# Wild dogs in Spain



## kijana (May 1, 2005)

Most people who live in rural Spain feel it necessary to keep one or more dogs outside their property. Presumably this is to discourage casual housebreakers, although Spain has a lower incidence of all types of crime than Britain. Anyway, they all seem to keep dogs, and contrive to make their dogs bark in a threatening sort of way at the first sign of approaching strollers. Perhaps by regular poking with sharpened sticks?

These dogs vary from small terrier types, with annoying high pitched yaps, through every kind of mongrel and crossbreed, up to Huskies, Dobermanns, Alsatians and walleyed wolfdogs. When walking along a street, each barking set of dogs will set off their neighbours, so that a quiet stroll turns into a deafening cacophony of dogawalling. 

Normally this is just annoying, but on one occasion I was scared as I haven’t been in a long time. Like, primeval fear. 

While walking our dog into town we were approaching a large villa with high wrought iron gates to the drive and steel mesh fencing over the low brick walls. Behind the gates (which were secured with a worryingly slender chain), and hurling themselves at them with a fury bordering on dementia, were two enormous dogs. They had once been Alsatians, but having been fed raw red meat for 10 years and injected daily with steroids and mind altering chemicals, they had now transmogrified into hounds from the depths of Hades. Their hideous slavering bark managed to turn into a snarl of infinite menace, and they made it entirely clear that once they got into the street we would have but moments to live before being torn to shreds. Even our Golden Retriever wouldn’t be able to protect us.

Ok. So we sped up to get past the gates. One beast continued to beat his giant damaged brains out against the gates. But the other stopped, turned, and ran off behind the Mafioso’s mansion with a sense of purpose and single-minded malevolence that struck fear into my soul. Because as we hurried down the deserted street, we came to that part of the property’s grounds that were no longer fenced. Instead, there was a low brick retaining wall, towards which the renegade beast was running with death in his eyes and in dreadful silence.

Marion cracked and ran for it, dragging with her our useless muppet of a dog without an ounce of aggression in her whole dysfunctional golden furred body (the dog, not Marion). I quite literally felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck as I stared mesmerized at this vision of evil hurtling towards me. The animal slammed into the brick wall, and standing on his back legs, the wall stopped at his throat level. If he’d taken a running jump he could easily have cleared the wall. I elected to walk briskly past (Marion and Janna were by now out of sight), and resisted the urge to give his nose a playful tweak as I went by. Fortunately his diet of raw flesh and cocaine had interfered with his logic circuits, so the devil dog failed to get over the wall and destroy me. 

We used a different route into town after that. . .


Bruce


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

Lovely bit of writing and a frightening story. I suppose saying "Good boy" to them in a quiet manner would not have helped.  Might be a good idea when you go walkies to take a few prime raw steaks with you to fling behind you as you belt off to safety. Lace the steaks with a powerful laxative so that at least you can get some satisfaction.


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## hogan (Oct 31, 2006)

Hi This is a major problem here in Spain not just the dogs in houses but actual wild dogs roaming the streets and villages although these are more scared of you than you will be of them as they are just trying to find food and water.I know exactly what you mean Kijana we have the same problem and we live here,but may I just add a few things that you may not realise.The dogs and kept chained up for weeks if not months and there fore get to adult hood without ever going outside the garden perimiter the fact that the dog ran to the wall but did not jump over it is probably due to a undersize developed heart and it did not have the energy to jump the wall ( dont test out this theory)Asyou said injected daily with steroids and fed red meat everyday! they would be very well looked after if they were,I actually know that that dogs like the ones you describe are only fed once a week and usually have no shade or water.This is because most Spanish owned villas are second homes used only in the summer so the owners just call in once a week or fortnight to throw the dogs some food.Now I have got that of my chest (Animal wellfare in Spain makes my blood boil) I would like to post two warning for my fellow brits coming to Spain with pets. (sorry if this has been posted before)
http://www.escartinlam.com/pineCaterpillar.html This will tell you about the little white cattepillars that WILL be seen in and around pine forests in Spain/Portugal and France between JAN and the end of April STAY WELL CLEAR OF THEM especially with dogs and children.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelligence/issue18/shabbydog.html This one will tell you about sandfly disease in dogs My tips are buy a scalibour collar when you get to Spain if you are here between May and OCT also if the ouside temp is over 21degs c at dawn and dusk keep pets inside or at least hurry them a little when they have to go outside to do what dogs do.Just because they are called sandflys DOES NOT MEAN they only live near sand.
This may all sound doom and gloom but we have lived here for 5 years now and (touch wood)have had no problems with our pets.When we first arrived we were as green as anyone but all tips passed on will I hope keep a pet safe.


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## kijana (May 1, 2005)

Good advice, Pusser. I'm beginning to think our choice of Golden Retreiver for a fearless guard dog was a bit misguided. Although as a puppy she looked vicious (see my avatar), and to be fair,she has nearly beaten us to death with her tail.

Thanks for yours, Hogan. Yes, we've come across the dreaded hairy caterpillars. For fellow dog owners, these creatures are the lava of the _Thaumetopoea_ _pityocampa_ moth, and develop in silken nests up pine trees. When fully grown, the caterpillars drop to the ground, and set off to look for another suitable tree to develop into moths. They travel head to tail, each irresistibly following the pheromone exuded from the one in front. The line thus formed can reach 2 or 3 metres in length. The caterpillars apparently taste sweet and sour (who discovered this?), and their spines secrete a toxin frequently fatal to dogs, and even small children.

This seems to me to uncover some pretty woolly thinking on the part of Nature. Firstly, why not develop into a moth whilst up the tree, and fly somewhere else to lay eggs? A lot easier than walking all that way, especially if you have to do so with your head up another caterpillar's @rse. Or better still, why go anywhere? Presumably the tree you're in was exactly right to nurture you - be happy, stay there. Life, eh?

The recommended means for control of this pestilence is to break off the branchlet on which a nest is found, douse it with lighter fluid, and burn it. This does not seem a particularly sensible idea, given that they live mainly in pine forests and appear in spring to early summer. . . I have a better idea. One researcher was able to persuade the leading caterpillar of a migrating line to follow the back end of the last in the string, so that they formed a circle. Now if this was routinely done, perhaps by researchers with too much time on their hands, these nasty little creatures would all die of fatigue, malnutrition and boredom walking endlessly in circles. And the incidence of forest fires would diminish.

Bruce


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## Denboy (Oct 11, 2005)

*wild dogs in Spain*

Hello Kijana,
Mrs. Denboy and I were staying in an apartment in a small Spanish village. There were two restaurants in the town , one smart , the other not so smart which was used by the locals.
One evening we found that the smart one was closed so into the other we went for the first time.
Chosing a table , we looked outside and saw the Chef go a parked car which did not appear to have been washed ever .I remember hoping that he cleaned his kitchen more often than his car.
He came back in and we ordered Spanish omlettes . Every table was taken and we were the only tourists. All others were conversing in Spanish.
Suddenly everyone's attention was diverted to a pack of mongrel dogs which had arrived in the street outside.
The Chef left his kitchen and raced to the door opening it slightly and shouting what I guessed were Spanish obscenities at the dogs who obviously understood because they ran away.
The omlettes arrived and we started to tuck in but suddenly Mrs. Denboy let out a piercing scream and pointed at her feet where a mangey dog was nestling against her legs.
Her scream prompted a diner at the next table to explain ( in broken english ) that ' it was not problem', the stray ( bitch ) was on heat and that the chef was protecting it from the pack of dogs which had chased it in.
This act of benevolence by the chef turned my preconceived ideas of animal welfare by the Spanish on it's head . These being that donkeys are thrown from bell towers and that young bulls are speared to death , as a regular pastime.
As you can imagine my wife withdrew her feet from beneath the animal , ( with some difficulty as it had made itself very comfortable ). 
We paid our modest bill and returned to the apartment where we showered for hours.
No we didn't leave a tip .
Denboy


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## Pusser (May 9, 2005)

I'm just scratching Spain off my must do list. 

p.s. I have sat under a pine tree in S of F at Cavelier and several caterpillas fell of the tree, one landing on my arm. That stung a bit. Also in Barbados, just in case anyone is driving over there this summer, there is a tree that drips acid on you when it rains I thnk. These are marked with red crosses on the trunk normally and in Africa there is a snake so big it can eat motorhomes whole, 8O but generally it prefers Swift motorhomes but I for one wouldn't like to test it.


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## IrishHomer (May 30, 2006)

why Swift? :?


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