Congress definitively approves the Animal Welfare Law, without hunting dogs and with a national pet registry

   MADRID, 16 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Congress has definitively approved this Thursday the Animal Welfare and Animal Rights Law with two thirds of the amendments proposed by the Senate, without finally including hunting dogs nor the obligation that the owner and the dog spend a sociability aptitude test, in a debate full of reproaches and accusations between the Government and all the opposition groups.

Specifically, the Chamber has refused to eliminate several articles, the entire chapter II, and will maintain the obligation to have volunteer programs and collaboration with animal protection entities.

In addition, it has approved the amendment related to excluding from among the general prohibitions so that homeless people can continue to have pets, even if it is on the move, to avoid them being fined.

It will also be prohibited, without exception, to leave a pet unsupervised for more than three consecutive days and in the case of dogs this period would be limited to no more than 24 consecutive hours.

Another of the changes proposed by the Senate approved in Congress is the suppression of the obligation of a test of the holders together with their dogs to assess their aptitude to function in the social sphere and another one so that it is no longer mandatory that the administrations public sterilize and put an identifying microchip to each of the cats that make up a feline colony.

Another amendment on the inspection function has also gone ahead, so that the Ministry will no longer exceptionally be able to address the autonomous communities so that they exercise the inspection function or notify the Public Prosecutor when it becomes aware of infractions. Likewise, the obligation that any Ministry that becomes aware of an infringement on animal welfare shall notify the authority to which it may request its action is suppressed.

Likewise, the fifth additional provision will be modified so that those who have animals of species outside the Positive List of Companion Animals will have 6 months to notify their possession to the competent authorities and they will have to adopt the pertinent measures with a view to their intervention and implementation. provision of centers for the protection of wild species, zoos or animal protection entities. Similarly, the Lower House has agreed to eliminate the eighth additional provision by acknowledging that the rule may entail expense.

However, Congress has voted against deleting article 4 and full title II --articles 9 to 12-- which contemplate the creation of a centralized system of records for animal protection, which is maintained. Nor does it eliminate the obligation for civil protection plans to include protection measures for animals, as the Senate intended.