[Gocamino] Dogs and other four-legged peregrinos

[blaroli at aol.com]

 Hello you all,
A couple of years ago I arrived in Santiago absolutely exhausted, after walking the last four or five days in the pouring rain. A friend was making the pilgrimage by bike and we had agreed to meet on Santiago on a  specific date creating a deadline for me which, I guess, added to the tiredness, and to the need to remain in Santiago a few days to recuperate.
In one of those days I was walking around the Cathedral about four o'clock in the afternoon and I saw a woman so bedraggled that she reminded me of how very tired I had been. Further, she had a large dog with her that looked as done-in as the woman was. To make the scene more striking, the woman was in tears and kept trying to convey something, in a very agitated manner, to several people who kept telling her, in Spanish, that they could not understand her. She was speaking German, or some German-like language.  Because she and her dog were in such sorry state, and because the woman was crying and in distress, I asked her if she spoke English, which she did. She told me that she and her dog had gone by bus to France and had walked all the way to Santiago from there, and she was very upset because they had just arrived in Santiago and she wanted to go into the Cathedral but they wouldn't let the dog in.  She insisted that the dog deserved to pay its respects to Santiago "in p!
 erson" after such a long and difficult effort.  The dog had its paws painted blue with some kind of disinfectant, and had suffered from something like dog blisters and other injuries. The woman kept bemoaning the injustice of the state of affairs, and when I offered to stay with the dog while she went into the Cathedral she refused to go in without the dog, and started crying again.
Then, an old priest, seemingly attached to the Cathedral as he was outside it in priestly garb, walked by, and I asked him to stop and listen to the woman and offered to translate. The woman was so distraught that she reverted to her own language, but since she had told me her story in English I related it to the priest; he kept trying to console the woman and caress the dog, that was lying down and could hardly move.  The priest told me to tell the woman to come to the Azabacherias door of the church at 7:00 p.m. and he would see what he could do. I showed the woman, up through the arch, to where the door was and she sat on the steps in front of it and stayed there. 
For the next two or three hours we hung around the church, wanting to see what would happen at 7:00 p.m. and wishing to be on hand if any help were needed.  The old priest came out of the Cathedral, right on time, and motioned the woman and the dog to go inside; we followed them, discreetly,  as they went up for the "hug", down to the crypt, and while the woman knelt and prayed, with the dog curled by her feet, for a while.
Deeply moved, we went out in search of a drink while they were still there.
Two days later, walking around in Obradoiro, a tall, sophisticated, quite elegant, Germanic woman came towards me with a big smile on her face; it took me a while to realize that it was the same pilgrim with the sorry-looking dog; the dog itself looked healthy, happy, energetic, and his fur was very shiny. The woman said something to the dog, in their language, and the dog stood up, put his paws on my shoulders and licked my face. I was dumbstruck, and all I could do was smile through my tears, embrace the woman and pat the dog.
 Because of my nature, and the business of my life, I'm not given to regrets and think them a useless waste of time and emotion. I just forge ahead.
But I have regretted, very deeply and very lastingly, that I did not get the woman's name and address. That moment when she told her dog to greet me was one of the most touchingly happy moments in all my long life, and I would dearly love to send the woman a card, now and then, and her large dog some Christmas doggie cookies.
And thereby lies the origin of my interest in some sort of commemorative medals for four-legged Camino pilgrims.
 
Big hug!
 
Rosina
(back in New York City)
 
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