The Mayor & Corporation of Cantoria has passed a bylaw permitting the fining of dog owners who leave their pets poo in the street. All well and good. However, in declarations to La Voz, Pedro Llamas (the mayor) said that while he welcomes the new expat members of the community, the Brits tend to be animal lovers who bring large number of pets with them who then foul the area, and are later abandoned “which causes the Diputacion great problems in catching the strays”.
While the first thing that jumps out is that it seems that only in Cantoria does the Diputacion actually carry out its stray catching duties, I’m not sure why he seems to think that only the Brits let their dogs foul the streets?
In order to give the mayor the benefit of the xenophobic-doubt, lets think that people simply didn’t have as many dogs back in the day before the English invaded. Therefore his memory goes back to that time…
What he isn’t taking into account is the sharp increase in dog ownership amongst his fellow Spaniards.
I really wonder if a study has been done on the relation between dog ownership and economic progress. It’s something that you can see all over the developing world. Once people gain some disposable income and their family ties weaken, they turn to dogs…
Forget the fabled Mcdonald’s economic indicator, try poodles!