Why taking your dog on holiday isn’t that crazy
Jane Bussmann gambles on treating ‘the whole family’ to a break – with memorable results
It always baffles me that dogs, largely delightful, sensitive creatures, are forced to travel in crates in the aircraft hold, while Charlie Sheen is allowed to fly willy-nilly, and nine times out of ten in the main body of the aeroplane. Dogs might be a family member 50 weeks of the year, but try taking them on-holiday and they’re an unsavoury suitcase that must be flown as cargo and deafened, oxygen supplied only if the pilot remembers to turn it on. ‘It’s a ruddy dog,’ I hear you say, ‘not a family member!’ Not a family member? It’s the one holding it together. And dogs don’t speak, making them smarter than most of my family.
We have two dogs, Homer, a mongrel who has the joie de vivre of James Blunt with PMT. And Thistle, a tiny Maltese terrier with gammy legs. We spoil them rotten. Thistle spent six years locked ina freezing shed on a puppy farm, with 34 rotten teeth and arthritis, churning out puppies bought in pet shops. She deserved a holiday. Our excitement, therefore, was practically rabid on learning that Brittany Ferries had pet-friendly cabins, sailing instyle to Bilbao, Northern Spain. We’d be just a day’s drive from sunny Andalucia.
Even better, looking for a pet-friendly house online, we got chatting to expat Clair Spettigue, who rescues dogs and also manages villas, including a place that sounded amazing: Casa Amarilla in the sub-tropical mountains of Axarquia. We were going on holiday – in a pack.
Going abroad with dogs wasn’t too complicated – basically a rabies jab three or more weeks before you leave and a pill one to five days before you return, logging them in pet passports. All sorted by a vet.
For parts of Europe (including Southern-Spain), there’s a vaccination and special collar to protect against leishmaniasis – these jabs need to be started a minimum of ten weeks before you leave.
At 7am we were on the dock. The smell of the sea and the sight of other dogs in the queue sent Thistle and Homer potty. It was not only easy but very pleasant: the Baie de Seine slipped out of Portsmouth, seagulls floating overhead. The crew were so friendly and the dog-friendly cabins had comfortable beds and dog treats. Dog loonies had their own deck, where we sat in the sun watching land disappear with a glass of wine and the dogs at our feet. Life is too short to learn from your own-mistakes, so here are ours: don’t leave seasickness pills in the car. And use the ship’s Wi-Fi. Roaming charges were abolished in the EU, but the ocean has not yet applied for EU membership.
A Swedish scientist called Carl Linnaeus once said that what separates man from animals is self-consciousness. Swedish scientists should watch a dog trying to find a tree on a ship’s deck. He just wanted privacy. I stood in the rain-for an hour, Homer desperate to go, but refusing. Thank God for the Spanish spaniel who saw this dog and marked the deck as his, sending Homer into a frenzy of revenge. An artistic interpretation of the Battle of the Bay of Biscay.
I was dreading driving, but the roads were empty and the views so beautiful that the hours flew by. Green fields turned orange as we cruised south, crumbling fincas whispering seductively about renovation-projects.
Dogs are always looking for their kingdom. It’s been a life of bitter disappointment for Homer, the Prince Charles of mixed-breed terriers. In Casa Rural La Ermita, Puebla de Almenara, high above olive groves, he finally found happiness. We broke up the drive with a night in this stunning 17th Century pilgrim’s rest, €40 for two in a picture-perfect monk’s cell with mod cons. We were welcomed and given a monastery to ourselves, with Nutella and espresso instead of hair shirts. When we left, Homer cried in the back seat for two hours.
There was one glitch on the road trip. We forgot to pack a minor travel accessory: food. Villamayor de Santiago is a small town famous for goat’s cheese. There was no goat’s cheese. Or any food at all. A sign in a delicatessen claimed it had been open from 8am until midday, but there was no evidence.
We found a Vietnamese shop
‘My fear of conflict meant I ended up with an entire wheel of goat’s cheese’
with one watermelon. They refused to sell it, understandably. They said it was theirs. As we were leaving with a jar of bottled carrots, dog food and two Tetra Paks of Rioja Del UPVC, we saw a swinging sign that may have been a noose or a cheese. The cheese shop! A woman nervously agreed to let us in, one at a time, as we clearly had the look of schoolchildren who would take everything on the shelves and run away. My fear of conflict meant I ended up with an entire wheel of goat’s cheese. It was the finest cheese I’ve ever had. For the rest of the holiday, Homer stared at the cheese as if it was a holy relic. Indeed, it may have saved our lives.
Andalucia gets 2,815 hours of sunshine a year, which, divided by 365, is a lot, probably. The dogs leaned out of the window, apparently in disbelief, as we climbed perfect hill after perfect hill until, there below us, was Casa Amarilla.
I may have dreamt Casa Amarilla. But this is what I recall: a mini Moorish palace with a yellow tower. Walking through a garden of hibiscus flowers into a private courtyard with fruit trees. A swimming pool thousands of feet up, and more chill-out zones than an Ibiza nightclub. Grape vines over a tiled table for alfresco dining. All framing the perfect view of an unspoilt valley, for pity’s sake.
Casa Amarilla was a ruin rebuilt by an English couple and is all about enjoying life – the view from the master bedroom is so epic they’ve made the bedroom epic too, with grand damask curtains to sweep back on the day. Up in the tower, there’s an Arabian bedroom with roof terrace for stargazing.
Life was really good in Andalucia. Temperatures in the 30Cs, decent rioja for €3 a bottle and the local bar, El Nino, was a five-minute walk.
Homer had a holiday romance. It began at breakfast when he ran in and stared at me for 20 minutes. This is dogspeak for ‘How many times do I have to say it? There’s someone outside!’ Standing in the flowerbed, grinning from ear to ear, was the most hideous female dog I’ve ever seen, with a tiny, pointed head, like a hyena bred with a mole. It was love at first sight. Homer whimpered in the flowerbed waiting for her every day from then on. She always had a revolting smile for him.
We gave up buying dog food, as Thistle developed a taste for pumpkin with raw mince, which gave her so much energy she learned how to climb stairs for the first time. Not down them though; she sat at the top barking for her bearers. Clair the manager answered even our most idiotic questions. We went to visit the two dozen soppy rescue dogs recuperating with her and husband Simon, waiting to be adopted.
On the last night, I was gazing at the view of the valley at sunset. I looked down to see that Thistle was gazing at the view as well. She started smiling, and for the next hour just sat smiling as she looked out of the window.
I’m glad we took Thistle on holiday with us. Not long after, she started limping. Then her back legs gave way. She’d had a stroke. Now she’s actually better than before the stroke, because physio stops her arthritis hurting. But it reminded me how short dogs’ lives are. We don’t have them for long. Enjoy them while you have them.