old tradition: Spanish racers hang greyhounds at season's end

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FEATURE - Spanish racers hang greyhounds at season's end

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SPAIN: February 11, 2003

 

 

MEDINA DEL CAMPO, Spain - A gory sight confronts walkers in a Spanish wood -

a dead greyhound hangs from a tree near the remnants of a noose.

 

 

 

Bones, including a dog's jaw, lie under a nearby tree, evidence of other

animals that have met the same fate.

 

The slain dogs are a violent by-product of rural Spain's fascination with

hare coursing, a sport in which owners often regard their animals as

disposable.

 

Tens of thousands of greyhounds run hare coursing races in rural Spain each

year. At the end of the season many are hanged - slung from trees with a

piece of twine - and if their owners think they have run badly they

sometimes hang them with their back paws on the ground for a slower death.

 

Fermin Perez, head of a dog sanctuary at Medina del Campo in central Spain,

says he has been told of these methods by racing dog owners. The

British-based World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) also

describes them in a report.

 

" I've seen dogs hanged at every angle you can imagine, " Perez told Reuters.

 

Owners have invented grim terms to describe the different execution methods.

Hanging dogs with their back feet on the ground is called " the secretary " or

" the piano player " , referring to the scrabbling of the dog's front legs as

it tries to reach the ground, according to WSPA and locals in Medina.

 

" If they're not running, they hang, " said Angel, a 21-year-old former hare

courser from Medina del Campo.

 

" Greyhounds are for racing. What else are you going to do with one? You

wouldn't exactly take it for walks around the plaza, " he said with a giggle.

" For stupid people, it gives them a kick, " he said, referring to hanging,

adding that some owners also shot or abandoned their dogs.

 

The WSPA said in a recent report: " Hanging is an age-old tradition and the

most popular method of 'disposing' of these dogs. " Other methods include

stoning and staking dogs in a pond to drown.

 

 

STARVED, NOSES DOCKED

 

The WSPA also says the greyhounds - slightly different from Italian

greyhounds and known in Spain as " galgos " - are typically treated badly

during their short life - fed on bread and sugar and neither vaccinated nor

wormed.

 

A greyhound arrived at the end of January at Perez's shelter with a deformed

nose. Perez said the former owner had explained that in his village owners

always chopped off the end of their dogs' noses to make them run faster.

 

Traditionally, according to the WSPA, greyhounds were used by poor people

for hunting meat. Owners could not afford to keep the dogs once they had

outlived their usefulness and so they killed them in the cheapest possible

way.

 

Now the greyhounds - docile and trusting - race, and the WSPA estimates that

50 percent of dogs die by the age of two, with owners reluctant to pay for

their upkeep after they have run one season. They run their first season at

12 months.

 

A Medina-based veterinary surgeon said putting down a dog cost around 30

euros ($32) - a price aficionados are unwilling to pay.

 

" There'll be more than one out there, " said a local man when told of the dog

hanging in the wood. " It tends to happen, when the season ends, dead

greyhounds start turning up. "

 

Remains of hanged dogs which have been later burned have also been spotted

by the WSPA.

 

The season lasts from October 1 to January 31 and races are held from dawn

until dusk two days a week in the Medina area. The first dog to grab the

hare usually wins and prestige is the reward for the owner rather than prize

money or gambling winnings, locals say.

 

 

OLD LAW, NEW LAW

 

A local law was passed in 1997 in Old Castile and Leon setting a 15,000 euro

fine for dog-hanging but it has never been enforced, according to a local

government official.

 

" The police receive reports that the animals are there... but they never

find those guilty so there can't be a prosecution, " the official said,

adding that prevention was impossible and no extra measures were being taken

to put an end to the tradition.

 

Spain - famous for bull-fighting - made cruelty to animals a crime earlier

this year but the question remains as to whether the new law will be

enforced any more than the local one.

 

The Castile-La Mancha Greyhound Federation says it opposes hanging and that

the practice is on the decline.

 

Medina del Campo, a medieval town on the Castilian plains, is the centre of

Spanish galgo racing.

 

Signs of the craze - which Perez says has become even more popular over the

last decade - can be seen in photography shop windows and on car bumpers.

 

The town boasts a sculpture of two greyhounds about to chase a hare. Locals

say nearly everyone in the town races.

 

But Perez says hanging is not peculiar to Medina and with the shelter, dogs

that would probably otherwise be killed are saved, at no charge to the

owner.

 

He reckons that in other parts of rural Spain, for example Andalucia,

hangings are much more common.

 

This year some 200 dogs have been handed over to Perez's shelter. Two men

turned up at the end of January with an injured dog and asked to swap it for

another one.

 

Perez says people ask if there is a charge for handing over dogs and

suspects if the answer were " yes " he would not have an overcrowded kennel.

 

Story by Emma Ross-Thomas

 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

 

 

Please check out my online petition which concerns these barbaric traditions

here in Spain.

" European Union allows sadistic torturing of animals because it's tradition "

 

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/841589646

 

It will only take a few minutes, but every single voice counts!

 

Thank you,

 

Sandra Wijnveldt

 

Creator of petition: " European Union allows sadistic torturing of animals

because it's tradition "

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/841589646