Euthanised animals – dangerous waste

Have you ever wondered what happens to the carcasses of dogs and cats killed in the Spanish perreras? Actin Association in Murcia have been carrying out an investigation which included the rescue of a couple of galgos, and an offshoot of this has raised the question. They desperately need funds to pay their lawyers, please donate.

Tunde Patko, who currently lives in Germany but has also lived elsewhere in the world, has been looking into the subject.

‘Euthanized pet animals fall in the category “dangerous waste”.

How to proceed with them is regulated by EU law.

Everyone who tries to disregard these laws and guidelines, risks ending up heavily fined or even in prison.

Of course the EU law applies in each country of the EU. Who applies it thereafter is up to each country.

I find the German soap theory not very probable, simply because you can get cheap, clean fat in very big amounts from any slaughterhouse. They produce human grade poultry, beef and pig fat in big excess as nowadays everyone wants to eat low fat meat. They can not sell the fat for the butchers’ shops. Not in the amount it is produced in the slaughterhouse.

Therefore no need to take the chemically poisoned fat from the dead pets (which would be much less anyway, in comparison to the vaste amount you can pick up at any slaughterhouse). I think the slaughterhouses even pay for the waste companies to pick up animal waste.

The other thing is, that in Germany there are NO perreras at all. No killing of unwanted pets necessary as they have enough adoptive families, even for their abandoned cats.

Which means in regard of the German soap theory, that there are no big amounts of euthanized, faceless animals produced by the pounds, in contrary to Canada, the USA or to Spain.

German pet owners tend to bury the dead pet in the own garden or in the garden of friends (a service among the pet lovers’ community all over the world). So no chance for the soap company here.

The owners often publish the photo of the pet and the grave stone on their favorite pet forum on the internet.

Where I adopted one of my galgas from, Far From Fear, they have a monthly newsletter, where they even publish photos of the dogs they rescued many years ago and who died last month. The owners write a couple of sentences about the recently deceased beloved pet and this comes into the newsletter.

I do not know about limitations how many dogs a person is allowed to have in Germany. There can be such a limitation but I do not know of. In Canada there are very tight limitations (and many people disregard them as they are sometimes really too tight). In Germany the dog tax is higher for the second dog and even higher for the third. That’s all. I think from the fourth dog on you have reached the maximal amount so it remains the same. The concrete amount is defined by the local administration for each town or village.

Here is a German original about what the EU law prescribes to do with dead pets.
You can use Google translator for translating it into Englisch as it works fine with languages that are so closely related as German and English.
The article is from the year 2003.

Here are some links to English language websites

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