Animal protection wants legal action against hard-learned pet owners

Brussels, (Brussels Morning)- In Jette, animal protection has removed 187 cats at the same address in the past five years. Each time there was neglect. After each intervention, the woman in question quickly relapsed into the same behaviour. Animal protection Veeweyde is investigating the possibility of taking legal action more quickly against these types of animal owners.

People who have more pets than they can care for: this is sometimes called ‘Noah’s syndrome’. Having many pets isn’t necessarily a problem, but it becomes one if you can no longer house, feed and care for them. Also, animal owners often do not notice that their animals are suffering from the situation.

Alderman Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven (MR), chairman of animal protection and shelter Veeweyde points out that the body has already been summoned several times for the case in Jette. La Dernière Heure writes about this and the news is confirmed to BRUZZ by Van Goidsenhoven.

In 2017, Veeweyde took in 38 cats. Of these, only three were neutered. In 2018 there were 53, of which barely four were neutered. In 2019, another 48 cats lived in the house. In 2020, Veeweyde did not have to intervene. In 2021, Veeweyde was summoned by the Brussels-West police zone to confiscate eight cats.

For 2022, the counter will temporarily stop at 40 cats that were found on August 24. Of the forty, nine were not neutered. The inspectors couldn’t take them all. Veeweyde had to leave 31 behind due to lack of capacity. Of the total number of cats – 187 spread over five years – the majority had not been spayed. Some cats had diseases and parasites. They were also sometimes aggressive and wild because they were not well ‘socialized’.

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Only ten percent of the cats found a new adoption address. “Most of these cats are in a state that makes them difficult to adopt. As a result, this massive influx is putting enormous pressure on shelters like ours, which are often already full. This summer we had to take in a record number of abandoned animals,” says Van Goidsenhoven.

In the future, Veeweyde wants to systematically go to court faster when people neglect their animals. The lady in Jette is not the only one in Brussels who continues to neglect her animals, even after a warning. “We are in talks with a specialised lawyer,” says Van Goidsenhoven. “A lot of progress has been made against animal cruelty, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”