This past sunday Pablo went on a 3 hour bike ride with his biking buddies outside Madrid in a town called Guadalix. He left early, 8:30, and enjoyed a very sunny day in Madrid. Around 3 I started making lunch, wondering where Pablo is because he had been gone a long time. About this time I get a call from downstairs. I look out the window and see Pablo. He tells me to come down and I ask why? He just says come down. I say ok and then turn away from the window but turn right back to look out again and see Pablo's car with a dog in the back. I said, "Why do you have a dog in your car??"
I get downstairs and Pablo tells me how he found this lost dog walking around a gas station off the freeway. He tells me that after the ride they stopped to have a beer before heading home. They sat outside because it was such a nice day and this is when Pablo saw the dog walking around the gas station and she didn't seem to have an owner. Pablo asked everyone at the gas station, and at the restaurant and bar next to the gas station if she was anyone's dog and everyone said no. Pablo said they were pretty close to the animal shelter that he volunteers at so he loaded the dog into his car and went to the shelter. Well living in Spain you become use to having everything being closed on Sunday- this means the animal shelter as well. The dog had a collar but no information and so Pablo hoped the shelter could scan to see if he had a micro chip and then we could find the owner. But because it was closed there was no other option- the dog was coming home.
I was a little freaked out because it was a pretty big dog, we have a small apartment, what do we do with it, oh and we have ALKIE! We brought the dog up to the house and gave her water and old cat food that we had. She was pretty thirsty and lapped up the water pretty fast. This is when I realized we could never have a dog in this house. She lapped it up so fast that water went everywhere, she dripped everywhere, she seemed to take over everything.Pablo decided the first thing he had to do was wash the dog so he went on an adventure to find a dog washing station at a gas station. I was left at home to make lunch and eat by myself and think about what are we going to do with the dog for a night.
When Pablo got home we decided to take her on a long walk and enjoyed the last part of the afternoon. When we got home we pretty much wore her out so we her made a little bed and tied her leash to the radiator and let her relax a little. We don't know how long she had been missing and she seemed pretty tired.
Alkie was frightened at first, all his fur sticking up and they growled at each other but after awhile he became more and more curious and got closer and closer to the dog but we both kept an eye on them, we didn't want a fight. The dog from the beginning was very friendly and loving. She loved attention and she would always roll on to her back and want her belly rubbed so we fell in love with her. When we prepared for bed we put her in the kitchen free to walk around but with the door shut. She kind of put up a fight banging on the door and then started crying but she was so tired that she finally passed out. I didn't sleep well, worried about the dog, but she only cried a couple time throughout the night.
This morning Pablo brought the dog to the animal shelter hoping to find the owner. Pablo was nervous that the dog had been abandoned or had a bad family and ran away. It was obvious by the way she acted, wanting loves and attention, that she came from a family. Plus she had an updated rabies shot tag so I had a feeling she wasn't abandoned. Then a few hours later Pablo sent me a text message saying it was a happy ending. Her name is Cabana (like copa cabana) and she is 7 years old. When they called the owner she cried and said she was coming to pick her up. When I saw the message I cried too. I'm so happy she has such a nice owner to go home to because she is such the sweetest dog and deserves all the love she can get. 
