Wake up call

Yes. You learn something every day. I am in a constant state of learning things - little things like: if you pour milk into a cup with a spoon in it and the milk hits the spoon, it will curve into a concave shape, reemerge and soak what ever you happen to be wearing. Best to move the spoon out, or at least away from the jet of milk. I think I have learned that one now - took a few reminders though.
One thing we learned today, is not to become complacent.
Ed had just popped round for lunch and to kindly start making a dog bed for the new dog.
"I think she must be getting used to us," said Mark, leaning on the doorpost of the lounge and looking fondly at the innocent, placid dog on its furry blanket, "I opened the door and she just stayed there."
Lunch was on the table, Ed went out to get a chair from the terrace and there was a honey-coloured blur as the dog headed for the outside world.
The gate was open and she was off up the road displaying the reason why the breed is used for hare hunting.
Mark got the car out and we revved up the road, praying Mr Malras wouldn't be trundling along at four km an hour after visiting his veg patch, or worse, the prat who drives the Ferrari in a cloud of dust as if our little road is Brands Hatch.
The dog is incredible. It did a stretch of about a 3/4 mile in about one and a half minutes, a steep hill too.
We drove Starsky and Hutch style, me shouting, 'Gala' from the window, as if advertising some exciting festival/happening in the afternoon.
She doesn't know her name yet, that's obvious, either that, or she doesn't like it.
She ran and ran, then turned sharp right; Mark skidded on the road's newly- laid gravel and turned hard into René's drive.
The dog reached a low wall and jumped. A splash of water rose into the grey sky, rather like Hockney's 'A Bigger Splash, (without the Californian blue sky) I remember thinking distractedly as I ran to see what was behind the wall - René's new pool, now with a large, floundering dog in it. Gala had nearly climbed out: an extraordinary feat of strength and determination to flee from what? A comfy bed, food, love. Of course we can't understand why she feels the need to run, and God knows what she has witnessed, and what she might imagine could be about to happen. It's only been two days; there is bonding to be done . . .
René came out smiling, happy that the dog was okay; no mention of pool filters, dog hair, gravel etc, his wife relieved that she could resume the lunch. We returned, wrapped the dog in its blanket and ate lunch in silence for a while, contemplating how far she might have got and whether we would ever have found her.

New dog

I've been researching greyhound-type dogs over the past few months since dear old Una passed on. Second hand whippets and Italian greyhounds don't seem to be available in France, and adopting in the UK to bring back didn't seem to be an option either.
The answer, if you want a greyhound-model type dog here, is the Spanish variety: the Galgos, or Galgas if female.
As runty dog is king ( if only a pathetically small one) of the house, it had to be a woman dog. I contacted a 'Galgos rescue' association place and went though the very stringent adoption process. A lady came all the way from Toulouse to check our garden's fences, accompanied by two Galgos so we could have a look at the scale of dog we were contemplating. After some fence work (thanks, Ed) we were deemed to be satisfactory and Christine started to match us with a dog.
Yesterday, Ezra and I went to meet the new family member.
She arrived in a truck along with about twenty other rescue dogs from somewhere in central Spain: a long journey from which all the dogs looked remarkably relaxed. A credit to the drivers love and care (she had driven the Luton truck to Spain and back in two days).



The crowd of waiting adopters moved forward keenly with cameras to catch the first glimpse of their chosen dog - Melia (now Gala) second cage down on the left.
Each dog was lifted carefully down and the name called. It's an odd thing to be introduced to a prospective pet in this way; normally we would have visited a house, or a dogs' home, browsed, met, gone through the shall we - shan't we, thing. Homing through an internet picture or youtube film is something else. However, Christine had done her job perfectly: Gala is perfect. Docile, cat-ignoring, keen to walk and very beautiful; we couldn't have found better. I'm sure Una would have agreed.
On arrival, chez nous, the cat bristled briefly then asked for food, and Runty dog showed his terrible fangs and growled a lot. A day on, he seems to have forgotten that he was ever alone and walks (hops) happily alongside her.
Today is a day of adjustment: how many walks? What does that squeaky noise mean? - not a bark yet,  is she happy? Does she miss the other dogs in the refuge?
All will be revealed, but at the moment she looks very contented lying on the old tiger rug outside, listening to all the new sounds in this different land.
I try not to look up too much information on these magnificent, gentle dogs as there are images on the net that haunt the mind. I saw a photo once of what a mindless hunter had done when he deemed the dog to be no use to him anymore. I hope something worse might befall him.

If anyone would like to adopt a dog - here is a link: http://www.galgosfrance.net