An aim of this mammoth bike ride is to raise funds for a handful of charities. One of those organisations is a small animal charity - that is, a small charity that helps animals, not a charity that helps small animals - founded by my girlfriend, known in this blog as The Lovely Nina. Last month her charity - Action for Animals - was responsible for doing something quite remarkable.
Action for Animals is registered in the UK and also in Spain, where Nina lives in a little, whitewashed Andalusian village called Cómpeta.
Ten kilometres outside the village, deep in the Almijara National Park, lived an eccentric but well-meaning woman called Dee and her husband. Between them they had managed to collect about 70 dogs. While on the surface this could have looked like gross irresponsibility, Dee had actually been taken advantage of. Many of these dogs had been dumped near her home or had been left for her to look after by holidaying owners who never returned to pick them up. And the more dogs she took in, the more people saw her as a soft target on which to dump their unwanted pets.
'He was killed instantly. Misery comes in threes'
Puppies and kittens are often dumped in Cómpeta and Nina will do her best to find foster homes for them until someone can adopt them permanently. Finding homes, even temporary homes, for 70 dogs in a small village was never going to happen. In the meantime the number of dogs had been reduced slightly to 55. A handful of the older or sicker pooches would have been unlikely to survive the adoption process even if it had been available. Dee took the difficult decision to have these dogs put down. Still, rehoming 55 dogs in Cómpeta was impossible.
With the goal of saving even a single animal Nina and I drove slowly to Dee's, hugging the mountain side of the road to avoid the drop. Upon reaching her isolated house we were instantly greeted by the barks and howls, sniffs and licks of about 20 mutts, large and small, charging towards us. I love dogs but even to me it felt intimidating. You could understand why she'd had complaints. If the dogs had chosen to rip us to pieces there would have been little we could have done to stop them. I spent a while photographing as many dogs as possible while Nina collected their details from Dee. Back at Action for Animals HQ we put the photos on the charity's website and Nina posted a message on Facebook asking for help. And then something magical happened.
'Without Facebook, 55 healthy dogs would have been killed unnecessarily'
Nina's Facebook message was shared and shared and shared again. A handful of people in Cómpeta who saw the message came forward, between them adopting 10 dogs. That still left 45 animals and there were now only three days to go. The Facebook network engine kept on chugging. In total Nina's plea was shared by over a hundred people and was eventually seen by a woman called Jacqui, who had contacts with several animal shelters at the other end of the Costa del Sol. She called in favours, scratched backs and pulled strings and managed to find places in five shelters for 35 of the dogs. We learned of this on Saturday, less than 48 hours before the dogs were due to be taken by the warden. Unfortunately we had no way ourselves to transport the dogs to the refuges, some of which were over three hours' drive away. Nina turned to Facebook again and asked for volunteers to transport a carload of dogs knowing full well the likely mess the dogs would make in their vehicles. Once again, Facebook came through.
On Sunday morning, the day before the deadline, about 15 of us assembled outside Dee's house for Operation Dogshift. Armed with a list of the types of dog each shelter was prepared to take - some wanted old dogs, some small dogs, some particular breeds - we managed to get 35 animals packed into six vehicles and delivered to their new temporary homes. During the course of the day other people who had heard of our plight turned up at the house to foster or adopt a dog or two. By the end of Sunday, with only hours to spare, the last dog was collected and taken to safety.
Some people complain that new technology and new ways of living have bought about the demise of community. With social media gradually replacing a real social life it can sometimes be difficult to form bonds with your neighbours. But this experience showed the exact opposite, that technology can help to form or strengthen community.
Without Facebook and existing friends, and friends of friends, 30 odd people wouldn't have come together on that Sunday morning and 55 healthy dogs would have been killed unnecessarily. They say that every dog has its day and it was that particular Sunday for the dogs of Cómpeta.
If you'd like to donate to Action for Animals - Nina's work isn't just limited to Spain - you can do so via the website, www.actionforanimals.org.
Pictured: A local resident kindly adopts a lucky spaniel
