Rick and Lesley Beauchamp are based in Leicester in the UK and for the past few years have worked in co-operation with the SARA Lanzarote animal shelter in the Canary Islands, rehoming podenco canarios, whose only hope of a life outside the shelter is to be adopted on mainland Europe.
Rick tells the story of his trips to collect the dogs in three parts, here is the first one.
'Well I went over to Germany the Saturday before last and returned with 4 dogs, 2 of which have already gone to their new homes a 3rd hopefully will be on his way once his ear infection is cleared up! The 4th is a real poppet Papel the Pod x Bardino and we are fairly confident of finding him a home pretty quickly.
I’m learning all the time regarding the logistics of the trip. This time we travelled over to Bremen which is just over the border from Holland around 350 miles from home, stayed the night and had a pleasant 85mile trip to pickup the first 2 dogs from Padaborn airport which is a great little airport- free yes free parking!!! We then travelled around 120 miles to Bendorf as the other 2 dogs had been picked up by a nice German lass and kept at her home overnight. We did our very best not to get too pissed with some German farmers after dinner and Daryl did his bit for Anglo/German relations by knocking on someones door and asking for a poo bag when one dropped a load at the end of their drive! I’m not too sure if “Ave yer got a plaggy bag fer the shit youth?” translates too well but by pointing to the pile he managed to communicate – and I think that the gesture was appreciated.
After a quick trip to a vets on Monday morning to adjust the passports for one of the dogs because SARA had messed up again! (They just don’t get this transport to the UK bit!) We headed off for Calais, duly arriving back home about 9.30pm Monday evening which would have been 2 hours earlier if we hadn’t had the vet visit- mind you it would have been a damn site later if the nice German lady hadn’t accompanied us and explained our problem.
Anyhow the dogs were duly fed and rugged up and slept soundly in the kennels on what was the first really cold night of the winter, but they were OK and one went to his new home on Tuesday morning with the other going the following day. The other 2 now live in the tack room so they are OK until they get homes- I just get in there before the girls get to work in the morning and clean up any mess!
But although knackered , there were no real dramas on the road as 85% of the journey was in the daylight and the rest was early evening driving when the body was OK. So now I’m looking next time to drive over one day then try and organise to get all the dogs picked up by the German network and I’ll collect them all from one point and take them back fully refreshed in daylight. I had one of the dogs in bed with me this time as he wouldn’t settle in his cage and I needed some sleep! He loved it and was surprisingly good but I probably only got 50% sleep. I’m also hoping that Daryls van blows up as it is really bad. He informed me that he’d valeted it and installed some new features in the van prior to the trip. The valeting consisted of emptying the ashtray and the new features were that the side door handle had been pulled off so the door didn’t open( extra safety) and the drivers door and the rear doors didn’t really shut properly( emergency exits) apparently!
He keeps forgetting to put oil in it and it leaks like hell so I’m very hopeful!'
Bravo to all your efforts, and those of the people at SARA on Lanzarote, for all they do for these beautiful and deserving dogs, who suffer so much ill treatment and cruelty at the hands of the Spanish hunters.
Email Rick if you want to know more.