O-Ton aus Spanien:

Another year the end of the hunting season comes and thousands of dogs will have an uncertain future, at least those who will be given the opportunity of having a future.

For hunters, shepherds and for many other people, dogs are only tools. So they will only keep them if they are useful, if not, they will be disposed as things with no feelings. Public opinion has exerted some pressure on them, that means that they don’t usually   do this things in public, but they do in their private lives. There are many options to end with the life of an animal, it depends on the person in charge of passing the death penalty.

You may think this is exaggerated or that it is impossible that there are so mad people, but there are.

 Among the methods they normally use, shooting at them is the most humanitarian, at least, it’s just a shot and that’s all. However, a bullet can be too expensive for just a dog, so they use a metal or wooden stick and hit the dog on the head with it (maybe other parts can be hit, once you start, it’s difficult to know when to stop).  Of course, after beating the animal, they don’t check if it’s really dead, so they put it in a dust bin and there they normally agonize or they are mashed into the lorry which picks up the litter.

If you have water near you: the sea, a lake, a river… they can tie a rope on the neck of the animal and throw it so it can die drowned. They can tie their legs too so there’s no option of surviving. Again, heating the animal and drop it into the water is a variety, so the animal will suffer twice… first, while it is beaten and then, when it’s drowning.

Hanging animals from trees, sticks, street signs, bridges is also common, particularly with galgos. There are different ways of hanging them depending on how good hunters/runners they were. If they were good for their purpose, they hang them not touching the ground. If they were only normal, they are hung touching the ground just with their toes. And if they were completely useless or lost an important competition, they are hung in the pianist position (they are sat and touching the ground with the toes of the front paws), not able to move at all to sit properly or lie down. The purpose is that the dog dies, the difference… the agony… the first die relatively soon… the rest can die from not eating and drinking, not strangled…

Other categories are throwing live animals to the litter bin directly as if they were just rubbish; putting the animal inside a closed box; putting American tape on paws and snout  and leave the animal in the rubbish, a dump or in the middle of nowhere; putting the animal inside a closed suitcase

Any human can feel good doing something like this unless they are psychopaths … it’s enjoying with the death of an innocent animal, torturing it and being able to carry on with their routine and even be sound asleep  while they know an animal is agonizing somewhere… 

Some other times the dogs are not killed, they are given away to anyone who is interested. They don’t really care about the future of that animal, they just want it to disappear. And some others, they keep them, particularly females, for breeding… so the future of those females is having puppies inside a kennel for the rest of their lives… they can get ill, that they won’t spend a cent in the vet, they will kill them without feeling remorseful … or they will give them away  when they are too old and not useful any more.

So the dogs we rescue are the lucky ones… the ones who at least were given the option of continue living and, in our case, to have a true life, the life they hadn’t before