GINN  'Stichting Greyhounds In Nood Nederland' (Organisation Greyhounds in Nood Netherlands)

With thanks to Anita Pennings for the photos.

This is the organisation I do voluntary work for.

About me: I (Angely van Cooten) am adoption advisor for the Overijssel region. Sometimes I help look after a dog, and every year I try to travel to Spain once to actively help with the dogs. If at all possible we also bring back dogs to The Netherlands.

I won't go into what the organisation does because I hope that everybody who reads this will go to the GINN website

Experiences and events on our travels

On some of the photos on our website you see a galgo - a Spanish greyhound. Our Great Danes never have trouble accepting these rescue dogs, neither does Tom. Tom is a German Shepherd with only one eye. Some bored Spanish men decided one day to tie Tom behind their jeep and go for a drive. When they thought he was dead, they untied him and left him behind. A builder who saw it all happen, went to take a closer look and found he wasn't actually dead. He took Tom home and looked after him. His hind legs were broken and he'd lost his right eye. He had a terrible, deep wound in his neck from the string. One way or another Tom got mentioned on the GINN malling list with the question if someone was prepared to take care of him. I was very moved and felt terribly sorry for this dog who I'd never seen. I really wanted to look after him and that's how he came to live with us. We'd already decided that we would adopt Tom if he could get on with the other dogs. I can tell you that there's no friendlier dog than Tom. Given half the chance, he now chases jeeps and barks at them. And good for him!

Last year we made another visit to Spain. 'We' is Anita Pennings (adoption advisor for the Gelderland region), and Lucia and her husband Chris as volunteers. This time we decided to visit a number of rescue homes to experience the situation for ourselves. We brought them items and are now much better able to advise people over what goes on in Spain.

First we visited Scooby. We always take items such as cleaning fluids, medicines, benches, baskets and other items we think they'll be able to use and that we can collect. Scooby usually has around 450 dogs, most of them galgos, I've never seen a Great Dane. From Scooby we drove to Barcelona with Fermin, he is the chairman of Scooby and speaks good English. In Barcelona we had to pick up greyhounds from the racecourse. That was the most overwhelming thing we did during this trip. The greyhounds have owners but are looked after by older men in kennels of the racecourse. The dogs live in concrete pens of 1 x 1 metre. Two to three times a week they go to the racecourse. Twice a day they're allowed outside for 15 minutes. They are fed terrible food which is full of energy so they will run very fast. They have no basket or blanket. The dogs we took with us all had broken toes, arthritis, eye damage and bare patches from the sand. One dog had a very swollen eye. We couldn't understand the people there but we didn't like them - how can you treat dogs like this. We weren't allowed in the kennels, or to take photographs or film. When we'd loaded up all the dogs and drove off we felt a sense of relief that we'd rescued 30 dogs, but there were 600 left!!! Suddenly I realised our Cloud came from here as well.

Well it's clear where animal welfare is concerned a lot still needs to change in Spain.

Two photos of the transport from Barcelona to Scooby. Greyhound in right-hand photo had a very blue and swollen eye. Later in The Netherlands it was removed.

Back at Scooby and we'd covered another 1400 kms. After a good night's sleep we travelled to the south. We visited PAWS, a small-scale rescue home. Very well organised, lots of volunteers, mainly Brits who live there. There we met Donja, a galgo puppy that was found on the streets. AFter consultation with GINN we decided to take the pup with us and she'd come and live with me while I'd try to find a good home for her. Imagine 4 dog fanatics with a pup! We smuggled her into a hotel under our coats - a tense moment! She was socialised very quickly, she was a very easy dog in the car, most of the time she'd go to sleep. We had two vans and we took it in turns to have her, which was a nice distraction for the passengers.

Donja found a lovely new home, we call it a golden basket.

Donja on a walk

At PAWS once again we were confronted with misery - something the staff cope with on a daily basis. They found a mother dog with nine puppies. They decided to leave two pups with the mother, the British people who found the dogs, took one puppy and the rest was put to sleep at 2 weeks old. A few weeks later the mother and her two pups came to live with us and they all found a good new home.

On the left the puppies and on the right the pointer mother.

We saw this house on a walk near PAF. The dogs were chained next to the house.

From there we returned to Scooby where we could help out a few more days. Chris is a very good DIYer and builds cats' pens, roofs over kennels and much more.

We clear up excrements, clean kennels and trim dogs. It's something I normally do but Anita and Lucia quickly mastered the art last year. The Spanish dogs are very well behaved, for the first time in their lives they're standing on a table and straightaway we use sometimes two clippers at a time. Not a single one bites or growls, they are just grateful for that little bit of attention afterwards. Grooming is hard work, their coats are usually very matted and full of sand, so they have a bath.

Often the dogs stay behind in the 'grooming parlour', as they enjoy the company. Most Dutch dogs can't get out fast enough! We managed to bring back around 40 dogs to The Netherlands, all of them have found new homes and are doing well. It is lovely to see how they're doing and how they start trusting humans more each day.

We drove more than 5000 kms and it was well worth it.

The dogs in these two photos all came back with us to The Netherlands.

Sometimes people ask me why I bring so many dogs back when the rescue homes here are full to overflowing as it is. A number of rescue homes like taking on dogs from Spain because they're friendly and easy to find homes for. Dogs in Dutch rescue homes are a thousand times better off than dogs in Spain. They get fed and have a clean kennel. Some of the hunters feed their galgos a bag of old bread once a week. They think hungry dogs hunt better. Tom's story is not unique, he's really not the only one who was dragged behind a car. We have seen enough 'evidence' of torture and I'm convinced we have to carry on fighting for better animal rights....