Mallorca
At the end of 1998, we drove to Mallorca for the last time to pick up the remaining Greyhounds; my driver had built a trailer on the chassis of a caravan with just a roof and a windbreak around it so we could take all the dogs along. When we arrived in Barcelona that evening at the departure hall for the ferry to Mallorca with our self-made trailer, one, two, or three Belgian cycling teams were sitting in the large hall, going on a training camp in Mallorca. One of them was Farm Frites; the others, if I am not mistaken, were Lotto and Mobistar or something like that.
Anyway, when we were finally allowed on board last with our prefab trailer, the weather was terribly bad, and once on board, we were no longer allowed on deck. Because we were exhausted, I asked if there was a place to sleep available—not easy without a reservation—so we were assigned a small "cabin" below deck with a bunk bed; water sloshed back and forth across the floor, but it was that or nothing. It turned out that way, and all night my driver from Wales lay snoring, burping, and contributing to air pollution in the bottom bunk.
The next day we drove to the “gypsy farm” to pick up the last dogs. When we arrived at the site at dusk, there was no one there yet; after an hour, still no one, and it was getting darker, and I urgently needed to go to the toilet. After another half hour, I got out and sat down next to the van for a quick pee. Meanwhile, I investigated the darkness at the piles of trash lying there, which started to move increasingly as I looked longer. At first, I thought it was the darkness playing tricks on me, but no, it was hundreds of rats feasting on the remains of rotten chicken carcasses and other filth, so I hurried back into the van.
After waiting for two hours, we drove back to the suburbs via country roads, slept in the van in a parking lot, drove back the next day after a meager breakfast, and found ourselves facing a closed gate again. When I got out, the rats had disappeared despite the stench, and through the shaky fence we could see the muzzled greyhounds, some of whom were lying with their hind legs tied to a noose.
From the dirty, closed barracks echoed the soft whimpering of the poor souls who were still sitting in small cages without food or drink, in their own excrement, where they could not turn around or stand fully upright because that was a waste of energy, I had been told. As soon as the owners arrived, all the dogs were loaded ASAP after the necessary paperwork, including a blind dog named Solitario (the lonely one). During the previous trip, I had found him by chance on a strip half a meter wide and approximately 3 meters long, without any form of protection against the elements, somewhere in a deserted corner behind the barracks. When I asked the old man, surprised, why the dog was sitting there alone, he answered “ciego,” which means blind; when I asked how long he had been sitting there, he shrugged his shoulders and said “muchos años,” so many years.
It gave me goosebumps, and I stepped under protest into the poor animal’s filthy “dwelling place,” went up to him, and kneeled; when I took him in my arms and, weeping with dull misery, promised that I would come and free him, he trembled with emotion. On the journey that followed, I kept my word and freed him from his miserable existence. When we said goodbye to the owners and the NG team, who had come at my request and taken photos of the deplorable conditions, it was a time never to return. Shortly afterwards, the Mallorca canodrome was a thing of the past, and I was told my photo was in all the English newspapers.
A few days later, during the examination under anesthesia, the veterinarian said that his blindness was caused by a severe jawbone infection that, due to a lack of care, had led to his current condition; he had suffered continuously, was in severe pain for years and had difficulty eating or drinking. When he added that his situation was hopeless and asked to let him go during the anesthesia if I cared about him, my world collapsed. I was too late and it was irreversible; I could do nothing more and I would never forgive myself, but I knew that I would always keep thinking of him. In his memory, I swore to myself that I would try everything to save these forgotten and abused noble dogs from such a fate.
And so, it happened.
Mireille
