The low incidence of awareness campaigns on the responsible ownership of animals and the high number of neighborhood complaints about the presence of canine excrement on public roads have led many City Councils to opt for more scientific methods to alleviate this problem, such as tests. of DNA to pets to influence the suppression of uncivil behavior.
Parets del Vallès, Tordera, la Seu d'Urgell, Vilanova del Camí, Campdevànol, Ribes de Freser, Les Franqueses, Martorell, Arenys de Munt, Caldes de MontbuiCerdanyola or Ripollet are municipalities that have created a census of dogs with genetic identification. The registered animals become part of a database of municipal property.
Once registered in the mandatory census, pets are easily identified with a tag that incorporates a QR code that also speeds up their location in case of loss, but also gives access to the genetic profile if the owner does not collect the animal's feces, therefore that the corresponding sanction is processed. In addition, veterinarians highlight that the health risks of abandoning defecation in public "can be serious, since the feces can contain toxocara, a canine intestinal mite, which transmitted to humans causes serious diseases, even blindness or tumors. ”.
“Usually the owners of registered dogs are not the most uncivil” admits Nadia Cantero, councilor for Citizen Services of Tordera, who recognizes a drastic reduction in depositions in the streets “since mandatory DNA samples began to be taken” and an increase in the census “up to 2,118 dogs.”
"In Arenys de Munt we have been able to determine a detailed profile of the uncivic with the CanId system", explains the Councilor for Animal Welfare, Montserrat Batista. The mayor, Josep Sánchez, maintains that "with the mandatory registration in the census, there is a clear decrease in uncivil attitudes". The municipality has gone from 909 canes censused in 2022 to 1,073 today.
The pressure on the owners takes effect. In Parets del Vallès, the first City Council where the mandatory dog DNA census was implemented in 2016, the number of registrations doubled to reach 1,400 dogs.
The stool samples collected on the streets, as Óscar Ramírez, from the CanId company, points out, “are delivered to the collaborating veterinarians” in coded tubes. Once in the laboratory “sealed to guarantee safekeeping” a unique and exclusive genetic profile is obtained. The cost of the test is about 26 euros, to which is added the veterinary management, which is subsidized by the town councils.
The municipal workers in charge of collecting the feces have an application that records the time and geolocation of the discovery. If the sample does not generate any matches in the database, since foreign dogs are not required to be registered, the system issues a robot portrait of the offending dog. “The DNA determines the sex, the size, the color of the coat, the type of hair or the shape of the skull” which even allows us to determine the breed, “whether it is a boxer, a German shepherd…”. With this data, town councils can delimit and reduce the scope of the search.
In those municipalities where the genetic database is mandatory, in 45% of cases it has been possible to locate the uncivil owner. The penalty for not collecting depositions varies depending on the municipality and ranges between 300 euros and 1,000 euros.
