Dog lovers are being invited to put their pets through their paces at a charity dog show raising money for two local animal rescue organisations.

The event takes place at Lo Crispin Tavern in Algorfa on Sunday, October 18, with proceeds supporting Big Reds Animal Association and Paradise Rescue Kennels. Registration opens at 10:00 AM before judging gets underway at 12:00 PM.

Dog show offers classes for all kinds of pets

Entry costs €5 per dog and handler, with a wide variety of classes giving different four-legged contenders a chance to impress the judges.

Categories include Best Rescue Dog, Best Rescue Bitch, Most Handsome Dog, Prettiest Bitch and Waggiest Tail.

Rescue animals will have dedicated categories, while the broader classes mean dogs do not need to have a particular pedigree or background to take part.

The event is designed to provide an entertaining day for owners and their pets while raising money for organisations working with animals in need.

Registration will be available from 10:00 AM, giving owners two hours to sign up before judging starts at midday.

Veterans and youngsters get their own categories

Dogs of different ages will also have opportunities to compete.

Older pets aged over eight can enter the veterans category, while youngsters under 18 months will have their own junior class.

There will also be prizes for Best Trick and Young Handler, adding further variety to the day’s competition.

The winners will ultimately compete for the main Best in Show title, with a Reserve in Show also selected.

Judging will be carried out by Ann Dyson and Courtney Formosa from Tails in Tubs, while Chris Dyson from TKO Radio’s Breakfast Show will host the event.

Funds will support local animal rescue work

Money raised during the dog show will be shared in support of Big Reds Animal Association and Paradise Rescue Kennels.

Both organisations work to help animals in need, making the October event an opportunity for local pet owners to support animal welfare while enjoying a community day out.

The charity dog show takes place on Sunday, October 18 at Lo Crispin Tavern, Avenida las Naciones 55, Algorfa.

For further information, contact Keith Oakes on (+34) 711 017 534 or Joan Oakes on (+34) 711 060 240.

If you have ever watched the price of a weekly shop creep up and wondered whether it could get any more ridiculous, a story from a supermarket in Albacete may leave you doing a double take. A man is facing a potential prison sentence of more than two years after allegedly trying to walk out of a Mercadona with something that would barely fill a shopping bag. The item in question? A two-litre bottle of juice.

The alleged supermarket theft

According to the prosecution, the incident took place at around 7:30pm when the man attempted to leave the Albacete supermarket without paying for the bottle. A security guard reportedly stopped him and told him that he needed to pay for the juice. 

What happened next turned a seemingly minor shoplifting incident into a criminal case involving an act of violence. The prosecution claims that the man pushed and struggled with the security guard as he attempted to get away. A second member of the security team then became involved, and together they managed to restrain the man until Policía Nacional officers arrived.

The confrontation leaves security guard injured

The first security guard was left with injuries to his wrist and left side during the struggle. He required medical treatment and was reportedly unable to fully recover for eight days. The prosecution is now asking the court to impose a two-year and three-month prison sentence for attempted robbery with violence.

That is not the only penalty being requested. Prosecutors are also seeking a two-month fine, calculated at €12 per day, in connection with the minor injury offence. The security guard is also seeking compensation of €450 for the injuries suffered during the confrontation.

When shoplifting becomes a much more serious offence

The potential sentence can seem startling when the object involved was simply a bottle of juice. The crucial issue for prosecutors, however, is not simply the value of the product. Their case concerns what happened when the security guard attempted to prevent the man from leaving without paying.

Spanish criminal law distinguishes between straightforward theft and offences involving violence or intimidation. Where violence is alleged during an attempt to take property, the circumstances can result in much more serious charges than those attached to an ordinary shoplifting incident. That distinction is now central to the Albacete case.

The court will decide what happened

The court will have to consider the evidence and hear the parties before deciding what happened and whether the accused is criminally responsible. The prosecution’s request for a prison sentence is therefore an allegation and proposed punishment, not a final sentence. The case is due to be heard at Penal Court No. 2 in Albacete on September 29, when the court will consider the allegations and evidence presented.

The man is not reported to have any previous criminal convictions, meaning the case does not involve someone with a recorded history of offences. For anyone heading into a Spanish supermarket expecting an ordinary shopping trip, the case shows how an  attempt to leave without paying can become considerably more serious when a confrontation follows. And in this case, the disputed shopping item was not an expensive electronic device, a trolley full of groceries or a high-value product. It was a two-litre bottle of juice.

If you have ever wondered where the Garden of Eden was supposed to be, you probably didn’t expect the answer to be sitting inside a Bible printed more than 400 years ago.

But that is exactly what has caught people’s attention this week. A mysterious old map found inside a 1599 Geneva Bible appears to point to a very specific part of the world as the supposed home of biblical paradise. And once you see what the map is actually pointing at, the location gets rather interesting.

The map that points to Eden

The map is titled “The Situation of the Garden of Eden” and shows the biblical lands in considerable detail. It identifies places including Mesopotamia, Babylon and Havilah, along with the Arabian Desert, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. The Euphrates can also be followed across the map, with its source shown in mountainous country.

Put those details against today’s geography and the location suggested by the map falls in the region of eastern Turkey, close to the modern borders with Armenia and Iran. That is particularly interesting because Genesis describes a river flowing out of Eden before dividing into four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates.

A 1599 Bible with a much older mystery

The Bible containing the map is a Geneva Bible dating from 1599. The Geneva Bible was produced by English Protestant scholars living in Switzerland and became one of the most influential English Bibles before the King James Version appeared in 1611. Unlike many modern Bibles, Geneva editions contained extensive notes, references, illustrations and maps intended to help readers understand the biblical world.

The Eden map is therefore not some random drawing discovered between the pages. It was deliberately included to help readers visualise where the biblical story was believed to have taken place. Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science records that the map itself dates back even further. It was derived from a map published in a 1553 French edition of John Calvin’s commentary on Genesis, before versions subsequently appeared in Geneva Bibles from 1560 onwards. 

So was Eden really in Turkey?

This is where things get a little more complicated, the map does not prove that the Garden of Eden existed in eastern Turkey, nor does it represent archaeological evidence identifying the biblical location. It shows what people at the time believed the description in Genesis meant. The reasoning behind the location is nevertheless easy to understand. The eastern Anatolian region contains the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, while the surrounding landscape is dominated by mountains.

Those geographical features made the area an obvious candidate for anyone trying to match the biblical description with the physical world. The idea of locating Eden somewhere around the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates is also far from new. Various historians, theologians and researchers have proposed locations across Mesopotamia and neighbouring regions over the centuries, depending on how the biblical descriptions are interpreted.

The mystery is still unsolved

The map is fascinating precisely because it shows how seriously people once tried to put Eden on a real-world map. Rather than leaving paradise as a place that could never be located, its creators took the rivers and landmarks described in Genesis and tried to work out where they fitted into the geography they knew. More than four centuries later, that old question has resurfaced.

The 1599 Bible does not suddenly reveal the lost Garden of Eden. What it does reveal is where earlier readers believed they could find it, and their finger pointed towards the mountains of what is now eastern Turkey. Whether that was an ancient memory preserved in the biblical story, a geographical interpretation or simply an attempt to make sense of scripture is something the old map cannot answer. But for anyone hoping to find paradise on a modern map, it has certainly given them somewhere very specific to start looking.