The effort is being carried out in collaboration with a new non-profit rescue organization in the US awaiting its final IRS 501(c)(3) approval, an existing non-profit US rescue organization and two Spanish NGOs working to rescue dogs and to educate Spanish hunters and others so they will in the future not have to relocate Spanish hunting greyhounds to save them.
At the end of the short hunting season, many of the ancient breed of Spanish hunting greyhounds are killed or dumped as they have not been considered worthwhile to keep on for the next season of for breeding; the dogs are sighthounds used for spotting and chasing game, in particular hare coursing that is the subject of a lot of betting activity. It is believed ~40,000 galgos are discarded or killed annually.
The intent here is to rescue, retrain and rehome these calm, companionate dogs to save them from inhumane treatment and death:
Basically, as it is proposed,
there are no costs to the volunteering passenger (unless one volunteers to undertake them) to this - it's much like a courier's job, which is to ride the plane while the live "cargo" rides in the hold of the same flight. (I have done courier service - my job was more complicated than this instance, as I had to view the contents and sign, both at check-in and arrival - except for the military, where I also had custody and firearms.)
The airline requires a passenger be documented to process the dog as an accompanying pet checked in the(pressurized, temperature-controlled) baggage hold. The organizations' staff, paid or volunteer, will transport the dog (already agreed to be adopted by a US family) and be there whilst it is being checked in, and be at the other end to receive the dog, prepare necessary health and transport documents.
jcwoman has shared with us:
"The organization ... is called SAGE (Save a Galgo Español), based in Pennsylvania. It's a new non-profit just getting started and they don't have their 501c3 set up yet but are in the process of filing the paperwork. It was started by a lady who immigrated here from the Netherlands where she worked for many years in local dog rescue and then galgo rescue. The other collaborating agency that can be used if there is a necessity for current 501(c)(3) is GRIN (Galgo Rescue International Network) in Colorado
Both SAGE and GRIN work with several of the Spanish rescue organizations, including Asociación BaasGalgo and Galgos del Sol. In fact, the rescue/rehoming/transportation work is facilitated by all of the groups working together in order to respect/adhere to national and international laws.
Addressing the transportation/rehoming issue, we are aware that this is only a band-aid solution because it really doesn't make much sense to move dogs from place to place. Every country has it's population of abused and abandoned pets, so this just moves the problem around without solving it. For this reason we are also working on public education campaigns. For example, Galgos del Sol started designing and installing billboards around Spain. ...
However, the most urgent need is to find homes for dogs that have been rescued. At the same time we work on the difficult, long-term solution of education, we can't ignore the dogs that must be rescued today. To that end, several times a year we "batch up" several dogs that have been adopted by U.S. families and try to find someone who can escort them on a flight here. As I mentioned in my post, we take care of the logistics and legalities for both countries, as well as the airline rules and regulations. We just don't always have a human available to be on the flight to satisfy the airline's requirement that all live cargo is escorted by a passenger."
JDiver, Senior Moderator
Galgos del Sol Sociedad Protectora de Animales NIF/CIF:G30856736 <
link> Partners - too many to list
Asociación BaasGalgo Contra el Maltrato y Abandono del Galgo / Registro Nacional de Asociaciones del Ministerio del Interior nº 594149 con el CIF: G85810554. <
link> (Partners include Henry Schein, Bayer and the Garcia-Valle Law Firm.
Galgo Rescue International Network AKA GRIN (IRS 501(c)(3) status verified by IRS, EIN #20-5010150) <
link>
Save a Galgo Español AKA SAGE - in process of applying for IRS 501(c)(3) status - <
link> to FaceBook page