Ensuring animal protection and consolidating responsible ownership are two of the basic pillars of clinic veterinarians in our country. The joint work of the professionals with the administrations of the autonomous communities is key for the well-being of the pets and for the owners to comply with the protection and civility laws . The creation of a registry on zoonoses or the implementation of campaigns to prevent abandonment and abuse are some of the latest measures that are being carried out.
The legal framework specifies a series of obligations for the owner of a general nature such as the identification of the pet with an approved microchip or that is recorded in the census of the city council of the city where it resides. Among the prohibitions are that of abandoning it, that of notifying the city council within 48 hours of its disappearance and the prohibition of cutting off the tail and ears of animals and removing their nails and vocal cords, something in which veterinarians they count a lot.
Against abuse and neglect
The controversy of animal abuse has increased in recent years, especially as a result of political initiatives in some communities that propose the modification of the Penal Code to toughen the penalties for abuse.
While the National Animal Protection Law arrives, there are several institutions of autonomous communities that have created regulations that fight against animal abuse. Catalonia’s prohibitions include abandoning, cutting off the animals’ tails and ears, and removing their nails and vocal cords.
In Valencia, the Department of Animal Welfare has created a registry on pet zoonoses and has launched the awareness campaign “Don’t give up and change a life by adopting.”
One of the latest initiatives of the Department of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries of the Belares Islands is the campaign “The life of an animal has no price”, which aims to raise awareness among the population to fight against the abandonment of animals. This type of action is necessary in a region in which in the last five years the Fauna Recovery Center of the Balearic Islands has registered 1,997 specimens, of which 918 were due to abandonment, and in which about 200 abandoned animals are counted each year .
The obligatory nature of the microchip is not a whim of the municipalities, this device helps to find lost animals and, something that concerns us more in this article, to discover the person responsible for an animal in case of abandonment. Veterinarians work to ensure that each animal they care for has its own microchip. In addition, whenever an animal is found in a locality, rescuers can go to any veterinary clinic for the professional to read the microchip they have, helping to find the individual who has abandoned it or, if no microchip is found, to put it on. in adoption accelerate.
Responsible tenure
Veterinarians are the professionals who spend the most time with owners and their pets, that is why it is their obligation to educate people in the care of their animals as well as to ensure that their vital needs are covered, control that the chip is put on them, Remember that it is mandatory to carry it tied in the street and that the identification document of the animal’s census must be carried. Thanks to the campaigns of veterinarians and administrations to achieve a dignified treatment of pets, it has been possible to reduce the number of abandonments in different autonomous communities. For example, of the 24,600 abandonments that were registered in 2005 in Catalonia, in 2015 it rose to 22,215, a reduction in abandonments of 9.6% in just ten years, representing 2,385 fewer animals (according to data from the Affinity Animals and Health Foundation Chair of the Autonomous University of Barcelona).
Veterinarians usually collaborate with one or more protectors in their area, lowering the costs of their treatments and services for the animals that live in these shelters.
On the other hand, clinics create sterilization or rabies vaccination campaigns, for example, so that owners with less money can take advantage of it to protect their animals. This measure is intended to remove the idea of abandonment from those who do not find enough resources to support their animals.
Awareness about disease prevention is another of the important and most difficult challenges for Spanish veterinarians. The Consell Valencià de Col·legis Veterinaris presented at the end of 2017 an epizootiological surveillance network with which it is intended to establish the susceptibility and risk of the animal or human population, propose the most appropriate preventive measures to avoid contagions, and know the degree of prevalence , and monitor and detail the geographic distribution of these zoonoses. With it, dropouts due to fear and ignorance about zoonotic diseases can be avoided.
Short-term challenges
The main objectives for the veterinary profession in 2018, according to the Council of Veterinary Colleges of Catalonia, are: to promote a rational use of antibiotics to control diseases , monitor the increase in infectious diseases, review the regulatory framework of veterinary companies to guarantee professionalism in these commercial environments and explore the implications for the regulation of new technologies such as telemedicine, as it appears in an article published by IM Veterinaria .
