Pilar answers me jovially on the phone, with a “Hello, Rominaaaa, soooooooooo!” Her voice is so familiar: she has resonated since the 90s in countless social chronicle television gatherings, in La palmara, La Machine de la Verdad, What a happy time! or Martian Chronicles. Before, he had already interviewed the entire host of national celebrities (and some international ones) and managed to speak with people who did not grant interviews, such as Aldolfo Suárez, whom he approached in a swimming pool in Marbella, or Alain Delon himself, to whom he said that I had studied Journalism just to be able to interview him. And, of course, he interviewed him.
She also managed to get Fernando Fernán Gómez or Elia Kazan out of their minds, for wanting to put their finger on the sore spot (of machismo) or ask the questions she wanted. Specialized in royalty, she has written, since her beginnings, in media such as Interviú, El Periódico or La Vanguardia. And she has written books, many, at the rate of one every year, year and a half. Today we have to add a new facet to her career, that of a YouTuber, with almost 150 thousand followers on her channel, Al aire de Pilar Eyre. While she records the videos, she is accompanied, from under the table, curled up at her feet, by an unconditional companion named Brody.
Romina: Who is Brody?
Pilar: Brody is my dog, he is very affectionate, educated and very very obedient. He makes me very happy, he is the nicest dog of all the ones I have had, one day I counted them and there were 17.
A: 17 dogs?
Q: I have always had a dog, since I was little, because my mother really liked animals. My sisters also have dogs, and so do my son and his girlfriend. Brody came after Fender, who came after Dana, after Rocky... Every time a dog dies, soon after, I adopt another one. All my dogs have been adopted. I can't imagine my life without a dog.
R: How does Brody come into your life?
Q: Fender had died on me. My son and his girlfriend went to the shelter and found a very funny one named Thumbelina. He was from Cordoba. In Catalonia we have the law of zero sacrifice, by which a dog cannot be sacrificed, except for reasons of health and safety of animals and people, and fortunately, they brought him here when they were about to take his life. He had been in the pound for 15 days when we adopted him.
R: How do you remember the first time you saw Brody?
Q: It was a real crush. He came running towards me and put his paws on my leg. Then I realized that he does this with everyone, huh? (laughs). He asked me to hold him, he gave me kisses on the face all the time, but I told him: “no kisses, no kisses!” (laughs).
A: Did you adapt well to the name change?
Q: His name was Thumbelina because he is tiny, he is the smallest of all the ones I have had, my dogs have always been big. I decided to name him Brody, who is the protagonist of my favorite series, Homeland. And when you call him, “Brody!”, he already knows it perfectly. Right now I'm saying his name and he's looking at me with his little ears pricked up, as if telling me: "Are we going out now or what?"
A: How old are you?
Q: When I adopted him he was about two years old, but this is very approximate. Now you have to go through all four. He already knows a lot of the words I'm teaching him, and in everything else he was very educated. Many times I don't know the past of the dogs I adopt. Once I did know, it was when he lived in Sant Pere de Ribes. The Civil Guard had arrested a drug dealer and his dog had been locked in the man's house. So, since in town I already had the reputation of being crazy about dogs, the agents brought it to me. In any case, whether I know the dog's past or not, a canine trainer always helps me for 15 days to teach him basic things, such as knowing how to walk, relieve himself where he touches and other tricks.
A: What kind of dog is Brody?
Q: He is a Jack Russell Terrier mix, but he has a more upturned nose and crooked little legs. Jack has them very straight, but he is clearly a hunter like him. When he sees pigeons or birds he gets very excited, he starts running after them, it's in his DNA. So I tell him: “Brody, you really don't need to do us credit by bringing us dead birds, thank you” (laughs).
A: What is your day to day like?
Q: Well, like all dogs get attached to their masters, he curls up under my office table while my work day goes by, while I write, record videos... In the videos, sometimes you can hear his little paws tiqui, tiqui, tiqui , but he is so good that he doesn't even climb up my lap or interrupt me, because he knows that I am busy at that moment.
A: Does he sleep with you?
P: He sleeps with me, I consider him like a son or like a brother, like an equal. When my son has to come home, I tell Brody: “Look, your brother is coming today.” And also, since my son and my sisters also have dogs, every time they come we all get together, dogs and humans.
A: Family gatherings must look like The Dogs' Talk...
Q: Yes, yes (laughs). When it is Christmas, there are also gifts for them on the tree, when it is the dogs' holy birthday we celebrate it, and when one dies, we mourn together. Just like we share the joy when a new canine member arrives at home. Now this does not attract attention, because everyone likes dogs, but when we were little, my mother, my sisters and I had a bit of a reputation for being crazy because we were always with dogs, sometimes we had up to two or three. Think that at that time there were dogs abandoned on the streets. Maybe, you would sit on a terrace and three or four dogs could calmly come to you and ask for food. Sometimes, you would leave school and someone would follow you home and I would ask my mother: “Mom, can I keep this dog?” And we kept it.
R: What is a day in the life of Pilar and Brody like?
Q: He has exactly the same life routine as me. If I slept 15 hours he would sleep 15 hours too. In the morning, the first thing I do is take him for a walk. We take a short walk around the block and then I have breakfast, work, and then I go to the club with him. The time I'm at the gym, he spends it in a space that is private and has a lot of green area. When I go out, we walk around the club for 2 km so that he can have fun and let off steam and in the afternoon we take a short walk back home. On weekends we break this routine a little and go for a walk with my son through Collserola. Then, half of the year I spend in Llafranc, where there is a garden and it is a different plan of life, it is more free all day. Although I also tell you that he may have a garden, but what he wants is to always be close to me.
A: I see you and Brody never leave each other.
Q: That's right, and when we have to travel, I have trusted people who stay with me. If it's just a few days, Brody can be with my sisters or my son, and if the trip is longer, I leave him at a dog hotel and he stays so happy there. When you have a dog, you have to schedule everything. I don't understand people who tell me: “I can't have a dog because I travel a lot or work all day.” You have to find a support network. I also have a girl who walks me around in times of need. Before you only saw people walking 10 dogs at a time in New York; Now it is common to see them in Barcelona or any city.
A: There are even mobile applications for dog walkers.
Q: If you want to have a dog today, all the facilities are there. But you also have to anticipate what it means to have one, not only the good part, but also the negative part. When people who have never had a dog tell me that they are going to have one, you don't think I'm always happy, right? I remind them that if he is sick, you have to take him to the vet, vaccinate him, deworm him, calculate that if you can't get him out, you need someone to do it. With a dog comes responsibilities, and unfortunately, shelters are full. The day I adopted Brody at the shelter, while I was doing the paperwork to take him, a few people called to leave their dogs there because “I bought my son a dog and he's tired of taking care of him,” “ our dog bites” or “my wife is pregnant and now we can't have a dog.”
A: Regarding that negative part of having a dog, you have managed 16 duels. How do you handle that? Do you end up getting tougher or does that never happen?
Q: I always say that the only thing dogs do to us is die. If I could ask God for something, I would say: “Why haven't you made dogs live the same years as men?” Having a dog die is horrible, although some deaths are more horrible than others, for example, if you have to put him down or if he dies young. It hurts less than a natural death, even if it hurts. As happened with Fender, my previous dog. It was at the beginning of summer, when we arrived at Llafranc's house. He had stopped eating and his little legs were already bending; He was very old and I thought: “this will be his last summer.” During the day he was walking through the garden, walking around an olive tree we have. We went to sleep and at dawn I woke up suddenly, went down to the garden and found him lying next to the tree. He was dead. He was already 13 years old, the age to die, because big dogs experience that, but I suffered a lot, 13 years of my life were gone with him.
A: Let's talk about happier things. Tell me a funny story about Brody.
P: Well look, more than about Brody, I'll tell you something that always happens to me with dogs that come home. At first, I propose to give them only their feed to eat and no whims. At first, since they are hungry, they devour the food, but there comes a day when I can't help but offer them a little treat, sweets or a little bit of my plate. And then I'm lost, because they tell me that I should eat the feed, and I have to mix it with special cans. And I do this with my son's dog too, when I go to his house. No matter how much he and my daughter-in-law tell me not to give him candy, I can't resist and spoil him, like all grandmothers do (laughs).
About Fender, what was very funny was that he barked at old people, because he had probably been mistreated by some old man; It was like he detected old age. My friends were scared, because some of them lost years, but if the dog barked it meant that there was old age there. The worst was when he had never barked at someone and suddenly, one day, she barked at him. That could only mean one thing: that the lady had entered old age (laughs).
A: I hope Brody is less compromising with your friends...
Q: Yes, yes (laughs). He is very sociable with everyone. You think that when I walk down the street, the dog is more famous than me and also, since photographs of me appear in reports and I have even taken it to television, everyone already knows it.
R: And with dogs, what is it like?
Q: He is very affectionate too. Of course, he likes big dogs, he looks down on the small ones because he thinks he's big (laughs). When he sees one of those big Malinois passing by, he runs to play with it. And, of course, the Malinois is a little surprised that this flea is there provoking him.
A: In addition to YouTube, you continue collaborating with Lecturas, on the radio... What else?
Q: Yes, I'm with Julia Otero on Onda Cero, on TV3 with Helena García Melero... I don't want to leave anyone behind, because then my directors get mad at me (laughs).
R: Already working on a new book?
Q: The last one I have, Of Love and War, came out in September and now I am preparing a new book that will come out next year, which is just for laughs and fun.
R: Will there be dogs in the book?
P: Yes. And since they are my books, the dogs never die in them. For example, no one has noticed that in Of Love and War, the protagonist's dog arrives at the end of the story... at 43 years old! (laughs).
A: Thank you very much for this interview, Pilar.
P: To you, Romina. I would like to leave one last phrase “adopt, don't buy”. In shelters there are countless dogs of all kinds that need love. For me, the true heroes of modern life are the volunteers who work in these centers, because it is a job that no one appreciates. I have always fought against animal abuse, that of dogs or bulls or whatever. As an anti-bullfighting person that I am, we managed to close the Lloret bullring together with Pilar Rahola and Magda Oranich. I have been fighting against abuse for more than 30 years, it is the cause of my life and the only protests for which I go out on the streets are those against animal abuse.
