I've arrived a few days early for our Greece Humanitourism Adventure to make sure everything is in order. I haven't seen many street animals around yet in this part of Athens. I am surprised I have not seen more street animals yet, but it could be because it is the beginning of tourist season so there has likely been a "cleaning," which means innocent dogs & cats poisoned.
The practice of putting out poison is a common form of population control of stray animals in Greece. That is a primary reason why we are here; to educate on the cruelty of such things and to promote sterilization, responsible pet ownership and anti-cruelty.
Cruelty takes on many forms here, including outright torture, abuse and neglect. Today, I passed a pet store that had puppies in the front. It is 95 degrees in Athens today and there were 3 small plexiglass containers stacked one on top of the other, the top one with a small boxer puppy and possibly a cocker spaniel puppy together. Next a sharpei and on the bottom an adorable German Shepard. The boxer pup was emaciated with a distended belly, the spaniel was lethargic.
All of the pups were panting heavily and without water. I asked for the shop attendant to please give them water. The one who appeared to be in charge, pretended not to understand but I knew she did and spoke in Greek to her instead, so that she knew I wasn't going to just go away. The other said if we give them water, they will have to go to the bathroom and then we will have to clean it up! Because I have been learning about this cruelty for almost two years, I was not surprised but no less outraged.
They were obviously put off by me, but I stood there and waited until they gave them water. The dogs lapped it up eagerly. It was obvious they were overheated, and yet the shopkeepers would have done nothing.
After I left, I was going down to the Greek Animal Welfare Fund office to pick up some of the educational flyers we will be handing out over the next couple of days. On the way, I went back and photographed the store front and took note of the address. I asked the folks at GAWF about filing a report, which they said they would do. But, they did tell me that although there is supposedly a body that regulates the treatment of pets for sale in pet stores, nothing is ever done.
This is the nature of the problem here. There are laws that do exist on the books to protect animals but the Greek government is unwilling to enforce them. Part of our goal in being here is bringing that to the forefront to the rest of the world. We also are here to help educate and empower the Greek people so that they can press for justice for animals from within their own country.
Read Part II, Part III , Part IV , Part V and Part VI of Zoe's trip.
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