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TRIBUTES
Lucia
We remember clearly arriving at GIN to collect Alegria in
April 2012, we saw her immediately, Sandra was walking
her, she was this beautiful honey colour with the longest
tail we had ever seen with a white tip which lay on the
ground, in a gentle way she jumped up at Richard in
greeting, something she never stopped doing, she knew we
were there for her. I went into the office to complete the
formalities and chatting away, Carolyn said to me this isn’t
the sort of dog that plays with a tennis ball…… that became
our catchphrase, her tennis balls, the brighter and newer
the better were her “precious”. If no-one was throwing them
for her she would play on her own, bouncing and catching, knocking them round the garden and
bounding around chucking them up in the air, she was so animated in her play.
We backed onto a large park in Harrow which made walking easy. She was remarkably
obedient and after three months, the magic milestone, I let her off lead for the first time the park
space was immense and inviting and she just flew, she ran, she ran so fast with such utter
enjoyment and her great long tail balancing her as she sped round corners, people stopped to
watch, she was utterly joyous her face alive with the freedom. We got home and she lay down
and slept a long exhausted sleep.
The ultimate food thief, carefully removing items from the bbq, I was making Yorkshire puddings
and I had cracked the egg into the flour, turned away, came back, no egg, no mess, questioned
whether I had even put the egg in(?) then I saw the shell, she’d siphoned it out of the flour. First
Christmas dinner the capon was out of the oven resting, she had the whole leg and thigh off in a
moment. Her most favourite treat was a large handful of spaghetti with Pesto.

In February 2013 we adopted a 12 week old Rhodesian
ridgeback x pitbull, Rusty, they became inseparable. In
January 2014 we moved to SW France with the horses to the
middle of the Dordogne countryside, no roads, no traffic an
enormous amount of space as we have 14 acres, and the
dogs absolutely loved it.
Having the space we took in another galgo, she was old,
around 12 and had been used for breeding all her life, dumped
into a perrera with little possibility of adoption. She came up
from Spain and was given the once over by Lu, because Lu
was a snob! We called her Joy as she had never had a name,
her whole demeanour was one of absolute joy and
contentment. Sadly we lost Rusty, young, Lu’s total soulmate, to a sudden and untreatable lung
disease, he was gone within a week, the vet came to the house and we sat with him and Lu was
right there, would not leave his side. Lu grieved, she was depressed for a while, it was
desperately sad to see, she lost interest in most things, including food.

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