Update on the hung galgos of Toledo – from Asociation Baas Galgo

Remember the story of the hunter in Toledo who hung two of his galgos? Asociacion Baas Galgo and their lawyer pursued the matter through the court. The defendant claimed ‘he didn’t know it was an offence to hang his dogs’. He was sentenced to 7 months in prison and banned from keeping dogs for 2 years. This is a link to the news report. Translation below. from Catherine, thank you.

The accused told the court he did not know that hanging his dogs was a crime.

Criminal Court No.1, Toledo issued the first ruling in Spain condemning a hunter for hanging his greyhounds. This was confirmed to ABC.es by the Asociacion BaasGalgo which brought the case to court with the help and advice of the lawyer Sergio Garcia-Valle, a specialist in such case.
The accused, a resident of the town of Fuensalida near Toledo, has been sentenced to seven and a half months in prison, as well as disqualification for two years and a day from the exercise of the profession, trade or business related to animals. According to the judgement, he is prohibited from hunting greyhounds, owning greyhounds or trading in them. Nor may he act as president or any other elected position in an association related to hunting greyhounds during that time.
The origin of this judgement goes back two years ago when the bodies of two young greyhounds, one 22 months and the other five years old, were found in the town of Fuensalida. Members of the Asociacion BaasGalgo, founded in 2009, first found a dead greyhound without an identifying chip with a cord around its neck: he had been hanged.

“A big step ‘

But the members of BaasGalgo noticed that the earth in the area had been recently turned over and they began to dig by hand until they found the bodies of Iniesta and Bola, who had also been hanged. These two animals were micro chipped, which facilitated identifying the owner who confessed to being the perpetrator of the crime. In front of the judge the hunter stated ‘he didn’t know that hanging dogs was a crime’ and that his grandfather had done it all his life. He admitted that he had slaughtered the animals ‘because they had flaws and were not good enough for hunting’.

“This ruling is a big step in the fight for the defence of animal rights”, said Beatriz Marlasca the president of the Asociacion BaasGalgo, which had requested a prison sentence of a year. She added that ‘this precedent will help to reduce the mistreatment of greyhounds after the hunting season which unfortunately is widespread practice among hunters in some regions of Spain.”

The practice of killing greyhounds by hanging at the end of the hunting season or when they are no longer useful to their owners is still common in Spain. The Asociacion BaasGalgo has found that Fuensalida, a town of 12,000 inhabitants covering an area of 68 square kilometers, is the town where more dogs are killed, abused or neglected in the whole of Castilla-La Mancha. Of the hundred or so greyhounds, the majority alive but mistreated that the Association has rescued in Castilla-La Mancha so far this year, seventy animals were found in Fuensalida, five of them dead. “What happens in this town is bloody,” says Beatriz Marlasca, whose association is working with the City Council of this municipality to curb these statistics.

“I don’t understand how it would occur to someone to kill a greyhound” exclaims Mariano Alonso the mayor of Fuensalida.
The council is providing facilities for Asociacion BaasGalgo, which has already provided information during a medieval fair in September and which will also give talks in schools in the town to students aged 11 and 12, in addition to other activities, to raise their awareness about animal cruelty and abuse.
Similarly, Communication Councilwoman Maria Plaza, has had contact with the local Association of galgueros, who are “very aware” of the subject in order to combat this “scourge”. “We are on the way to change the trend and last year the numbers have changed,” says the mayor.

“I can’t get my head around this practice. A greyhound, your partner in a day of hunting is to be looked after with hard work and care,” says the president of the Hunting Federation of Castilla-La Mancha, Juan de Dios García. “There are always fools everywhere”

Gerindote, a town with a tradition of hunting with greyhounds is 14 kilometers from Fuensalida. Mayor of Gerindote, Julián Morales is a galguero in his spare time. “I approve of the prison sentence. Galgueros have always been criticized unfairly because we are accused of abusing our animals. This isn’t true. There are hunters who mistreat their animals and there are fools everywhere, but galgueros have always defended the use of greyhounds to compete, never to do them any harm” he stated to ABC.es “It is clear that it has to be like this, with sentences like this, so that people take notice and do not kill greyhounds,” adds Morales.

Among the animals found by members of the Asociacion BaasGalgo in the province in recent months was a female greyhound who had been shot to death in the town of Nambroca. The microchip had been torn out of the animal which prevented the Service for the Protection of Nature (Seprona) of the Guardia Civil from locating the dog’s owner.’

The judge regretted that the sentence could not have been tougher but he had to go by the guidelines.

Fuensalida is also the municipality where an abandoned podenca bitch, visiting a village where a sympathetic person was feeding her, was peppered with shot and left for dead.

Associacion Baas Galgo currently have over 160 galgos in their care, many rescued from Badajoz perrera.