The crime of animal abandonment
The Spanish penal code says, in article 337 bis, that abandonment of an animal includes any activity which puts the animal in a situation that endangers its life or safety.
As such, leaving an animal abandoned in the street, countryside or even tied to the gate of an animal shelter or a police station would be an offence.
During the state of emergency for the coronavirus, there have been cases of dogs and cats that have appeared wandering by themselves through the streets.
If anyone sees a person leaving an animal like this, they should try to help the animal by contacting the local police - who can inform an animal welfare association or other organisation to take charge of the animal - and also report the person for committing an offence of abandonment.
Abandonment of an animal is a criminal offence that will result in the person responsible having to go to trial in front of a jury.
It also constitutes the offence of abandoning an animal to leave one in a house, the countryside, a balcony or terrace without food, water and shelter from the weather; and also to not provide veterinary assistance if it is injured, sick, run over or suffering for any other reason.
But, if the animal dies or is left with scars or injuries, this person will be committing the offence of animal abuse by failure to provide the basic care that is obligatory for any person who is responsible for looking after one.
In practice, abandoning an animal in the street is often confused with abandoning one inside a private property. It is not the same to report a case of an animal that has been abandoned in a home, warehouse or field and ends up dying of starvation, as a case of abandonment (article 337 bis of the penal code); as it is to report animal abuse from lack of basic care (article 337).
During the state of emergency, the head of the state prosecution service, Antonio Vercher Noguera issued an general instruction (‘oficio’) for all the country’s prosecutors and officers of the law (local and National Police, Guardia Civil, environmental officers, etc.), warning them that as a result of the coronavirus many people, possibly too many, have adopted or fostered dogs and cats from animal protection associations.
His letter advised them to be alert and to treat all cases of animals that are found walking around loose as criminal abandonment.
He told them to look after the animal, which entails informing whichever service the local town hall has contracted or agreed to collect abandoned or lost animals, and then to investigate the cases as possible abandonment, and if that proves to be the case, to report it to the local public prosecutor.
Sr Vercher probably issued this message because many animal welfare associations reported that more dogs than usual have been adopted or fostered during the state of emergency than usual.
Some people will have done this because they wanted to have an animal but others just because they wanted a legal excuse to go out in the street, since walking a dog is one of the few exceptions to the confinement and curfew restrictions.
Personally, as a lawyer I handled several accusations of criminal abandonment and in all of them the person accused was convicted under article 337 bis of the penal code.
Since 2019 I no longer work as a lawyer because I have dedicated myself to my great passion; I am a teacher and I explain the laws that protect animals to police officers, lawyers, veterinarians, animal welfare associations and individuals who want the same as you and I: to change the situation of animals in Spain.
If you would like to educate yourself with my online training school, you can see my courses on my website: www.deanimals.com