Whilst I was in the UK, my husband was left here in Spain with a list of things to do to the house. But a distinct lack of funds meant that there were limits to the work he could do. He did put up loads of shelves though - and for that I am very grateful as we have boxes full of ornaments, books and pictures and shelving is essential. The rest of his time was taken up with sorting out the host of audio and tv equipment and setting up the computer. And then, of course, there was dog walking… On his walks with the dogs the trio soon found an addition; a small stray who tagged along quite happily, bounding about between the feet of the two larger hounds and generally antagonising them! But after the walk was over, my husband shooed her away as he took our two back inside the house. That was until the night of the storm. It was May, and the weather in Spain had taken a turn for the worse. It rained for days on end and ‘
tormentas’ (storms) were frequent. One night a particularly bad tormenta hit the village. My husband made sure that everything was as water-tight as possible, locked the door, and went to bed …… only to be wakened in the early hours by frantic howling! Our two dogs were howling at the tops of their voices, but the reason for their cries soon became apparent, because outside in the street a dog was howling even louder. It was the small stray. She howled and she howled. My husband tried to ignore her at first, knowing that if he let her in it would be hard to get rid of her again. The woman across the street came out and took the shivering hound into her house for a while, but chucked her out as soon as there was a break in the storm. But the storm started up again. The rain pelted down, the thunder roared, and lightening flashed and crackled scarily …. and the howling began again, even louder this time. With no sign of the woman across the street coming to the rescue, my husband reluctantly opened the door and let the little stray come inside. She was soaking wet, shivering, and totally bedragled. Even our usually tetchy hounds took pity on her and licked her vigorously, trying, I suppose, to drag the rain from her coat. My husband rubbed her down with a towell, gave her some water and food (which she devoured ravenously) and, very much against his better judgement, decided that she could stay. That was three months ago. The stray we were later told is a ‘
podenka’ - a female version of a Spanish hunting breed. She is very small, especially up against our two lofty hounds, but I can quite understand why she, like our other two, is classified as a ‘hunter’. She can spy ‘prey’ miles off. And if it wasn’t for being on a lead (when she goes for a walk with our other two anyway), she would be off, tearing across the fields towards god knows where. It took a long time to house train our podenka. Evidently she had lived wild for so long that she ‘left her mark’ anywhere. But at last we found a way around this. Whenever she wants to go out we let her go - on her own to explore the village and wherever else she wants to travel. She at last seems to be getting the message, and comes to us and frantically paws us whenever she ‘needs to go’ and we quickly chuck her out the door! The trouble is that she is a scavenger. Again, probably as she lived wild for so long, she seeks out things to eat - anything - from the most unhygenic places. This all despite the fact that she eats meals the same size as we give to our two much larger hounds! And there lies the problem. She is constantly getting ‘tummy bugs’. Vets bills out here aren’t high, but they can mount up and she is often at the vets (who always tells us that she is extremely healthy - apart from the tummy bug of course!). This morning our little stray came rushing in after one of her ‘excursions’, trembling and with her tail between her legs. We petted her and after a while she settled down happily on the sofa. There had been some shouting outside so we assumed that she had annoyed one of the neighbours, so we made sure she didn’t go out again for a while. But then she started vomitting …. and we found out why there had been a lot of shouting. She had tried to swallow a whole, very large fish (it must have been nearly as big as her!) and the shouts had come from the fish seller, whose open van had been parked at the bottom of our street. She’s asleep on the sofa again now, having now eaten her (proper) breakfast as well as having raided the leavings of our other two’s breakfasts alsol. Goodness knows where she puts it all as she’s still thin enough (and yes, she has been de-wormed, de-mited, de-loused and de-ticked). Better make sure she doesn’t go on a raid again for a while though. We actually want to get on with our neighbours here!
(via
zania’s space)
1 year ago
