Duna

Bringing a dog into the UK

~ Kate Wilson ~ Leave a comment
Time for another trip through the Eurotunnel with the dogs.
If you are worried about travelling this route or anxious about the process of getting through pet passport control then please be reassured – it is very easy.

Since the rules changed at the beginning of January 2012 it is now even easier coming back into the UK from Europe.

  • You now have 1-5 days to see a vet before entering the UK and they only need worm treatment.

Here is what we did this time.

1. Seeing the vet

As we were driving up through France we stopped at a vet in a small town en route.
Our Eurotunnel crossing was on Thursday so we did this on Tuesday, a comfortable 48 hours in advance of travel

We had camped overnight in a municipal campsite in St Martin D’Auxigny so the next morning we went into town and after breakfast, asked in the bakers for the address of a vet. They directed us to the Clinique Veterinaire (Tel 02 48 64 63 67) which was handily close to a supermarket where we filled up with wine and cheese!
The vet spoke English and saw us within 30 minutes.  Vets in France are very clued up about the pet passport so although we were checking each step we were also confident that he knew what he was doing. He checked the microchips and gave each dog two tasty worm pills which they gobbled up like treats.  Paperwork was completed – stamped and dated with the time of treatment and a clean bill of health for travelling

The whole thing cost about 32euros and we were able to drive on to Calais without worrying about having to get there at a special time.

2. Passing through passport control

Our train to Folkstone was at 11.30am. We arrived early as you can usually advance your booking if there is space on an earlier train. You drive straight to the parking by the pet passport control. There were many dogs and owners coming and going out of the small office block where you get checked. The woman used a hand held microchip detector to make sure the dogs weren’t trying to sneak by with a forged passport and then quickly checked the documents and then we left. All over in five minutes.

3. The Tunnel

As planned we were able to catch an earlier train and drove onto the train almost immediately. Unfortunately this meant missing the ‘last French coffee and cake’ so beware of doing this if, like me, you like going to the departure lounge.  Both dogs slept all the way through the tunnel – it takes about 40 minutes and as it is so comfortable for them it was worth all the miles we drove across France.
 
Travelling with these ‘not so good’ friends
We are so lucky that both Bonnie and Duna are good travellers. Bonnie sleeps on the back seat of the van and Duna curls up at the feet of whoever is travelling as passenger in the front. They are both patient and forgiving of all the boring hours of travel and strangely our life in the camper van is easier than at home – the dogs are happy to be always with us and there were no possibilities for fighting. Duna always is in the front and Bonnie always in the back so everyone is together but separate.

Sleeping all together in a small space at night meant we felt like a pack, safe and secure together. Duna likes having the front seats to herself and never has tried to jump over into the back compartment where we are with Bonnie. But just in case, she is tied by her lead to the door!

A week in Almeria

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

I couldn’t send posts from the campsite wifi so that plan didn’t work!
TO DO   *get a phone contract with internet access.
Now there is too much to say but I’m going to say it anyway – sorry, you have been warned, it is long!

Day 1

We stopped off for our first night camping near Xativa. The romantic fantasy of sleeping beside the hill top castle was scored out when we arrived to find it regulated and fenced off. After a long twilight drive looking for somewhere to park we asked some people about nearby campsites.
They were Belgian and said we could use their land. We followed them to a field in the middle of a plain. There was a shed with two horses and nothing much else.
We closed the gate and parked under a star lit sky, feeling safe enough to sleep well without worrying about intruders or irate landowners waking us up.

Day 2
We left around 6am and drove the rest of the way to a beach called Genoveses near San Jose in Almeria. Parking beside many other camper vans, we began to make ourselves at home but around sunset the park guards arrived and moved everyone on. It is common in this area to sleep in the beach car parks but sometimes they do a massive clear out and send you to the municipal car park in town. We drove that way but it was now dark and hard to find so we stopped on an empty road on the outskirts of town. Slept well although my body stayed semi-alert for patrol cars and early morning runners and dog walkers made it hard to have a pee.
The countryside was full of wild flowers

Day 3
Breakfast in San Jose. Three dogs are an extra challenge when it comes to eating out. Especially when two of them fight and have to be kept out of biting distance. We managed this by using the terrace of a lovely pizzeria which served fresh fruit salad as well as toast and honey. Seated by the beach we could watch the stall owners setting up for the day with crystals and nicknacks for the tourists. One stand had rails of those baggy trousers which look like they are made to accommodate adult nappies. And sure enough there were lots of people walking by wearing them!
We moved to a new beach and found many of the other camper vans already there.
This was a lovely day, sunny and hot but with enough wind to keep Blue cool in her black thick coat.
I gave her a haircut – her first ever – with a pair of nail scissors and she ended up looking very chic with a short back and sides.
The sea was very calm. Blue went in almost immediately and swam for a long time.
Lovely to see her

That night we slept very well. No interruptions, all dogs now used to the van and the rhythms of camping. Duna sleeps in the front with her own blanket and the curtains separating her room from the back. Bonnie and Blue curl on the floor space at the end of the bed. In the mornings it’s so easy to open the door and slip out straight onto sandy open space.
Bonnie and I watched the sun rise over the sea.
Day 4
But the lack of toilets and showers and electricity for recharging the phones/cameras does make a camp site a tempting proposition.
We went to Tau Camping in San Jose. I will write about that in a separate post – it deserves more than a few words. It was wonderful in every way.
There is a bakery in San Jose which sells fantastic cakes. Did I take any photos? No – I just seemed to eat them without even thinking of preserving the memory. He also has great bread and little pasties of spinach or vegetables.
Day 5
Now installed in the camp site I began to feel more relaxed which meant a day of descans was needed. Here is where I lay and dozed and read and listened to the birds

Day 6
Now all the days begin to melt into each other.
We explored the park, visited more beaches, ate more lovely Andalusian food.
There is a village which is famous for being used in the filming of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It was very windy – Blue wasn’t keen to pose.  A place called The Middle of Nowhere!

Lunch in a village square with the dogs safely sleeping in the shade in the van.
Duna has to be tied to the seat….just in case….you see, it isn’t straightforward camping with three dogs
 
The roads were quiet in the interior. Sometimes you are driving along rough tracks, like in the Westerns that were filmed in this area.
Here are rocks in the Mineral Trail, there was once a gold rush around here

Day whoknowswhat
We had a long and interesting breakfast with our camping neighbours. She was for many years a naturopath and he worked in theatre. The campsite has little corners strategically placed for morning and evening sunshine with tables and benches. The sparrows join you companionably, searching for crumbs, the main areas of camping entertainment are far away so there is little noise but the rustle of the wind through the trees

Then the drive back led us to stop again near Xativa. This time we took the inland road, the A7.
As it was Saturday afternoon all the lovely places selling pots were closed.

I drove along a straight and quiet highway with sculptures marking every crossroad



Then we found a hidden place in the hills to park and sleep. The moon was high and almost full. Noone bothered us. We woke early and set off again at 4am. Perfect driving on Easter Sunday.
Stopped for lunch in Altafulla. Tapas by the beach, dogs again peaceful under the table while being fed occasional peixet fregit (little fried fish) heads to keep them happy

Home to find the house unexpectedly dirty, messy and chaotic due to unprogrammed sleep overs by Resident Adolescent and his friends. But that is another story!

A winter walk on the beach

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

I wanted to drive to the sea.

On a ‘normal’ road. Not something with three lanes and everyone driving at 100 km/h.

If you come out of the house and turn left and drive straight down Joan Prim you will arrive at the sea – at Masnou. Except you can’t drive down Joan Prim as it is one way so you have to do a little dog leg around by C/Girona and then straight down to the coast.
For many people it is better to go on a fast road but for me it was heaven and it took us past familiar landmarks like the church at Palau which Tiffany sees as she takes her early morning walks.
Unfortunately once at Masnou we couldn’t find a way to the sea. All along this coast there is a railway line blocking access from the road and you have to know in advance where you’re going to cross over. So we ended up going to Cabrera de Mar and via an underpass, found the perfect car park for Blue to launch herself straight onto the sand

There were no fights today. We kept either Bonnie or Duna on the lead while the other ran free

The sunset was incredible and we even had tea in the van so could sit and watch the colours change

Blue walked all the way to the other end of the beach and back, stopping for a long time to eat something unidentifiable hidden in the rocks.
Others had been there before us

The drive back was on another ‘normal’ road. This one goes straight from Mataro across the Corridor through the Coll de Parpers. We didn’t meet a soul from one side of the mountain to the other. Bliss.

Back in Granollers I parked the van in her new underground parking space and as we unloaded the dogs I made the mistake of leaving my fingers in the wrong place as the door slammed shut. I never knew I could scream like that – luckily the place is soundproof and there was noone else about. It’s quite a primal experience that sort of pain and thank goodness some superhuman instinctive reflex made me pull my hand free just as the door arrived. Otherwise I think I would be like the woodcutter in the joke someone told me in the street this week.
He went into a bar and held up his hand saying ‘five beers please!’

But let’s not finish with this gruesome image – here’s Bonnie taking a rest from digging and chasing sticks in the waves
These are the best moments with the dogs.

Dogs

~ Kate Wilson ~ 5 Comments

I now live here in the same house as a dog. She’s called Duna and is a Springer Spaniel, age eighteen months, female. I always knew dogs have different lives outside the UK and that this could prove to be a challenge to my decision to have an open and uncritical attitude in this new country. And so it is!

Walking in the countryside there are many empty houses where the owners only come at weekends or for holidays. For security they often have two or more dogs who live there alone being fed by some custodian, sleeping outside or in a kennel and having as their main stimulation each day those moments when someone walks past the fence. Then there is a cacophony of barking and huge excitement as they race up and down alongside your path. They sound fierce but in a life of great boredom it must be the highlight of their day.

Duna came here from a family home where she lived for her first year, I don’t know how much time she spend indoors but it is very likely she slept outside and spent most of the day alone as the parents were at work and the children at school. All credit to them, the family decided they couldn’t give her the life she deserved so she came here. She was not house trained but had been taught some fairly useless tricks such as giving a paw on command and lying down to play dead. She is very willing to learn and has a very gentle nature. When we take her out for walks in the countryside she loves rummaging in the woods and looking for mushroomsWe live in a town. It is a big house and has a roof terrace and a half enclosed patio but no garden. When she first arrived she slept on the patio and used this for her toilet. It has taken a long time for her to learn bladder and bowel control and to wait until we take her out for a walk.
As the weather got colder last autumn I started to campaign for her to sleep indoors. It is hard to explain to UK dog owners how totally weird this seems to Catalan people. Here it is normal for dogs to be outside and any suggestion that it is too cold for her is met by wide eyed disbelief. I might as well be saying she should be given a chair at the table and a knife and fork to eat with! But the problem of her using the patio as a toilet made it easier to convince others that an indoor life would make it easier to know when she needs to be taken out. However, toilet training here is also of the old school variety – accidents happen and then she is made to put her nose in the puddle or pile and then summarily banned outdoors again. I knew it would be a challenge and it is definitely the hardest thing I have battled with since coming here. Last night I looked up web sites on dog training and found a mountain of information in English but very little in Catalan(which I knew would be more convincing than anything written by us softies who treat our dogs like babies!)It is interesting for me to have found my bottom line – most things like eating, speaking, house cleaning, socialising, time keeping, shopping I can happily adapt to and try to accommodate. But I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut when it comes to the lives of dogs.
However, Duna’s life is hugely better than it was before and a million times better than many dogs who live outside all their lives, with little human contact and no opportunities to explore the outside world. Or those who live in apartments in Barcelona who stay at home alone all day until that late evening hour when all the streets are full of dogs and their owners out for a stroll.
Duna has been to the seasideto the Costa Bravato France, on a skiing holiday, for a weekend camping and many times to the mountains and the woods and she is very lovedShe knows how to drink from the ubiquitous drinking fountainsI have to admit too that she is better behaved than my own dogs – she sleeps patiently most of the day, she only barks when the shop opposite opens or closes its shutters and she can be safely left tied to a lamppost while I am shopping without fear than she will bite passing children.