Cats - The Spanish Chapter

Well I've plodded through the feline history of my world in seven parts and here comes the Spanish chapter.

The short introduction to what happened next can be read in Nobody Owns the Cats in which you can learn that the Spanish cats learn from their human counterparts and when they don't want to answer you they just shrug. Or carry on regardless and ignore you.

It's a tribute to both the Spanish and their cats that they understand us in our language us a lot better than we do in theirs. When they want to of course. Spain is full of animal lovers, belittling the image of a nation of peasants beating their donkeys and overloading their horses and ritually killing bulls as a public spectacle. I'm staying out of debate on the latter as I don't intend to watch bullfighting in order to pass informed judgment, plus I am a visitor here. I feel better qualified to comment on so-called sports involving animals in the UK.

But I digress, this is about cats and not a load of bull............well ok it probably is..........

Here's a bit of background to cats (and dogs) in Spain:

Vets abound here but cost quite a lot and neutering is sadly infrequent (animals, not vets) on account of the steep cost particularly for females.  The climate encourages breeding more than once a year, and the net result is an endless stream of abandoned kittens and puppies which overload the resources of the most imaginative and benevolent animal charities. Some concentrate on neutering as many as possible as well as re-homing strays, meanwhile people inclined to be hospitable find their homes swamped by dogs and cats. Here it is not necessary even to approach a charity or shelter to offer a home to an animal - you just wait and see what turns up, if you live in the campo (countryside) or simply wait for news by word of mouth or the next poster appealing for homes for another unwanted litter.

So importing your own is very much like taking coals to Newcastle or selling ice to the Eskimos, and it takes a harder-hearted person that me to resist the potential (and sometimes very determined) incumbents.
Continue to read (until your eyes glaze over?) and take heed, dear reader, these tales may serve as a warning to the unwary and the hitherto cat-less with pretensions of living the ex-pat life in Spain (and if my memory of holidays serves me well, quite possibly Greece, Turkey, the Baleariacs, The Canaries, Tunisia, and France to name but a few.

We're all in the EU now, including the cats.