No Good Deed Goes Unnoticed – La Casona De Baro – Baro, Spain

Anyone who knows Christine knows that she loves dogs, probably more than people. On this trip she’s gone out of her way to feed starving ones, give strays a few minutes of belly rubs, and said hello to just about any dog that would get within five feet of her. So it was no surprise that when we happened upon a dog trapped inside an abandoned barn in Baro, we had to do something.

We first noticed the dog sitting in the second floor window of the old barn behind our hotel. When we saw her there again the next morning, Christine had to go say hi. When she got up to the barn, she was shocked at what she found. Someone had intentionally trapped the dog inside. The dog was overjoyed to see Christine and jumped all over her, giving her kisses and lying down for belly rubs. As Christine looked further inside, she saw a tiny puppy laying in the hay. Unsure if the puppy was alive or not, she cautiously approached it and picked it up. Thankfully the little lady was still alive, and she couldn’t have been more than a week old – her eyes weren’t even open yet. We didn’t have anything with us to give the dogs, and we were on our way to our hike so we had to get going. But Christine promised to return.

As soon as we finished the hike, we went to the grocery store and picked up dog food, bowls and water. When we got back to the barn, she was happy to see us, but even happier to see food. While she ate (which didn’t take long, she was starving) we surveyed the situation. She had a collar, there was an empty bag of dog food, a dirty bowl of water, horse saddles and work boots. We hoped that this was temporary, and someone had left her there with the intention of coming back for her. We spent some time giving her some loving (don’t tell Milly!), then went back to the hotel to figure out what to do next.

We googled animal rescues in the area, but there weren’t any. Taking her home obviously wasn’t an option. We decided to talk to the owner of the hotel to see what we could do. The owner spoke very quickly and with a strong accent, so Christine had a hard time understanding her. We gathered that she thought she knew who the owners were, and she thought maybe they abandoned her because she was pregnant, but that she’d try to find them and talk to them. In the meantime, we told her we were going to buy a lot more food to leave with her, and she promised to take care of the dogs.

The morning we left, we went to see them a few more times. We even took someone that worked at the hotel so they would know where to go. The mama was no longer spending her time sitting in the front window looking for people;  she was now laying in the back of the barn with her puppy. We fed her another can of dog food, which she quickly gobbled down. We brought them both out in the sun for some belly rubs and photos. Then it was time to say goodbye. It was heartbreaking leaving them!

If we could have brought these dogs home with us, we would have in a second. The mama was so loving, eager to please, and well mannered. She didn’t bark or run away. We will be in touch with the owner of the hotel in the next day or two to find out what’s going on. Say a prayer and send positive thoughts that these pups get the loving home they deserve!