Of all her brothers and sisters, Flecha was always the least striking, her pale brown color, her small size and elusive nature always made her go unnoticed in the eyes of her master.
On Sundays, when they went into the fields, her brothers and sisters paid a lot of attention to become good hunters, but she was always distracted, by the flight of a butterfly, the song of a cicada, anything was much more interesting than the explanations of her master.
She had always been different. According to her mother, a galga, a good galgo should be especially fast in racing, light as the wind, silent and fearless. And she never was. Not that she wasn’t fast, she just wasn’t interested. Instead of training by running after the neighbours cats, she played with them.
She was not only a friend to all the cats in the neighbourhood, she also became friends with Oso, the old Mastin vagabond, who occasionally wandered around the neighbourhood with his friend, an old and wise hare. When Flecha learned they were around she would go and visit them. She loved the stories that the old hare would tell about all the countries they had visited. The last trip had been to Europe and they had been in Germany, Belgium and Holland and they had met galgos that were adopted by families there who lived in houses with nice gardens.
That night when she came home, she decided to talk about it with her mother. “Who has put such nonsense in your head?” said her mother. “We galgos are used for hunting and nothing else, and it has always been like that!” she continued, “and you have to learn and be a good hunter, otherwise the master is going to sell you or give you to a friend who doesn’t have compassion with you, and when they see you cannot hunt, they will leave you behind in the woods or shoot you!“
Flecha responded: “I don’t like to run after hares to catch them and then kill them. I do like to run, but just to run like the wind, playing with my friends, with Hare!”
Her mother looked at her, very surprised, and could not believe her ears. How could her daughter be friends with a hare? Hares should be hunted by her, not played with.
In Europe there are countries that adopt galgos from Spain, and not to have them hunt for them, but to live with them, care for them, play with them and love them.
That night, Flecha couldn’t find any sleep. She closed her eyes and imagined a large garden full of flowers and a family that called her, petted her and gave her lots of cuddles. The next morning ,when the master prepared for the hunt, together with her mother and brothers and sisters, she hid herself. Nobody missed her when the rest jumped into the trailer that the master used to transport them.
And off she went, and while she got further and further away from the place that had been her home, she looked back and it was like she saw her mother, wishing her luck and saying goodbye. Flecha knew what she wanted and that certainly did not include her master giving her away to somebody else who would use her for hunting or raising puppies, and then when she got old, would shoot her or hang her from a tree. She wanted a family to protect her and care for her, and whe wanted to run in that garden that Hare showed him in the pictures so many times.
She knew where to go. Hare had told her about this refuge called Scooby. It was far away but she was fast. And she ran and ran without stopping, day after day untill she came to a small town. She remembered Hare’s instructions but she was a little disoriented, and she felt a little weak since she hadn’t eaten in several days and she was a little wobbly on her legs.
She had to rest and stop running. She didn’t know where she was. Without realizing she had entered a forest and she didn’t like what she heard there: barking, voices, gunfire all around.. she was in the middle of a hunt!
Suddenly she felt a terrible blow in her neck and she fell over, and a horrible pain went through her whole body. A bullet had hit her and she was loosing a lot of blood.
Flecha thought of Hare and got up, she couldn’t stay there, the dogs would find her and the hunters would end up killing her. She was thinking of Hare and of her mother. She had to get to Scooby. This gave her strength and she began to run faster, not knowing where she was, she just wanted to get away from that place. She managed to run several miles but she was very weak
The next day, when I arrived at Scooby and took out Leon, our Mastin, to the frontyard I was surprised by his strange way of barking. He wanted to warn me, he had seen something. I went and there was Flecha, she was unconscious but she had reached her destination. I took her into my arms and it was nothing but a bag of bones, she was so fragile and looked like she could break any moment. She was covered with blood and had a wound in her neck that looked like a shotwound, and it did not look good. Her legs were in bad shape, full of scratches and cuts. We immediately took her to the vet and here she is now, with us at Scooby. Flecha is very slim, she has a small face and a fragile and delicate appearance. She is good, loving and the strongest and bravest galga I know but the look in her eyes is still sad. She continues to dream of her garden and her family that will love her .
