March 2021

Protection for Spanish hunting dogs in six steps

The European Parliament has suggested six concrete animal protection measures to Spain, which they consider “a unified animal protected law should include”. They made these recommendations in the annex of their public letter, in which they urge Spain to incorporate the European values on animal welfare into their national laws.

  1. Increased control of public pounds and rescue centres run by private entities without a legal framework to regulate them.
  2. Increased support, resources, and training for police forces, Autonomous Communities, and Municipalities in the fight against abandonment of dogs.
  3. The treatment of hunting as a private affair, and thus ineligible to direct or indirect public subsidies at either state, regional or local levels. This implies not recognising the activities as ‘cultural’ or ‘sporting’ in nature, making its federations and associations ineligible to subsidies from government sports or cultural authorities.
  4. The group of hunting dogs called ‘rehalas’ should cease to be declared an object ‘of cultural interest’. Current laws on breeding and EU Platform on Animal Welfare responsible breeding guidelines should be applied so as not to discriminate against hunting dogs.
  5. Transparency in all matters relating to subsidies to organisations related to the hunting activity.
  6. The implementation of an animal welfare education program in schools to promote empathy in childhood.

If you would like to read the original letter from the European Parliament in Spanish, please refer to this link: https://skinnydogfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Carta-abierta-perros-de-caza-Gobierno-espagnol.pdf

The source of the English version can be found on the website of Moonleaks, via this link:

https://www.moonleaks.org/galgos/#sources-