The life of a greyhound, by Esther Cayuela © I Started dying when I was born. I'm a greyhound, the fastest dog in the world, a real tragedy for our race in my native Spain.
My existence is a slow and outrageous death from birth. I just survived. 3 years as the property of a hunter. I know there are exceptions, not all greyhounds are the same, but mine was unscrupulous. Every week he tied us around our necks to “Train” behind his quad bike. Les ace…eguro that it wasn't training, it was torture. A ruthless torture that we all feared, probably more than death itself. I remember my brother stumbled when we were taken out.. The galguero didn't stop and my brother didn't survive training.. The galguero didn't even bother to shoot him., threw it into a well without even looking at it. He was still breathing. I was a little over two years old..
My life and my other six brothers hurt. Yes, life hurts, probably more than death. Our sad existence has hurt us, every day has been difficult. Hours, days, eternal months in which our soul dies slowly, made the body look sad and sick. Tied to a chain in a hole where there was hardly a ray of light, there was hardly any food. We were never allowed to be dogs, we were tools. Hunting tools to use and of course worthless.
Then came the day when it was no longer so fast. All the bones of my weak, emaciated body ached and I could no longer tie myself to the terrible quadriceps, not once a last time. Neither my neck nor my body could bear cruelty any more. I had the moisture of the Zulo in which we had lived for months in my bones, and I was in pain without moving. My time to “running machine”, was useless to the Galguero.
My heartless owner didn't throw us into a well., but he left us “playing the piano”. A rope is placed around the neck of a greyhound and hung from a branch so that the fingers of its hind legs still touch the ground. When tiredness comes, legs break, it's over, a barbaric method, horrible and cruel, but real.
I've seen it firsthand.. It was night., my owner put the rope around my neck, hung me so that my hind legs still grazed the ground and then disappeared with their quad.
I don't know how many hours I fought and I was about to give up., but fate wanted me not to die like that.
The next morning I realized that a dog barked, a desperate bark when he saw me. Two girls accompanying him ran towards me when they saw me. They were both very excited, I remember the girl holding me trembling more than I did and yelling at the other: 'He's alive, He's alive, untie it, Hurry up, He's alive!’
Yes, I was scared, But he was still breathing. They took me with a affection that until then I did not know, they covered me with their jackets and for the first time in my life someone's hand stroked my face. They both cried “.
(THE LIFE OF A GREYHOUND, © Esther Cayuela)