This is the incredible moment an injured dog led a vet three kilometres to an abandoned car where she had given birth to 10 puppies
This is the incredible moment an injured dog led a vet three kilometres to an abandoned car where she had given birth to 10 puppies.
The emaciated Spanish greyhound is believed to have been dumped by hunters and was discovered wandering around a market with a broken front leg in Vera, southern Spain.
Psychologist Lianne Powell, 49, caught the stray pooch, who is thought to be between two and three years old, and took her to a local vet for treatment on Saturday (January 14).
But after noticing the pooch was producing milk and must have given birth between five and seven days previously, vet Ellen Sobry and Lianne began searching for any living puppies - and were amazed when the dog miraculously led the pair straight to them.
Belgian expat Ellen, 39, said: "She had a broken leg, was bleeding from the back end and I saw she had milk, so I thought 'well where are the puppies?'.
In the amazing footage the dog, which has now been named Vera after the town where she was found, can be seen leading Ellen and Lianne to an abandoned car before leaping onto the passenger seat through an open door.
The good Samaritans then discovered ten newborn puppies huddled together on the shredded back seat of the vehicle as their mum looked out of the front window.
Lianne said: "Clearly, we had a decision to make. If there were pups they would slowly starve to death unless we found them. We would need the greyhound's help but we didn't know if she would trust us enough to take us there.
"Limping and at times dragging her cast, she led us along the backstreets and main roads over the fields and along muddy tracks.
Vera led the vets to her 10 puppies. Photo / Caters News
"At one point we worried she just trying to find her home but after 3km she turned up a tiny muddy track and led us under a thick hedge and into an abandoned house before crossing the yard and making her way into a car.
"There in the back were 10 beautiful, fat little healthy puppies. Needless to say there were tears all round. In the state she was in the fact she managed to fend for herself and care for 10 pups is nothing short of astonishing!"
Southern Spain has become notorious for high numbers of abandoned greyhounds, known as galgos, due to mass-breeding in order to find good hunting dogs.
Ellen said the winter is particularly bad for the breed as many owners are known to abandon their dogs in the off-season and buy new ones when the hunting season begins again.
But Lianne stressed while the issue is a problem those who breed and abandon dogs are a tiny percentage and not representative of the majority of people in Spain.
Vera is still recovering at Ellen's surgery Clinivet Turre and the vet is working with Ibizan Hound Rescue in Murcia, Southern Spain, to find homes for the dogs when they are fit to leave the clinic.
The non-profit organisation, led by British expats Diane and Brian Hughes, 58 and 59, takes in strays and works to find them loving homes.
Ellen said: "Vera and her puppies are doing fantastic and they are all healthy.
"Her broken leg was fresh but we don't really know what happened, she could have been hit by a car but she had no other wounds, maybe someone kicked her but we just don't know - it was a clean break.
"Now she is recovering great, the only thing she has to worry about now is eating, feeding her puppies and sleeping. She's a little bit timid, but she's not too scared.
"We see more strays every day, this is the end of the hunting season, it's bad at the moment.
"They have no use for them anymore, they're used for hunting and when they slow down they just throw them out."
