OUR VIEW – STRANGE IDEAS

WHILST most people here in Spain have a great affinity for their pets, new laws being introduced seem to be treating animals with more care than humans.

Certainly, it makes sense to ensure that owners and their pets (especially dogs) are covered for third party insurance in the event that someone is injured by someone else’s pet and there is the added bonus of extra income for insurance companies as well as tax earned for the Government.

It starts to get a bit out of hand with the rule of five pets maximum, so presumably if you have a female animal which gives birth, you will not be allowed to keep the youngsters as part of a family unless to jump through hoops and obtain a special order permitting you to keep the animals from the local town hall.

At the same time, if you own a property where there are squatters, it is almost impossible to have them evicted if you follow the laws of the land although there are companies that offer to help you recover your property at a cost.

New dog owners will have to take a course on how to look after their pet yet new parents just have to get on with it and in many cases hope that the grandparents will step in to look after the newborn once the parents return to work.

Having said this, bullfighting is still allowed and the Spanish Government/Local Councils reportedly subsidises them to the tune of €42 million a year whilst hunting dogs don’t receive the protection that domestic pets do.

Sometimes one wonders whether politicians have a strange sense of balance.