell Spain we will not tolerate this behaviour in a civilised world. Boycott Spain. Take your holidays elsewhere, and tell the Spanish tourist authorities why. Refuse to buy Spanish produce. Spread the word.

There are practical ways that you can help the galgos too, should you so wish. There are many bodies who work to try to save them, to alleviate the suffering and to rescue and re home these dogs, which make wonderful, gentle pets. They all need help... financial of course, and in the form of gifts, coats to keep the dogs warm in the savage cold of the mountain winters, food, medicines and blankets. The rescued dogs need adoptive owners and foster carers. The shelters need security, because now it is the hunting season again the galguerros want to claim back the dogs that they abandoned in such numbers last year. Galgos who had seemed to have found a place of refuge are being stolen back, every night, from the shelters and taken back to a life of unimaginable horror.

For more information on how you can help, contact Nuria Blanco of Amigos de los Galgos, on levriers@levriers.net who speaks English, French and Spanish, or take a look at the English written website www.galgonews.com.

Smile, you're in Spain. Tell that to the galgos.