In our last newsletter, I told you about the online petition we had mounted calling on the Spanish Government, during their presidency of the EU, to enact and enforce measures to curb the continuing appalling cruelty to galgos.
We were delighted to achieve 16,738 signatures, many accompanied by heartfelt messages. It was encouraging to find that several hundred of these came from Spanish citizens, telling their government how ashamed they felt at the cruelty being perpetuated in their country.
We received a reply from the head of the cabinet office, thanking us and all the signatories for our interest, but offering no help beyond a statement that the existing laws and arrangements for their enforcement were quite adequate. He also stated that it was a simple matter for any citizen to report cases of cruelty and to get satisfaction by applying to the Guardia Civil.
We replied saying that we had overwhelming evidence to show that this was not the case and that this could be confirmed by the experience of our colleagues engaged in animal welfare in Spain . We told the government that we would be only too delighted if the time came when our efforts on behalf of these much-abused dogs were no longer required.
To date, we have received no reply to our letter and I am sorry to say that our recent visit to Spain confirmed that no improvement was in sight and that our Spanish friends were still pessimistic about the prospects of any meaningful government action. Nevertheless, we thank everyone who signed our petition. Although change will, no doubt, take a long time, we owe it to all our supporters and to the poor galgos, to keep up our efforts. We have, at least, made our case at the highest level and this gives us a platform from which to continue the struggle.
Martin