(Warning, Upsetting Content): Why do you think Spain has policies and people that are more often cruel to animals than most other places and people?

One look at these sick & depraved images confirms this to be the case, although Spain isn’t alone in it’s barbarity as you can see.
I can’t comprehend why this is done, let alone how it’s allowed to continue in a supposed civilised society, tradition & culture seem an incredibly weak excuse for savagery on a truly frightening scale.

Egad, dancing with a dog was a problem? A lot of dogs I’ve known love to do crazy things like that as long as the person is having fun with them.

But all the other citations seem like unnecessary causing of pain and anguish and terror for the animal. Hard to excuse in this day and age.

This is horrific I am sorry you had to see this. Over here too, Africa, animals are not treated so well. I believe many countries have this issue. I don’t understand these human beings, to me they are not human. I don’t understand it and I cannot even offer you words of comfort. Because to stop this, is an impossible task. But really if I were a man, with some strength, and I saw that, I’d beat the living crap out of them. Then say, see how it feels.

Cubans wouldn’t even do that.

It’s a sign of national character. Perhaps economic activity is correlated to treatment of animals. Just a hypothesis.

Wow… I saw some pretty messed up treatment of animals while in Central America, but never anything that bad.

The mom of a friend of mine used to live in Ireland, on the coast, and she said that there, if a dog was not a good sheep dog, they would throw it in the ocean to kill it. That’s pretty cruel, too. I cannot even look at the pics posted by @ucme, because I know whatever they are of, they will sear themselves into my mind. I am still upset when I think about PETA photos of dog and cat markets in China, how they hung dogs up and skinned them (almost) alive, and how they had the dogs crammed into tight cages, and threw the cages off piles of other cages, to the ground about 15 feet below. They had thin greyhound-type dogs with cans over their mouths as muzzles, and the greyhounds had their front legs pulled behind their backs and tied with rope. I cannot imagine the pain caused by that.

@jca I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to view such sensitive material & actually expected as much, I did however feel it necessary given the harsh subject matter.

Well, do you remember that Spain created the SPANISH INQUISITION? Which was then used by the Catholic Church in order to burn heretics at the stake. The country of Spain has a long & bloody history of not treating people or animals fairly.

@ucme: I’m not critical of your posting it. It’s actually good, I think, for images like (whatever you posted) to be seen by people. A photo tells a thousand words!

@jca Oh I never thought you were, not for a moment. My primary reason for posting them was actually to highlight other nations acts of cruelty as well as Spain’s.

Why would this be specific to Spain?

Because of the OP, felt the need to redress the balance somewhat, although Spain features heavily, as my link shows.

@ucme Oh, I meant in general.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Right, well this is the question isn’t it?
As far as I can see, it seems to be steeped in their tradition/culture.
Looks like it’s predominantly groups of young men who partake in the savagery, some kind of perverse, macho, rites of passage bullshit maybe.

@ucme Well that’s certainly not specific to Spain. I mean we can talk about Spain like we can talk about any place but we can’t really say it does anything worse to animals – there is no limit to how much people hurt animals (or each other) in every part of the world.

People can be cruel to animals. Many people don’t see them as mattering much. They’re just animals. We can be cruel to them because they can’t defend themselves. There are a lot of people out there who feel powerless but being able to hurt animals gives them a sense of power, I think. Also, it may appeal to their cruel sense of humor. No doubt people who were bullied end up bullying whatever they can. People if possible. Animals if not.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Of course it’s not, as stated, but Spain was touted as a primary example in the OP & was therefore, rightly or wrongly, the focus of attention.

I think this is an example of something just as cruel that happens every day in the US in the name of agribusiness.

I think it’s all about politics and who is in control of the country. If Spain’s government feels like bullfighting puts more money in their pockets, then unfortunately they are going to choose that over animal rights.

That’s why there are so many factory farms here in America and that’s also why Obama bailed out chicken farms when the economic crisis hit. It’s all about lining the pockets of the people who make the policies.

Sad, but true.

@poisonedantidote What horrible things to have to witness. It goes without saying that I don’t understand the barbarity of it, but more so, even if you remove the issue of barbarity from it, it seems to be so inefficient and impractical. Even if these people don’t care about the animals in any way, it would seem that they would find a quicker, less “troublesome” (to them) way of disposing of them. Why not shoot the pigs or the dog? Did you get the impression that they chose the more brutal methods, not just because they wanted to dispose of these animals, but because they enjoyed the brutality of the method of disposal they chose?

I have looked all over the Internet and can’t find anything about Johnny Vegas not being allowed to have pets. Can anyone enlighten me on that part of the original post?

@Yetanotheruser – I was thinking the same thing. And Australia is not much better. It sends live imports, which in itself is pretty cruel and inhumane, but they go to countries that care not a bit about animal welfare. The government defends it but it is all political baloney. I don’t even like to think about it. I only eat free range meat and not much of it. And I buy directly from the producer so I know what is the truth.

@rooeytoo I wish there were more of that available here in Colorado. At some of our “healthier” stores, even though they provide certified organic and humane meats, one still can not be certain of origin. A package of organic ground beef may be listed as sourced from the US and Canada. Although some of the produce is local in season, there is still some (still listed as “organic”) that is sourced from Central or South America.