There are about 160,000 dogs registered in Asturias (twice the population of Avilés), which make up approximately 92% of the pets documented in the region. The figure is amazing: one dog for every seven inhabitants in the Principality. These are official records, but actually there are more dogs. Those who do not have an owner and those who are not registered although they have one.
But dogs are the tip of the iceberg of a world of pets that nobody dares to quantify. Birds, fish, hamsters, rabbits, turtles... We know that 5,617 cats and 226 ferrets are registered in Asturias. This last statistic is known because it is a species that does require registration, but many species, more or less common in Asturian households, especially in households with children, go unnoticed in statistics.
The figure of 165,285 pets, counting dogs, cats, ferrets and a section of "others" in which there are a few exotic animals, was released yesterday by the Veterinarians Association of Asturias, that today launches a campaign for animal wellness in Oviedo to make children aware of the need to preserve the living conditions of pets.
The agreement reached with the Regional Ministry of Education will allow the training of about 8,000 schoolchildren throughout the region in the responsible holding of domestic animals.
Lizards and tarantulas
There are thousands of invisible pets living in conditions that, at least, are debatable.
Very small fish tanks and cages, little control over feeding or simply turned into instruments of children's games, without entering into the eternal controversy of abandonment that affects large and small pets, and the figures don’t decrease despite all the campaigns on the subject.
The program is part of the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals that entered into force on February 1.
There are almost eleven million registered pets in Spain, most of them dogs, and more than three million exotic animals, which are supposed to be legal. We don’t know much about the illegal ones, since it is not convenient to their owners. In this section of unique pets, the catalog is more than wide: reptiles, most of them lizards and iguanas; mammals of all kinds and conditions, starting with Vietnamese pigs; insects, especially ant farms, but also spiders and tarantulas, among others. Some people have a bat in their house, a pygmy goat, a sloth or a hedgehog.
Some people have a raccoon and do not know (or they know it and shut up) that they are committing illegality. There are species of snakes that are prohibited, such as cobras or rattlesnakes. There are people who have a crocodile in their house... until the animal grows.
Experts emphasize the danger of returning certain invasive and harmful species to nature (but almost always to a "nature" alien to the animal).
