 Brando
looking pensive Brando
looking for mullet Brando
digging for crab |
How Brando escaped Cape VerdeBeach-born dog escapes to PortugalBrando arrived at our door in Murdeira, Cape Verde, hungry. He is always hungry and he still loves the beach. We heard that the people who killed Vlekkie and Robbie were going to put down strycchnine again. So we took him into the house. After three days we tried to find his owner. Apparently he had none so he became our responsibility. He chose us and we rescued him to Portugal en route to England.Brando still loves the beach. He can run up and down slippery rock faces like a mountain goat and he loves nothing better than digging holes in sand and barking into them. He likes water and dived off the pontoon in Cascais Marina in search of the grey mullet that swim in the murky water. He swam faster and faster as he realised he had no way of climbing out again.. In Cascais, Portugal, he was a canine Crocdile Dundee. He barked at the large naval statue; he barked at an actor pretending to be a statue; he barked at the water sprinklers and attacked them. He growled at street traders and policemen and buskers singing tunelessly. Everything was new except for the beach, which was like that at Murdeira that had been his home. We flew him to Portugal on TAP because he could not come directly to England, without quarantine. Jackie from SOS Dogs and Cats in Santa Maria helped with all the paperwork and loading, TAP sold us a travel cage and delivered him to the cargo terminal at Lisbon airport, having spent 4 hours as unaccompaned hold cargo. Before this we had to get Fatima the vet in Santa Maria to give him rabies injections, remove his fleas and take a serum for testing. This had to be shipped to Weybridge chilled as all blood tests must be performed in an EU country. Now he has a Portuguese passport and travelling in Europe, including to England is much easier. As we had to wait some months before he was proved clear of rabies, we left him with Jose who lives with a cat in Murdeira. He sat outside the gate under an umbrella, all day, just a few houses from where they killed Vlekkie.,He now barks at all Austrian sheherd dogs - perhaps he connects them with the killer. In Cascais, Simon an Irishman runs a hostel for dogs in his own home at €10 per night. Brando visited Duarte , an Anglo-Portuguese vet and Fernando a Portuguese dog trainer - we want him to be a little less ferocious to intruders. But as Crocodile Dundee he learned a lot of tricks vital to his survival. Brando`s sisters |