Spanish Street Dogs; the other Waifs and Strays.

Its getting very close to that time again... mid August, Hot days, Sultry nights and FIESTA....
The programme for the weekend's events landed with a dull thud in my letterbox on Monday and it appears as usual to kick off each day with what can best be described as 'Breakfast in Baghdad' and ends with 'Bedtime in Beirut'.....

First and last events of each of the 3 days are described as 'Tirada de Cohetes' literally a 'roll of rockets'... if last years tirada is anything to go by, the cohetes will be even bigger and noisier than the year before, all of which makes for an extremely stressful time for the house pack and all of the other dogs in the village.

Summer is in the UK at the moment attending to a very pregnant daughter who has just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes; this leaves me to cope with 9 soon to be demented, hyperventilating hounds who all hate fireworks... there is a good case for Doggy Valium but I can't keep the poor sods drugged up for three days, so I / we will just have to put up with it and if the neighbours complain about the incessant howling that will inevevitably occur, then tough sh*t it's their Fiesta after all.

Not content with fireworks, each day also features a marching band that invariably comes down our very narrow street, cymbals clashing, trumpets blasting and enough percussion to equip a regiment. Again the dogs hate it close up I guess its very painful for them but there is nowhere else I can take them to avoid the racket. Same thing goes with the evening entertainment on each of the three nights... I say evening but it actually takes the form of a dance with live bands which kicks off at 11pm and goes on 'hasta altas horas de la madruga.' with enough amplification to keep Pink Floyd in business for years...

Yesterday evening / early this morning set the scene for things to come... August 15th is a National Public Holiday and our local bar decided to hire in a live band to celebrate...now normally I quite like Mariachi music but it doesn't blend in well with howling, screeching, barking dogs especially at 4 am when the band was still going strong...

Victor Meldrew? Not really, I'd like nothing more than to partake in some of the social activities but trying to keep the dogs sane has to take priority and will we just have to resign myself to catching a few Zzzzzz's when we can.

So roll on Monday morning when the whole thing is over for another year...