Hi Far
I am sorry that you lost your beloved Tara 3 months ago, I know how hard it is to lose a dog and how difficult a decision it is to get another. We now have 2 lovely Cavalier Spaniels who we brought to Spain last month. Although we have no plans to return to Spain, we have got their passports in place as no-one can ever say never. The one thing that I didn't initially realise when I was sorting them out was that once in place, you cannot return to the UK within 6 months of the date the blood test was taken that passed Defra's stringent tests, so although they both have their passports, we are not able to take them back to the UK without quarantining them until mid-November so, you would need to plan that into any new pet you may be considering.
We looked at a number of ways of bringing them to Spain, taking into account that they were so young. Initially we looked at flying them across but I didn't like the idea of them being in such a strange environment. The plus side to flying them is that it's a relatively short flight and therefore the seperation from you is over very quickly. Our next idea was to drive through France and Spain and take the short ferry ride from Dover to Calais, where the pups would be able to stay in their travel crate in the car, unfortunately due to our car being stolen shortly before we travelled that couldn't happen and we ended up taking the longer ferry trip to Santander which got us all here but as the previous poster commented, we all found a harrowing experience for the pups.
What I would say is that once in Spain, we have had no problems travelling with the pups. I found it easy to find pet friendly hotels where they could stay in our room just by googling 'pet friendly hotels spain'. I find in general the Spanish do not come near any unfamiliar dog and have the same types of rules as in the UK as far as clearing up after dogs, taking dogs into bars, restaurants etc. In our hotel, although it was dog friendly, they were not allowed in the bar or restaurant but if we had wanted to eat outside they would have been able to be with us there. As it was they were well settled in the room we left them there.
Whilst I appreciate I haven't travelled from N Ireland maybe the options we considered and the ideas behind them may be useful.