Living

Next order of business: find human and look expectantly at the door for a morning walk. If Champ is lucky, he and his human head around the block for a half hour, and if he is luckier still he may get some ‘off-leash’ time at the park with his friends…

Champ is a Jack Russell terrier living in Barcelona, but is he content to live in a small flat in the big city? Probably, as long as he is walked twice a day and gets his food. What if Champ was a large dog, like a golden retriever? Most of us believe that larger dogs suffer in the city, too big for small apartments and depressed from lack of exercise. Not true, said Jaime ‘Santi’ Vidal Guzmán, a dog trainer.

“People think that because they have a big dog it needs to be running around all day. Actually, dogs need very little exercise each day. In the wild, when dogs aren’t hunting they are resting; conserving energy. Many times people with large dogs over-exercise them which causes the dog stress.”

This is good news for the 300 dogs hoping to be adopted at Animals Sense Sostre, an animal refuge and adoption organisation located just outside the city. “Most of our dogs are medium to large, and most people from Barcelona adopt small dogs from the refuge because they feel they don’t have the space for a German shepherd or Labrador,” explained volunteer Leire Díaz Balado who spends her free time at Sostre. “But think about it this way—at the refuge the dog lives in a tiny cage and only gets walks a couple times a week, so your small flat will seem like a palace to it.”

Díaz has a point, and adopting from Animals Sense Sostre is a good deal for both owner and dog. Man’s-best-friend costs €100 (male) to €150 (female) from the shelter, and comes with all vaccines and a microchip for tracking. Most of the dogs at Animals Sense Sostre are found in the street or brought in by owners. Families going back to the UK often abandon their pets, which end up at Animals Sense Sostre. “A lot of foreigners leave their dogs with us, especially the English,” said Díaz.

Illegal breeding is another reason Animals Sense Sostre receives dogs. Some people interested in making money by breeding dogs buy what they think is a pure-bred puppy on the black market. Everything is fine until the pup grows up and the owner realises he has been duped, that the pup is not a pure-bred at all and is, in fact, mixed with some other similar breed. Many of these mutts are dumped at Animals Sense Sostre, meaning those who would like a dog that resembles a French bulldog but is without a pedigree will find a friend at the shelter.