Valencia town sets up dog DNA register to crack down on owners who fail to clear up excrement
Valencia town sets up dog DNA register to crack down on owners who fail to clear up excrement
A TOWN near Valencia will check DNA in dog 'deposits' not cleared up from the street to trace the owners and fine them – the latest in a series of increasingly-creative ways of combating the pet excrement problem faced in numerous municipalities.
All dog-owners in Mislata, just outside Valencia city, have until New Year's Eve to visit a vet in the town for a free-of-charge blood sample, which will be registered on the council's database.
Those who fail to do so will be fined €300.
Dogs must then wear a name tag given to them once the blood is taken.
Any excrement not cleared up will be tested by council technicians and a DNA match run on the database.
The owner's name and address will show up, and they will be sent a notice to pay a fine of €200.
With their dogs' genetic code logged on the town pet census, owners cannot hide from their responsibility to clean up after their pooches.
This scheme has been in place in other towns across the country, and works more as a deterrent – knowing they will definitely be caught and fined has caused owners to avoid shirking their duties and the amount earned in fines has not actually gone up much at all.
Municipalities which have so far been reported on www.thinkspain.com as having set up doggie DNA databases include the city of Guadalajara, in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha; Sitges and Parets (Barcelona province) and La Seu d'Urgell (Lleida province), all three in Catalunya.
Dog DNA-collecting is not all about policing and fining, however – it can be vital in the event that anyone's beloved pet goes missing.
Animals found and taken to shelters can be DNA-tested, and the owners' details immediately traced so they can be contacted, meaning it is effectively an insurance policy and can lead to heartbreaking situations ending in happy reunions.
Other ingenious methods of curbing the dog-mess problem in Spain have included a 'giant poo' sculpture in the Madrid town of Torrelodones, to raise awareness, as reported in June this year – although it was stolen less than a week later – and a village in Toledo which traces owners and returns their animals' deposits personally as 'lost property' whilst filming them answering the door, a move that has cut the amount of excrement on the street by over 70% due to offenders' embarrassment.
