Road trip Berlin – Spain, part 6
Barcelona: SOS Galgos or when children read to greyhounds
Spanish greyhounds, Galgos, are used for hunting, and many are cruelly killed or abandoned by hunters at the end of the hunting season. The SOS Galgos association educates children about their plight.
The bus I was sitting in one early morning, pondering our future with robots, was heading towards the American School in Barcelona. There, the animal welfare organization SOS Galgos holds a very special kind of lesson every Wednesday. Again, I’ll only reveal the bare essentials so as not to spoil my planned radio travelogue, and will let the pictures do most of the talking.
At the main gate of the American School of Barcelona, I meet Sylvia and Julia, two of the club’s founders. They are walking seven Spanish Greyhounds, Galgos, on leashes. To be precise, there are some Galgos, meaning male dogs, and some Galgas. They are friendly, sniffing around and readily allowing me to pet them. Their fur is velvety and soft. For the next two hours, they will be the focus of the lessons. The six- and seven-year-olds in the primary grades will read to the dogs from picture books of their choice. Of course, the children will be allowed to pet the dogs extensively…
The children sit cross-legged on the floor, an open book on their laps, and begin to read aloud. Everyone reads at the same time, so the room is filled with children’s voices and murmurs. Most of the galgos lie on the floor among the children, dozing peacefully. Every now and then, the teacher encourages a student to continue reading to the dog. Some dogs peer curiously into a book, as if they were reading along.
Before the first reading session, Sylvia and Julia came to the school and told the children about the dogs’ stories in age-appropriate language. Through these reading sessions, they hope to create a bond between the children and the dogs, laying the foundation for them to treat animals well as adults. The children also benefit from the reading sessions. They not only practice reading but also gain confidence in reading aloud in front of others. “Even those who aren’t so good at reading lose their shyness,” a teacher explained to me, “because the dogs listen to every child without judgment.”
Sylvia has been doing this educational work for nine years, and she also organizes dog adoptions for SOS Galgos. In one of the four school classes reading to the Galgos and Galgas this Wednesday is the youngest daughter of a teacher. Her two older sisters also participated in the reading sessions a few years ago. There’s a good chance that as adults, they will adopt one of the abused or abandoned greyhounds and give it—or her—a new and loving forever home.
This text was first published on my German website and translated by me.