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LIFE IN SPAIN

Does Spain have a dog poo problem?

Many foreigners in Spain complain that the streets are full of dog faeces, but is that actually true and what, if anything, is being done to address it?

Does Spain have a dog poo problem?
Dog owners in Spain who don't have their pooches on a leash are less likely to notice that they've pooed, and some no doubt turn a blind eye if nobody is watching. Photo: Thomas Wolter/Pixabay

Spain is a nation of dog lovers.

According to the country’s National Institute of Statistics (INE), 40 percent of Spanish households have a dog.

In fact, believe it or not, the Spanish have more dogs than they do children.

While there are a little over 6 million children under the age of 14 in Spain, there are over 7 million registered dogs in the country. 

But one bugbear of many foreigners in Spain is that there’s often a lot of dog mess in the streets, squares and parks.

The latest estimates suggest it’s as much as 675,000 tonnes of doodoo that has to be cleaned up every year in Spain.

Many dog owners in Spain carry around a bottle of water mixed with detergent or vinegar to clean up their dog’s urine and small plastic bags to pick up number twos.

And yet, many owners seem to either turn a blind eye to their pooches’ poo or somehow miss that their pets have just pooed, judging by the frequency with which dog sh*t smears Spanish pavements. 

So how true is it that Spain has a dog poo problem? Is there actually more dog mess in Spain than in other countries, and if not, why does it seem that way?

One contextual factor worth considering when understanding the quantity of caca in Spain’s calles is how Spaniards themselves actually live.

When one remembers that Spaniards mostly live in apartments without their own gardens, it becomes less surprising that it feels as though there’s a lot of dog mess in the streets. Whereas around 87 percent of households in Britain have a garden, the number in Spain is below 30 percent.

Simply put, a nation of dog lovers without gardens could mean more mess in the streets. 

Whereas Britons often just let their dogs out into their garden to do their business, or when they can’t be bothered to take them for a walk even, Spaniards have to take them out into the street, unless they’re okay with their pooches soiling their homes. 

There aren’t many dog-friendly beaches in Spain, and the fact that on those that do exist, some owners don’t clean up their dogs’ mess, doesn’t strengthen the case for more ‘playas para perros‘ to be added. (Photo by JOSE JORDAN / STR / AFP)

Doggy dirt left in the streets is most certainly not a Spain-specific problem either, but rather an urban one found around the world.

In recent years, there have been complaints about the sheer abundance of canine faecal matter left in public spaces in Paris, Naples, Rome, Jerusalem, Glasgow, Toronto, London, San Francisco and so on.

READ ALSO: Why do some Spanish homes have bottles of water outside their door?

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a worldwide study to shed light on which cities and countries have the biggest ‘poo-blem’, with the available investigations mainly centred on individual nations, such as this one by Protect my Paws in the US and UK

And while it may be more noticeable in Spain than in some countries, it doesn’t mean the Spanish are doing nothing about it.

In fact, Barcelona has been named the third best city in Europe for dealing with the problem, according to a study by pet brand Tails.com.

Although Barcelona’s score of 53/80 was significantly lower than many British cities (Newcastle scored 68/80 and Manchester 66/80, for example) its hefty fines of 1,500 for dog owners caught not cleaning up after their canine friends might be a reason. 

And some parts of Spain take it even more seriously than that.

In many Spanish regions doggy databases have been created to catch the culprits. Over 35 Spanish municipalities require dog owners to register their pets’ saliva or blood sample on a genetic database so they can be traced and fined, if necessary. 

In Madrid, you are twice as likely to come across someone walking a dog than with a baby’s stroller. (Photo by JAVIER SORIANO / AFP)

This DNA trick started earlier in Spain than in many other countries; the town of Brunete outside of Madrid kicked off the trend in 2013 by mailing the ‘forgotten’ poo to neglectful owners’ addresses. Some municipalities have also hired detectives to catch wrongdoers.

So it’s not as if dog poo doesn’t bother Spaniards, with a 2021 survey by consumer watchdog OCU finding that it’s the type of dirt or litter found in the streets than bothers most people.

READ ALSO: Clean or dirty? How does your city rank on Spain’s cleanliness scale? 

It’s therefore not a part of Spanish culture not to clean up after dogs, but rather a combination of Spain’s propensity for outdoor and urban living, the sheer number of dogs, and of course the lack of civic duty on the part of a select few. Every country has them. 

On a final note, not all dog owners in Spain who don’t clean up after their pooches can be blamed for doing it deliberately, but it’s certainly true that looking at one’s phone rather than interacting with your dog, or walking with your dog off the leash (also illegal except for in designated areas) isn’t going to help you spot when your pooch has done its business.

Article by Conor Faulkner and Alex Dunham

Member comments

  1. I spend a lot of time in both Ireland & Spain. I’m not a dog owner but I like walking. I would say from casual observation that the two countries are probably equal in this regard so no, I don’t think Spain is any worse or better than Ireland. Great to see attention being drawn to this problem. Open disapproval from the public can shame owners into doing the right thing. It worked well for the litter problem. Usually it’s just down to carelessness and lack of attention.

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TERRORISM

Spain sees heightened terror risk amid global conflicts

Amid rising tensions and conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere around the world, a meeting by Spain's National Security Council has identified several threats to national security, some pre-existing and some new.

Spain sees heightened terror risk amid global conflicts

Global conflict and instability has raised the terror and security risk in Spain. This is what Spain’s National Security Council (CSN) has concluded following a meeting with government ministers on Tuesday to approve security reports and outline new anti-terror strategies. A 61-page document was compiled to replace the previous one approved in 2019 and will be valid for five years.

Among the topics discussed, which are outlined here on the National Security Council website, were the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the heightened security threats they pose to Spain.

The war in Gaza, the Council states, presents “a real and direct risk” of an increase in “the terrorist threat, violent extremism and the emergence of new movements that promote a radical and violent ideology.”

READ ALSO: Spain could enforce conscription of ordinary citizens if there is war

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the document stresses, is also “a potential catalyst for terrorism”, as it “has led to an increase in the circulation of arms and explosives [in Europe], as well as the participation in the war of volunteer fighters of other nationalities”.

These uncertain global conditions could be exploited by groups or individuals “to undermine public security”, the document adds, and suggests that “state actors could carry out terrorist actions,” in what appears to be an allusion to the assassination of a Russian soldier in Alicante earlier in the year.

READ ALSO: Mystery surrounds death of Russian helicopter deserter in Spain

The meeting and report also outlined broader “risks and threats to national security” grouped into 16 categories, some older and long-established, some much more modern. They range from terrorism and violent radicalisation to the effects of climate change, space vulnerability, cyberspace, organised crime, migratory flows, foreign espionage and interference from abroad.

The CSN detects growing dangers to Spanish airspace, namely “events of commercial satellite launches from aerial platforms crossing controlled airspace, events of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere of satellite launcher debris, uncontrolled hot air balloon overflights and an increase in drone overflights over military bases,” things that have all been noted in Spain in recent years.

In terms of terrorism, despite the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine Islamic terrorism remains the greatest threat to Spanish security. “The repeated dismantling of the leaderships of Daesh and Al Qaeda has not succeeded in eliminating these groups, which act in a more decentralised manner than in previous years,” the report states.

During the period covered by the previous security strategy (2019-2023) “more than 110 [security] operations related to terrorism activities have been carried out,” more than 90 of which were linked to jihadist terrorism, the document details. Just 5 percent were linked to domestic terrorism.

Foreign spies operating in Spain were also highlighted as a threat. The CSN report stated that the decision to expel 27 Russian diplomats from Spain at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was useful in this regard. “These expulsions significantly reduced their ability to operate on European territory, which led to a notable decrease in the rate of activity of foreign intelligence services in Spain,” the report states.

READ ALSO: Judge in Spain extends probe into Catalan separatist’s ‘Russia ties’

However, the potential threat from the Kremlin is again mentioned as the driving force behind the barrage of hoaxes and disinformation campaigns. In the case of Spain, Moscow reportedly “focuses on trying to spread a distorted image of migration in the Mediterranean and the situation in Ceuta and Melilla”.

But it’s not just the Russians attempting to misinform the public in Spain. The report also points to “official Chinese media and their propagandists on social networks in Spanish have amplified many pro-Russian narratives”, with messages “based on expressing a rejection of the US and the current international order”.

The report lists 83 Russian disinformation incidents and 12 Chinese in the last year alone. Among these, several were aimed at “creating mistrust” in Spain’s electoral processes.

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