A foreign veterinarian in Spain

I am a foreign veterinarian, but living and working in Spain for 20 years.

My experience is, that the general Spaniard treats his animals well, but the Spanish community has a lot of inherited cruel habits like the hanging of the galgos after the hunting season, bullfighting, sacrificing of animals by ceremonial fiestas in or outside the church (they say, that as an animal has no soul, the cannot feel pain !!), dogfights etc.etc.

It is these habits that has to be changed by the government, but I do not think the government dare !! Pressure must come from the EU, supported by private organizations like yours.

I also think, that the Catholic Church should be made aware of the situation and asked to tell the priests to comment on the matter.

When I tell clients that animals can feel pain like us, they usually answer that the Pope tells they cannot feel pain, because they have no soul !!

In Catalonia (Barcelona) there are excellent laws about protection of animals, including severe fines and jail-sentencies.

For a while I was official vet for a Kennel Club, but after a couple of incidents I stopped.
International Kennel Asociations ought to look into how the international laws are complied with here in Spain. Officially it is forbidden to cut ears and tails of dogs, but the before mentioned kennel club accepted and rewarded dogs mutilated this way, even puppies still wearing there bandages on there ears !! To my best opinion, the vets that make these illegal amputations should be denounced.

I know of places in Spain where all the female pigs are spayed to avoid mating between them and wild boars. A local vet showed me one day how to do this. The young pig is fixed on a special table with two iron chaines. The vet then makes a cut without any anestesy, drags the two ovaries and the uterus out of the abdominal cavity, and stitches with one stich, all done without anestesy and without disinfection or normal surgical procedure. I was disgusted, but when I pointed out the total lack of professionalism, the answer was: In your way it will be too expensive !!

This procedure is naturally illegal, and also the veterinary organisations ought to be made aware of this illegal and very unprofessional way of "surgery".

My opinion is, that the church, the kennel clubs, the veterinary organizations should first of all be made aware of the illegal procedures they accept, either in a passive or active way. A few severe fines to veterinarians would very fast spread the words, and in the same way the kennel clubs would learn to comply with the law.

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Veterinary in Spain