PORTUGAL
"In our country, abandonment is normalised": animals are still left behind
One day they have a bed, a sofa, a place in the home, with someone to fill their bowls. Then, in an instant, many pets lose everything and end up dumped on roads or left at shelters.
Ziro and Mike spent their whole lives in happy homes. For both of them, water, food and having their owners nearby was all they needed. Each lived alone with their now elderly owner. They were one another's only company. They did not know each other, did not walk the same streets, but at the end of their lives they shared the same home: SOS Animal's. In both cases, the owners left no document indicating what should happen to their friends; most likely they did not realise they could. Their future was therefore decided by a relative who chose to leave them on the street.
Ziro wandered the streets of Setúbal, was run over and beaten, and was left with serious injuries to his mouth. Mike was a ticking time bomb: a heart disease dictated his daily life and, despite the best efforts of the neighbours, friends of his owner, they could not help him in the way he needed. He stayed at SOS Animal until he died. Ziro is still at the association, waiting to be adopted.
Abandoning an animal in Portugal is a crime and has been punishable by law since 2014 with a prison sentence of up to six months or a fine of up to 60 days (source in Portuguese), but it is not always possible to see justice done. Sandra Duarte Cardoso, a veterinary surgeon and president of SOS Animal (source in Portuguese), has been fighting numerous battles in the name of animal protection and welfare.
"The microchip [for companion animals] is registered in the name of the person who has died, so the administrative offence is issued in the name of the deceased," she explains. "To date, of all the complaints we have filed – because whoever inherits the estate should also inherit the animals – none has ever resulted in a conviction, so no one has suffered any consequences for dumping their mother's or father's dog or cat on the street," she tells Euronews in an interview.
This Saturday, 15 August, is International Abandoned Animals Day, a harsh reality in Portugal that unfortunately worsens in the summer. "Nobody thinks about moving country, or house, and leaving their children behind or dropping them off at an organisation, but with animals they do," laments Sandra Duarte Cardoso, who deals with the situation every day.
In Portugal, microchipping dogs became compulsory in 2008 and cats in 2022, a measure introduced to combat animal abandonment. However, the rule is often ignored and, on its own, does not appear to have led to a fall in the number of abandoned pets.
The president of SOS Animal distinguishes between two types of situation: "There are surrenders, when people hand over their animals and look for a solution for an animal they no longer want or are able to keep; and there is abandonment, when they simply open the car door and leave the animal, or put it in a bag and dump it at the door of an association," she explains.
The National Republican Guard (GNR) warned in a statement at the end of July that, between 2024 and the first half of 2026, more than 2,400 crimes had been recorded and, in this context, 28 people had been arrested across the country.
According to the force, July and August see the highest number of incidents, with 142 cases (38.1% of the annual total), linked to people travelling on holiday.
SOS Animal, a non-governmental environmental organisation formally established in 2007, has a mission to protect and defend animals and their habitat. In addition to its veterinary clinic, it runs a sanctuary whose address is currently not made public. For a time, animals were being dumped there on a daily basis. "At the beginning, people would throw animals over the fence. I remember a case of a four-week-old puppy that was thrown in with other dogs running loose here, a goat that broke its legs, and cats were 'our daily bread'," she recalls in horror.
For Sandra Duarte Cardoso, there is a serious problem of "civic education" when it comes to our relationship with animals, and she struggles to understand how people capable of creating life can "discard another life".
"In our country, abandonment has been normalised," she begins, describing the daily stream of emails the association receives from people threatening the NGO that they will abandon their animals if it does not take them in. "They are so completely comfortable with this option that it becomes a form of blackmail. When no one in their right mind says: 'If you don't help me with my child, who has a problem, I'm going to abandon them, I'm going to leave them by the side of the road'," she says.
Sandra Duarte Cardoso traces these attitudes and behaviours back to the way people see animals. "Animals are still seen as a possession, as something a person owns, that is useful up to a point and, when it no longer is, they think they have the right to get rid of this 'thing' and that caring for it is not a non-negotiable responsibility," she says.
Why do people abandon animals?
In an article for the scientific journal "Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (source in Portuguese)" (JAAWS), published in 2022, the veterinary surgeon set out to identify the factors associated with the abandonment of dogs and cats by their owners in Portugal. The reasons most often cited were "lack of time to care for the animal", "illness of the animal", "lack of space" at home or aggressive behaviour towards other animals. The fact that animals destroyed things at home also came up frequently.
The post-pandemic period revealed just how many people lacked real commitment. "During Covid there was a boom in adoptions because many people suddenly had more time at home and adopted without knowing what their lives would look like later," she recalls. However, many had to return to their workplaces and, once they resumed their former routines, many of the animals adopted during the pandemic were returned to shelters.
According to Eurostat data from 2025, the cost of veterinary care and related services has risen by more than 30% in the eurozone and by almost 37% across the EU over the last decade, which has also been a factor that may be driving up the number of abandoned pets. "In fact, people often let animals reach an indescribable breaking point, and it is not because they want to, or because they are unaware of the animal's pain, but because they have no money," says the veterinary surgeon.
Putting animals down also ends up being a decision that is often taken not because the animal has no other chance, but because people cannot afford the treatment. "This is a dreadful situation," she says.
For Sandra Duarte Cardoso, the state's responsibility for this issue is glaring. The veterinary surgeon is highly critical of successive governments. "We are facing this structural, nationwide, agonising problem, and there needs to be an effective national strategy that also includes the islands," she argues. According to the president of SOS Animal, methodologies and cooperation proposals from international organisations have already been submitted, but "governments do not treat this as a priority".
One of the measures put forward by Sandra Duarte Cardoso is the compulsory sterilisation of dogs and cats. The proposal envisages large dogs being neutered by nine months of age and small dogs by six months. As for cats, she argues that "all should be neutered by five months of age".
In proven cases of financial hardship, people would receive a voucher for the sterilisation, which could cover the full cost or part of it.
In Greece, the sterilisation of dogs and cats may be compulsory, unless owners send in a sample of their animals' genetic material as a precaution. This allows the authorities to identify the animal in the event of abandonment or if litters from these animals are found.
Countries such as Belgium, Spain, Austria and Germany all have mandatory cat sterilisation laws, albeit with different nuances.
SOS Animal promotes responsible animal adoption and has its own protocol that requires supporting documents. It also urges people to reflect seriously on their routines and living conditions before adopting an animal. "We do not make things easy; we are quite demanding, because we care much more about quality than quantity," she explains.
"We would rather have 80 or 100 adoptions a year, knowing that the return rate is zero, than 300 adoptions followed by a huge number of animals being brought back. That is extremely traumatic for the animals," she concludes.
