The Camino Dog — Rising Son Travels

I left my hotel in Colunga not as rested as I would have liked. Free from the strict rules of an albergue, I stayed up way past my Camino bedtime. This would be my last full day on El Camino del Norte. The following two days would lead me to the Camino Primitivo (More on that in a future post).

My morning brightened up a bit when two very rambunctious young dogs jumped on Anja and me to say hello. It was very sweet and a nice contrast to all of the angry barking guard dogs I had encountered over the past three weeks.

One of the dogs started to follow us. This happened once before on the Camino very briefly and that dog eventually turned around and went home. Anja, Radek, and I gave this dog the nickname “Santi” as in El Camino de Santiago. He walked in front of us, leading the way as we forged ahead on the Camino. When I eventually stopped for some lunch in front of an albergue Santi also stopped. When some other pilgrims passed me Santi began to follow them.

After my picnic, I started walking again and it began to rain hard. I pulled out my rain jacket and put the rain cover over my bag. When this happens on the Camino you just have to keep walking and hope that your feet don’t get too wet. I put on “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for thematic reasons and as if on cue I see my a fellow pilgrim named Dennis. We walk together and I tell him about Santi. After about 20 minutes we ran into him along the Camino. Santi was soaked to the bone and it looked like he might have even been bleeding. We were a good 10+ kilometers away from his home and I was worried he would not be able to get home. I pulled out my phone and saw a message from Anja. She said she’d seen Santi run into traffic and get hit by a car. He seemed ok but she tried to get him to stop following her for his own safety.

We realized then just how serious the situation had gotten. Santi needed to get taken to the police or animal control so that they could get him back home. The city we had just arrived in was called Villaviciosa. Santi was clearly a farm dog and not used to being around so much busy traffic. He kept running into the street. I would call him back and then he would run to me.

It was still raining heavily when a nearby jogger named Paula saw what was going on and tried to help. She didn’t speak English but was able to indicate that there was a police station nearby. This resulted in Dennis, Paula, and I trying to get Santi to follow us down a busy street without a leash. Every 30 feet or so Santi would start to veer into the busy street and we would yell at him to come to us. I shouted things like “¡Venga!” “¡Acqui!”, and less successfully, “¡Perro!”

It was a nerve-racking walk to the station. We were all really worried that Santi would get hit by a car. At times cars had to stop and honk at Santi to get him out of the street. We didn’t see any other option to get him to the police station. I even attempted to carry him but he did not like that at all.

When we got to the police station Paula rang a doorbell and informed the police over the intercom about the situation. An older policeman came out briefly and then disappeared. I figured he was grabbing back-up or one of those oversized dog-catching nets I’d seen in cartoons. He came back out with a tiny leash that looked like it was made for a stuffed animal. Apparently it was up to us to somehow wrangle Santi and put this leash on him.

As you can probably imagine, Santi was not interested in having a leash put on him. Each time one of us would try and get close enough to him to put the leash on him, he would run away. Some local restaurant workers saw what was going on and handed us some food to try and lure Santi to us. First, we tried bread and when that wasn’t interesting enough to Santi they gave us some pechuga (chicken). After a bit of a struggle, Dennis and Paula were able to get the leash onto Santi. He was not thrilled about it and managed to run away with the leash on him. Paula ran after him while Dennis and I tried to figure out with the police officer what we were supposed to do next.

We turned around when we heard Paula shouting ¡Ayuda! ¡Ayuda! I ran over to her in a way that can only be described as slapstick, even dropping my phone on the concrete in the process. I grabbed Santi from Paula and carried him to the station.

A younger policeman came out with a scanner and attempted to find out if Santi has a microchip and therefore can be traced back to his owners. I had never seen one of these in action before and it totally looked like something LeVar Burton would have used on Star Trek. Santi did not have a chip.

While talking to the police I put the full force of my digital tools into action in an attempt to communicate everything that had happened. I pulled up the location data of the photos I took of Santi and his “perro hermano” near his house to show on the map where his home was. I told the police that I heard he was hit by a car and that he may need veterinary care. The officer somewhat dismissively thanked me for my help and I suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for all of the women I’ve seen in true crime documentaries who were ignored by the police.

I said goodbye to Paula and we exchanged numbers on Whatsapp. She told me she would keep me posted about Santi. I later received a picture of one of her Compostelas that she received when she completed a Camino. Go Paula!

I ran under an awning to collect myself and out popped Andrés, the quirky Argentinian pilgrim in my “Camino Family.” He and Kathleen were having pinchos in a strangely colonial-themed Liberian pub. The only Liberian aspect of the bar was the strange colonial décor that would not have been acceptable in most countries.

After all of this I still had two kilometers to go to get to my albergue for the night. It was another wonderful donativo albergue with communal meals. When I arrived at the albergue the hospitalero’s son checked me in and realized that he had accidentally given my bed away to another pilgrim without a reservation. Anja poured me a glass of tinto verano (red wine + sprite) while I waited to see where I would be sleeping.

When the hospitalero arrived he told me that the only available place for me to sleep was the guest roomTurns out the only spot available was the guest room next door to where the pilgrims sleep. I got a private room with a full-sized bed! A nice karmic reward for the rainy afternoon at the police station. Dinner in the albergue was paella from the absolute largest pan I’ve ever seen. I stuffed my face and vowed to not let any more Camino dogs follow me.

If you encounter a lost or abandoned dog on the Camino, you can contact APACA at
+34 881 97 30 68 or email: apaca@paradoxahumana.com