Update: the abomination that is Mairena

Fabienne writes 

Years ago we sounded the alarm on the killing station at Mairena, Seville among others. You can see it in our documentary, Spanish Dogs in Hell. If you compare the pictures we took then to those taken today, you can see that very little has changed. Nevertheless, there is a difference because now we have more social media. The story has done the rounds of Facebook, Twitter and other media and there will be a reaction. We don't hold out a lot of hope that this will be enough. Some killing stations may close, but then they'll just open again somewhere else. You can be assured of that.

At that time, when we made our documentary, we helped to close the killing station at Puerto Real. The documentary was shown by various animal charities but what happened? What will happen this time? Not much. It's the same people running the killing stations, the same despicable practices and as long as the government backs them they will just continue as they are. While the government continues to support these cruel and abhorrent actions the only thing we can do is to try and get the dogs out - it's a drop in the ocean but at least we can save some lives.

What goes on in Mairena happens in every dog pound. Only with some of them, the slightly more intelligent ones, no one gets to see it except the scum people who work there. It's all skilfully hidden away. However, this time, someone at Mairena had the courage to do something and used a fixed camera to show the world what's going on. 

Seville and all the others are political institutions, government sponsored and covered up.  Slowly but surely there is a shift, but it's happening very, very slowly. At the moment the focus is much more on the people who are sinking into poverty, people who are on the street having lost homes, jobs ... the misery is not yet behind us here, the crisis is heating up - but that too is covered up because that too should be hidden away, not spoken of, like the killing stations. 

We are working together with some shelters from Fuengirola, Malaga, Alhaurin and our refugio at Mijas. Between us are trying to save about 50 dogs. However, they want  € 4O per dog and we are now negotiating to get reduce the price because we think this is too much - €2,000! That much! Yet we seem to be losing the battle, they insist on keeping the price fixed, they say it 's the law.

That's the law! They are letting the animals rot literally and figuratively, they die in an incomprehensible cruel way.  In spite of all this we will do our best and certainly try to rescue a record number of dogs and hope they will be released soon. The puppies are already safe, because they are free of charge. No comment!

Let us hope that PACMA (Spanish Party for the Animals ) can close Mairena, that soon there will be one less killing station. How can this happen, how can this go on without punishment. There are no words. We're taking in 16 dogs into our Ace-Shin refuge this week. It's good to see that all the shelters are working together here, no matter how difficult a time we are all having.

Any faults in translation are mine, Clodagh