CR:
How did you experience the day the law was passed?

Patri:
At the beginning we had a really good feeling. The things they wanted sounded good. But then we realized that it was all smoke, because the politicians have no interest in changing Spain in this way. In the end, the law is useless. It is only made for pets. There are no regulations for the rest of the animals. For example, for dogs that are used for hunting. Or wild cats, animals used in circuses or shows. They have no protection. Dolphins have no protection. They all remain in the void. The animals that are already protected because they have a home, a family, they don't need special attention. They already have that. But pet owners have a lot to do now. For example, they have to take out insurance for their animal – but hunters don't.

For example: If a hunter has a Yorkshire (terrier) and two podencos – and uses the podencos for hunting, but keeps the Yorkshire as a pet – he has to take out insurance for the Yorkshire, but not for the two podencos. He can do what he wants with the podencos, but not with the Yorkshire. The Yorkshire has to be chipped, vaccinated, and dewormed – the podencos do not. But the podencos need it more urgently. It doesn't make any sense at all, we don't understand it.

It's been a really long, long road. They've tried to make an agreement with too many different stakeholders: with hunters, with animal welfare people, with circus people, with zoo people. With too many, I think. From the strong draft at the beginning, more and more was deleted, and in the end nothing was left.

I have to say, at first I believed in the law; I believed in the project. But then I realized that they just want to use us animal rights activists. I was very disappointed. There are a lot of organizations like ours in Spain that have been just as disappointed.

But the good thing is that now we are organizing and looking for another way to get the rights that these dogs are losing at the moment.

CR:
I've been watching the process from the outside, from Germany. To understand what is going on is very difficult for us here. I read that Podemos said "okay, now the hunting dogs are out, but they will make a separate regulation for the hunting dogs." Is that right, or did I misunderstand that?

Patri:
That's right, but this is not done by Podemos, it's done by PSOE with the Minister of Agriculture. This man is in favor of hunting and is completely under the influence of the hunting lobby. We know that these regulations will be really hard for the dogs.

In Spain, like in Germany, we have individual regions, and each of them has its own rules. The animals were previously under the protection of the regional animal welfare laws. Before the new law, some regional parties or regional governments tried to take hunting dogs out of the protection of the regional law.

The big problem now is that the new law is a national one. The regional ones are under it and have to be adapted. And the national law excludes hunting and working dogs. This opened a huge door to do what they have only attempted to do before.

It's terrible with this law. One dog gets protection and counts for something because it lives in the house with you, but the other one that is used for a task is not protected and counts for nothing. I can do anything I want with that dog, and that dog is not protected.

The hunters have wanted this for a long time. They've always tried, but now it's been opened up.

We're in touch with other organizations and a legal team, and they're looking for a way to stop this horrible law.

CR:
Is there any hope left to stop it?

Patri:
It's really difficult. Our hope is in Europe, in the European Union. That's the biggest hope because the law is totally against the rules of the EU.

CR:
Those rules are even quoted in the text of the law.

The preamble to the Animal Welfare Law states:

"In Spain, it is becoming increasingly clear that the public is becoming aware of the need to ensure the protection of animals in general and the protection of animals living in the human environment in particular, since they are sentient beings whose rights must be protected in accordance with Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Thus, the Autonomous Communities and the Municipal Councils have affirmed the need to develop regulations that make progress in this area.

The rejection of situations in which animals are mistreated has led to a heterogeneous set of regulations that improve the protection of animals, depending on the territorial scope in which they are located.

The term "animal welfare" – defined by the World Organization for Animal Health as "the physical and mental health status of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies" – has been incorporated into a variety of national and international legislation.

For example, the aforementioned Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that the condition of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies must be taken into account. The European Union states that the fact that animals are sentient beings "shall be taken into account in defining and implementing the Union's policies on animals in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market, research and technological development, and space...".

The owner, the possessor or the holder of any other right in an animal, is obliged to exercise his rights in the animal and his duties of care, to respect the quality of the animal as a sentient being and its welfare in accordance with the characteristics of each species and the restrictions established in this and other applicable regulations.

The main objective of this law is not so much to guarantee the welfare of animals, but rather to ensure their welfare by evaluating the conditions offered to them, the recognition and protection of the dignity of animals by society. So it regulates "animals not just as another element of our economic activity ..., but our behavior toward them as living beings in society."

Patri:
When you read that, you think this law is going to be so great, fantastic! And then there's nothing. You're like – what?! You're telling me a lot of things that are right. But then you ask yourself: where are they in the law? Completely forgotten. At the end, there is nothing left of it.

Yes, we have to keep fighting, we have to keep fighting.

I've been fighting since I started animal welfare, and I don't think we're going to stop, because the law is a 20-year step backwards.

CR:
Do you still have strength to fight?

Patri:
Yes, we do. I am very, very tired and disappointed. But all I have to do is look at the faces and eyes of my galgos in my shelter, and I know I have to. I have to keep fighting. If we don't, who will?

CR:
Yes, who else?

Patri:
The hunting lobby in Spain is very strong. They have a lot of power. We have to fight really hard against these people, because there are two groups: the normal people, like you and me, who pay taxes and live by the rules. But that doesn't apply to the hunters. If they want to hunt, they can. If they want to kill 400 animals, they can.

There is a big problem in Spain right now with small animals and the balance of the ecosystem. It's completely broken because they kill all these small animals – I'm not getting into their English name now. And then the hunters say "We have to hunt, and Spain needs us because we have to control the population of the animals." What?! Nature will take care of it on its own. You don't have to do anything! You have broken the whole system, that's the reality.

But these are people in high positions, they have real power.

Yes. We are trying to organize. We lost the battle, but not the war.

CR:
In your work at Galgos del Sur, you see so many badly injured dogs, abused or injured in an accident, or in bad condition due to neglect. Has anything changed now that the law has been passed? Do you see more dogs, more cruelty? A different quality of cruelty?

Patri:
More, more. It's totally free now, the hunters can do what they want.

CR:
Does that show in the dogs?

Patri:
Yes. Since last year, when it became clear that we couldn't change anything. We started getting more and more dogs in really bad condition. In the past, owners never gave us their dogs directly. They abandoned them or gave them to a perrera, a killing station. But now..., now they contact us. One handed over a dog to us, and we asked "What happened to this poor dog?" And he said "I didn't use this dog. And of course I don't want to spend money on this dog."

Or another example: two months ago we rescued a galgo, Joey. He had an accident, and his leg was broken. The owner had contacted us beforehand, saying he wanted to wait and see if the dog would get better on its own. But when he saw that the dog wasn't going to get better on its own, he called us and said "Okay, take this dog." We asked him "Hey, why don't you take him to the vet? It's your dog, you have to do this." And he just said "No, because the leg is broken. And when the dog gets better, I'm not going to use it. I'm not spending money on a dog I can't use." They're saying that right to your face now.

And the reform of the penal code is also a total disaster. Something that was wrong and forbidden before is now completely free – that is, allowed. Like zoophilia, when someone has a relationship with an animal.

CR:
You mean sexual abuse?

Patri:
Yes.

CR:
That's a point I'll never understand. It used to be, simply put, forbidden – and now it's allowed.

Patri:
Yes. It is allowed. It's only when the dog or the animal needs veterinary care afterwards that it's forbidden.

CR:
How can you explain that? Who can want to do that?

Patri:
I can't, I can't explain it. There is no place for it in my head. I can't understand it ... Really, I can't understand it. They said we need more punishments, harsher punishments. And then nothing happened.

Another example: we won two lawsuits against a hunter. But with this new law, we lose. We lose completely and we can't do anything. The new law is unbelievable. Just a year ago, the hunter would have to go to jail for three years and pay a €6000 fine. That's nothing, of course, but it's the maximum that the law had as a penalty. But now it's really nothing. Maybe with very good luck we can get a sentence of three months. This is unbelievable. In the end, we have no more means to fight.

Animal welfare organizations in Spain are only there to rescue dogs. Rescue, rescue, rescue – and then find a home. And if we find that home in other countries, all the better. That is our mission. Before, we had more tools. But now it's almost impossible to fight the hunters.

CR:
So the situation is much worse with the new law than before with the old laws, the regional laws.

Patri:
Yes. Yes, really. Really worse.

CR:
What's going to happen next? What do you expect from the future?

Patri:
For the future, I hope we get the help of the European Union. We are a union of countries, but of course the head of everybody in Europe is the EU, and Spain is very dependent on the EU. We really hope that we will get their help, because if not, we will have to fight again as we did 20 years ago. And very many organizations are so tired because we have been fighting for a long, long time. We have to start again from zero. It's so difficult, but we try. We're getting up and trying.

CR:
So there are more years of fighting to come.

Patri:
(laughs) Yes.

CR:
What can you tell me about the united forces in Spanish animal welfare?

Patri:
We are trying, together with other organizations, to set up a federation, a strong animal welfare organization. At the moment, it's just an idea. We communicate with each other, and we have reached an agreement, formulated goals. At the moment, we have the same idea. I think the only good thing that the law has brought us is this new organization. We hope it will help, because we are learning from the Association of Hunters, and they are really well organized. And we're going to do the same thing. We're also trying to be a lobby. That's really important.

And of course, we are stronger together. For us, the legal work and the legal fight are very important. We are trying everything to get rid of this terrible law.

CR:
One last question: you told me how hunters are behaving now. Are all hunters the same or are there some that you work with?

Patri:
No. Most hunters are the same. The self-perception of hunters in Spain is that they have the right to do this. It's like, I don't know, like divine right or something. That's how they feel. And it's very difficult to sit down with these people and talk about the problems.

For example, the abandoned dogs, the dogs in very bad condition. They know about it, all the hunters know about it. You can't say that all hunters treat their dogs badly, but if there is one who takes care of his dogs, he knows about 10 or 20 others who treat their dogs badly. And he doesn't say anything.

CR:
So he himself is not the problem right now, but he knows the problem.

Patri:
Exactly, he knows it. But they don't see it as a problem because to them the dogs don't matter. I think they really believe that they are the solution to the balance in nature, in the ecosystem, and that's so stupid. They are the problem, not the solution.

It's really very hard to sit down with them and try to discuss the problems because they don't feel like there are real problems.

CR:
Okay, I see.

Patri:
I hope you understand a little bit now what happened with the law.

CR:
Yes, at the beginning it looked very, very good. The Podemos bill was a good bill, I think. With hunting dogs and working dogs and dogs that rescue people and so on. But unfortunately the PSOE excluded it.

I think one of the reasons is that they are afraid of the next elections.

Patri:
Yes, it's all about the elections. The problem is when there are two parties in a government: The party that breaks the contract is lost in the election. Neither Podemos nor PSOE want to break the coalition agreement, but they don't want to govern together either. They use many issues, really important issues, for an internal power struggle. Not only the animal protection law, for example, but also a new law on womens' sexual freedom. Or they are fighting with the water shortage, because in Spain there are parts that have water and others need water. And with this tool they are fighting for power.

They use a lot of really important issues for people....

CR:
... to keep the power.

Patri:
Yes, of course. That's the same way they used the animals. It was really a very big disappointment because the law was okay at first, not perfect. Nothing is perfect, but ...

CR:
It could have been a very good start, with the hunting and working dogs included.

Patri:
Yes, but ...

CR:
... now it's many, many steps back. Decades.

Patri:
Yes, many. So many. And the consequences are so terrible. But we have to fight. Your support is so important for us. You can imagine how important. Because we are all alone.