IRRESPONSIBLE OWNERSHIP: MAIN CAUSE OF ABANDONMENT.

Besides fulfilling obligations like the census, identification, and putting a collar on it with an identification disc, you will have to be in charge of:

• Feeding it correctly.
• Looking after its health and hygiene.
• Spending time with it so that it has exercise.
• Taking it into account when planning holidays.
• Picking up its excrements from the street.
• Educating it and yourself for a correct life together in society.
• Not letting it breed: overpopulation provokes animal abandonment.

IF YOU DECIDE TO ACCEPT THIS RESPONSIBILITY, OFFER YOUR HOME TO AN ANIMAL IN A SHELTER

CONSEQUENCES OF ABANDONMENT: AN ETHICAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEM

According to different estimates in Spain more than 100,000 animals (cats and dogs) are abandoned every year. Added to the physical and psychological trauma each of these animals suffer, is the economic cost and the problem that affects and harms society in different ways, forcing a number of people or groups that are sensitive to the problem, to spend their time, efforts, or economy trying to alleviate the problem, caused by the lack of responsibility of a segment of society.

PREVENT THE CAUSES TO AVOID THE CONSEQUENCESAs

the main cause of the problem, it is necessary that immediate compliance with the laws in force is carried out, counting on the essential interest and implication of the public institutions that are competent in matters in areas like:

• Control and application, of the census, chip and identity tag.
• Locate and penalize abandonment.
• Birth control via awareness and sterilization campaigns.
• Control on sales, imports and animal breeding.
• Education and information programmes.
• Promote adoption.
• Increase the number of shelters and provide resources to make existing installations correctly adequate.

WHAT CAN YOU DO

• Cooperate and participate in the solution of this problem at individual level, or through a group.
• Inform, make people aware and denounce when necessary.
• Ask for information