A video sent to CRHoy.com shows how several people try to separate -with blows, kicks and sticks- a pack of dogs in the refuge “Territorio de Zagüates”, located in Carrizal of Alajuela.
Álvaro Saumet, director of the place, said that this is indeed what they do when there are confrontations between dogs.
Gastón Salchichón is a dog that has lived with us many years and he is stubborn and mischievous. There was a fight of about 12 or 15 dogs against him and of course we had to stop it, we even had to use the belt,”
said Saumet.
According to the official, this practice is common, because when dogs fight, this is the only way to separate them.
The guys were helping me stop the fight. When we take the dogs for a walk, they get upset when visitors arrive. There are times when they fight and they have to be separated. It’s inevitable,”
explained the man.
When asked if this was abuse, Saumet said they cannot let the dogs kill eachoter.
I ask, what should I do? If […] a dog bites a child, what would you do? How do you separate it from the child? It’s the same thing I have to do when one dog is attacking another, if people want to take it out of context, there’s nothing I can say. I do this publicly and in front of people,”
added the director.
According to Saumet, many people tell them they should separate the dogs without hitting them.
Mauricio Jiménez, a veterinarian at the National University (UNA) said that the ideal is to avoid this kind of situations, separating the animals, because fights are inevitable in packs. However, he said that
when you have so many dogs, there are going to be differences because some are more dominant than others. So we work with those dominances and separate them by areas. Not all dogs can be together […] It’s the same as gathering a lot of people and distribute food among them, they begin to show stress and aggressiveness for food and space.”
Gisela Vico, president of the National Association for the Protection of Animals (ANPA) explained that the ideal is to prevent this type of situation, avoiding having so many dogs together.
Both experts agree that there are other techniques to try and separate dogs, such as spraying water or training them to respond to sounds.