OPINION | Paula Dólera Gil, Secretary of the Els Poets Animal Rights Association and Vice President and Secretary of the Animal Protection Association of Dénia (APAD)
The protection of sentient beings requires more than a regulatory framework: it requires that administrations exercise, with due diligence, the powers that the legal system attributes to them before the damage becomes irreversible.
Animal suffering rarely stems from a visible act of violence. It doesn't erupt suddenly or leave immediate traces. It settles in gradually, almost silently, like a deteriorating normality that no one wants to look too closely. A space that is too small ceases to be temporary and becomes a sentence. A chain that was meant to be temporary becomes a destiny. The lack of food, care, or veterinary attention progresses slowly, until the harm ceases to be a possibility and becomes a certainty.
Dogs confined for months in enclosures where movement is barely possible. Animals permanently tethered, with no horizon beyond the immediate confines of their restraint. Lives reduced to immobility, to waiting, to a routine without variation or relief. Situations of abandonment that are known, documented, and reported, but which all too often continue as if nothing had happened. These are not exceptional incidents. They are repeated and recognizable scenes that animal protection organizations encounter time and again, to the point of becoming a form of emotional exhaustion that is difficult to name.
In regions like the Marina Alta, this reality is not an anomaly, but rather a persistent problem. The cases are repeated, complaints are filed, and the investigations progress with a slowness that contrasts painfully with the urgency of the harm. Some situations are explained not by their existence, but by their duration.
The problem isn't just that these scenes occur, but what happens once they've been reported to the authorities. The suffering doesn't stop waiting for a report, nor does it adapt to administrative deadlines or the logic of the procedure. It continues. And while the case drags on, the animal's life wastes away without effective protection. Sometimes, when a response finally arrives, it's no longer intervention: it's merely confirmation.
associations Animal protection organizations and the public are well acquainted with this process. It all begins with the detection of a risk situation. It continues with the collection of evidence—images, testimonies, reports veterinarians when possible— and culminates with the complaint to the city council, the competent administration in the first instance.
A recent example starkly illustrates this dynamic: residents of a town in our region reported the situation of five dogs confined in cages for months. The case was reported to the local police, the SEPRONA (Nature Protection Service of the Civil Guard), and the town hall itself. Organizations and citizens documented the situation, persisted, and maintained continuous monitoring. However, after months of repeated complaints and warnings, no effective intervention has yet taken place, nor have any precautionary measures been adopted to improve the animals' situation.
From that moment on, the protection mechanism provided by law should be activated. But between reporting and effective intervention, a gap opens up that is not due to a lack of regulations, but rather to the disconnect between the obligation to act and its actual fulfillment. In that gap, the damage does not stop: it worsens, accumulates, and, sometimes, becomes irreversible.
Not every administrative delay constitutes a breach of duty. Local councils operate with limited resources, workloads, and inadequate structures. But there is a threshold beyond which organizational explanations are no longer sufficient. When there is clear evidence, a formal complaint, and direct jurisdiction, inaction ceases to be a matter of management and becomes a breach of the duty to act.
The problem is not merely material or structural. There are persistent shortages of specialized personnel, a lack of standardized protocols, and inconsistent operating procedures. But there is also a less visible and more troubling dimension: the actual place animal protection occupies in the effective hierarchy of public priorities.
The legal framework, however, leaves no room for ambiguity. The recognition of animals as sentient beings has shifted their historical status from objects to a category that demands effective protection against mistreatment and neglect. This is not a symbolic declaration: it is a legal obligation.
Reports of abuse or neglect are not mere administrative procedures. They are alerts that trigger a duty to intervene. And that duty is not measured by the speed of the process, but by its actual capacity to prevent harm.
Those of us who work in animal protection are not asking for privileges or exceptions. We are demanding something more basic: that complaints be investigated, that inspections be carried out when there is sufficient evidence, that precautionary measures be adopted when the risk requires it, and that urgency be determined by the animal's situation, not the pace of the legal process.
Because behind every case file there isn't just a procedure. There's a sentient life whose existence depends on when action is taken. When intervention is late—or doesn't happen at all—it can no longer be called protection.
And when the law comes after the damage has been done, it no longer protects: it only records the irreparable damage.
That cold scar is all that came too late: the intervention that never happened, the life that went unattended, the suffering that ran its course unchecked. It's not just a system failure. It's evidence of a responsibility that should have been exercised but wasn't.
And in that void remains a sentient being who never understood why the world did not respond, who let the days pass without help, without explanation, without a single arrival to relieve him in time.
It happened in front of everyone, at the very moment when it was still possible to prevent it… and it wasn't prevented.
LEGAL BASIS FOR THE OBLIGATION OF MUNICIPALITIES TO ACT SPANISH CONSTITUTION
- Art. 9.3: prohibition of arbitrariness by public authorities.
- Article 103.1: Full subjection of the Administration to the law. Article 106.2: Liability for damages arising from the operation of the public services.
LAW 39/2015, OF OCTOBER 1, ON THE COMMON ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS.
- Art. 20: responsibility in the processing of procedures.
- Art. 21: obligation to resolve expressly and notify.
- Art. 53: rights of interested parties in the procedure.
- Art. 71: official impulse.
LAW 40/2015, OF OCTOBER 1, LAW ON THE LEGAL REGIME OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR (LRJSP)
- Articles 32 et seq.: patrimonial liability for normal or abnormal functioning of the public service.
Law 17/2021, of December 15, amending the Civil Code, the Mortgage Law and the Civil Procedure Law, on the legal regime of animals. Recognition of animals as sentient beings through amendment of the Civil Code.
LAW 7/2023, OF MARCH 28, ON THE PROTECTION OF ANIMAL RIGHTS AND WELFARE.
- Obligations of prevention, intervention and control on the part of public administrations.
LAW 7/1985, REGULATING THE BASES OF THE LOCAL REGIME
- Art. 25: municipal powers in matters related to the environment, public health and protection of local interests.
LAW 2/2023, OF MARCH 13, OF THE GENERALITAT, ON THE PROTECTION, WELFARE AND TENDERING OF COMPANION ANIMALS AND OTHER ANIMAL WELFARE MEASURES
- Municipal powers in inspection, surveillance and control.
- Power to initiate disciplinary proceedings.
- Adoption of precautionary and provisional measures.
- Removal or seizure of animals in risk situations.
- Sanctioning regime applicable to animal welfare violations.
From the first day we saw the terrible conditions in which these animals lived, we have been deeply outraged by the lack of response from the authorities.
You and your entire team have been incredible, doing everything possible to rescue these poor creatures.
What this case has shown to the public is that the police act quickly to issue fines for a dog urinating on the sidewalk in Dénia, but when there are animals living in atrocious conditions that endanger their lives, those responsible remain free.
Unfortunately, the same is true of the terrible conditions suffered by many hunting dogs, who are still treated as if they were objects and not sentient beings.
It is a real disgrace for a society that considers itself civilized.