Analysis of real cases during the state of emergency: Legal questions and answers
During the state of emergency, I am continually receiving cases of people who are very concerned for different reasons. Today I will tell you about three dramatic real cases of people who have asked me for help via my website: www.deanimals.com
The first was a family who had lost their pet parrot, Yaco, on Friday, April 3 at about 20.00. At this time many people come out onto their balconies to applaud as a way of thanking all the hospital workers who are caring for people infected with Covid-19. Yaco the parrot was surprised by the noise of people clapping and, for the first time ever, flew off from the balcony of their house in no particular direction.
The family, from a village in Sevilla, wanted to know if they could legally leave the house to look for their beloved Yaco, because the police had told them they still could not go out during the state of emergency, at least until April 25 to see if the confinement manages to slow the rate of infections and deaths.
My advice was as follows:
1. Contact the local and National Police, Guardia Civil and your town hall by telephone, email and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and send them photos of Yaco, explaining what had happened and asking them how you can file an official report (denuncia) online that he has gone missing.
2. Contact the nearest office of the national government (Delegación del Gobierno), tell them what happened and request official authorisation for one person to go out and look for him.
3. Inform your vet and other vets in the area, especially those that are open 24 hours.
4. When you file the official report, include photos of Yaco, and copies of his pet passport and any other documents pertaining to him.
5. Go on my website and download the free form for making a declaration of responsibility (declaración responsable) which I have designed to help people in cases like yours (who have lost an animal). Fill in the document, sign it and attach the official reports and documents you have about Yaco, and take them with you every time you go out to look for him.
The family were delighted, as was I, that on the Sunday night Yaco reappeared. He had flown across the river that separates the village where he lived in Sevilla from the neighbouring village. Thanks to them having followed all the advice I gave them, a person in the other village saw Yaco, informed the National Police there and they found Yaco’s family.
The second case is rather sadder, and concerns a woman in a wheelchair who had a very ill dog and had to have him put to sleep. She needed her neighbour to take her by car to the vet so that she could give her beloved four-legged friend a dignified end. I told her to download from my website a declaration of responsibility document for taking an animal to a vet, to fill it in and sign it, to take it with her when she went to the vet and also on her way back home, and also to ask the vet to give her an invoice (factura).
Another case concerned a man called Eli, who called me because he had found two puppies from the same litter, which were podenco crosses about five months old and had been abandoned in a village in Murcia. Eli couldn’t ignore them and so took them in. Afterwards he called the town hall, who told him they ‘will not collect animals during the state of emergency’. What the town hall told him is not only incorrect but is also not legal, since town halls are obliged to collect all abandoned and lost animals within their municipality, whether this is before, during or after the state of emergency for the coronavirus.
Eli is desperate and has contacted many animal welfare associations to look for a place for these puppies, who he has named Amy and Billie, but everywhere has told him they cannot take them. Can you help Eli by fostering or adopting these puppies? His phone number is 663 181 875.
That is all for this week but I have many more things to tell you about so, in the meantime, keep your spirits up during the confinement and carefully follow the precautions against the virus.
Raquel gives talks to educate the authorities and associations about animal law. More information about her work is available on her website, www.deanimals.com, and Facebook page: DeAnimals.