One of the challenges of owning a dog is fitting your lifestyle around the dog, don't kid yourself it is about the dog fitting in around your lifestyle, they are like having another child.
We've had our curent dog now for over two years, it was September 2020, we were on our third rental property, our niece from the UK was over trying to do her 6 months in a Spanish speaking country as part of her degree in the middle of COVID.
Our niece was supposed to be traveling somewhere further afield, but as that was not really an option she opted to come spend time with us and our daughter (her cousin) in Spain, they are roughly two years apart in age.
One of the things she wanted to do was volunteer at one of the two large animal shelters around Marbella, she went to AAA, literally the first day she was working at AAA a 3 year old blonde Labrador is brought in. She WhatsApp'd my wife with the message "Auntie Lu, look who came in today" with an attached photo. At that point the ending was inevitable.
The following day my wife went upto AAA and I got WhatsApp'd a photo of her hugging this blonde bundle of fun who at the time at one of those doggy hooters on because he'd got a wound on his leg which he wanted to lick.
Two years down the road Buddy despite all his challenges of being a rescue dog has become part of the family. We have often wondered what he ever did to become a rescue, he is so easy going, always wants to be with his "humans", wherever he goes he gets called "guapo" he gets lots of attention paid to him which he needless to say loves. Sure he barks but he is a dog and he only does it when he feels his family are being threatened, we don't really need a doorbell as he's at the door barking before anyone gets chance to ring it.
The challenge with a rescue dog is you never really know what you are getting, but I can honestly say we couldn't have wished for a greater find.
In those two years has traveled over 14.000km by road, visiting France, UK and Switzerland, despite his reservations he's got used to leaping in and out of cars going from place to place, we've also discovered both the French and Spanish are far more relaxed about where dogs can go.
Who knew you could take your dog to Ikea or Leroy Merlin?
With us both working and despite me working from home there are days when he needs someone to walk him or one or both of us go away for a few days and flying him is really not practical.
When we lived in the UK we were fortunate to find a fantastic company called Petpals who looked after our previous dog in just these scenarios. We've found the equivalent in Spain called Halcyon, how times have changed we now have a WhatsApp group, every time he goes out with them we get inundated with photos and videos of him out with other dogs. Doggy daycare in Spain is very different it even comes with a pool.
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